Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
How does prying about Donnelly’s relationship with his mom help me? Either Donnelly has the wrong read on my dad, or the whole security situation to take down his family was more intense than I realize. I wonder if both can be true.
“What’s her name?” I ask the easiest thing.
“Bridget.” He hands me the energy drink, just so he can parallel park outside a grimy sidewalk. The rusting metal Thirsty Goose sign hangs above a chipped black door, and a bearded bouncer scrolls on his phone. He’s seated on a stool. Bored and unbusy.
“I saw your birth certificate,” I confess.
Donnelly unbuckles his seatbelt more slowly, but his smile catches me off-guard. “Was this when you were snooping in my room?”
My lips rise. “Yeah. It was in a very tempting hiding spot.”
“What about it?” He seems curious now too.
“I couldn’t read your mom’s last name. It was handwritten and kinda illegible.”
Realizations wash over him, and he nods a few times.
“You know her full name?” I ask, because for a minute there, I thought maybe he didn’t.
“Yeah, I know it.” Just as he opens his mouth, his phone rings over the car’s speakers.
DAD
His father is calling.
7
PAUL DONNELLY
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“You don’t have to answer it,” Luna says, giving me an easy out. ‘Cause I must look like I’m a second from tearing out the stereo system and chucking it out the window. It’s how I feel. The desperate urge to remove my dad from the vicinity of Luna is violent within me, and it scares the shit outta me.
Pieces of me want him in my life after he stuck his neck out for me, after he acted more like a caring dad than a neglectful one. Yet, I’m still so cautious of him around her, and I can’t turn it off.
It’s all messed up, but dropping this call isn’t an option. He’s helping keep my cover with our family, and I need him, for better or worse.
“I’m gonna take it,” I tell her. “Just don’t say anything, alright?”
She nods vigorously.
In another world I could take the call outside the car or privately in a dirty piss-stained bathroom—but I can’t leave Luna. If anyone recognizes her, it wouldn’t be safe, and we’ve made it this far without a tail.
So I remove my phone from Bluetooth and answer the call against my ear. The best I’ve got at shielding Luna from his voice. “I can’t talk long,” I tell him.
“You around?” he asks casually.
“Around where?”
“The Rhino.” He must be bartending tonight.
“Nah, I’m not near South Philly. You working?”
“Yup.” I hear the ping of billiard balls in the background. “So Kieve and Shane stopped by earlier. Ollie’s sons. They’ve been asking about your relationship to the Hales. I’ve been telling ‘em you’re just using that girl, that it’ll come out in the public you’re dating at some point, but it’s fake for you, not for her.”
It’s the lie he’s supposed to spread around our family. I try to relax my strained shoulders. “What’d they say?” I ask him.
“They thought you were a piece of shit. For leading the girl on.”
I go blank-faced. “You serious?”
“Don’t take it too personally. They act like they’ve got morals, but Kieve’s cheated on his wife about a dozen times in a year. He’d fuck a trashcan if it had a pair of legs.”
I try to untighten my death-grip on the phone while I listen.
“Really,” he says, “they think you’re in bed with the side of the family who’ve just been locked up, and they like to disassociate the ties that bind whenever it benefits themselves.”
I stare harder at the air vents, heat still blowing into the car. “And you don’t do the same thing?” I ask.
“I didn’t say that.” Glass bottles clink over the line.
I take a breath. “Where do you think I stand in all of this, Dad?” I ask him, not exactly sure how he sees me right now. He knows I only went to the rowhouse to protect Luna. I didn’t go to warn my family about the cops, but he’s not aware that I’m the reason they were tipped off.
“You’re standing on an island alone, and I’m the only one who’s gonna make sure you don’t drown. That’s where I think you’re at.” More clinking glasses. “So when are you gonna introduce me to your girlfriend?”
Never. “We just started dating,” I say, trying to sound casual and not protective. Luna picks herself out of a slouch, and our eyes meet in a moment of clarity.
We’re dating.
What else would I call this trip to a dive bar in the middle of the night? It’s not a casual outing of two friends. I’m taking her to Thirsty Goose with the implication that I might kiss her, might buy her a drink, might even fuck her later…slow down.
Fuck me. Navigating the start of a relationship better be the hardest part of one.