I sighed and sagged in my chair. “Yeah, I’m fine, I guess. Things didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”
“What happened?” he asked and took a seat beside me.
I shook my head. “The agency terminated my contract,” I said and exhaled slowly. “Please don’t take offense to this, but I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“Okay, we won’t talk about it,” he assured me before getting up and rummaging through the cabinets.
When he continued loading the countertops with what looked like baking supplies, I asked, “What are you doing?”
He winked at me over his shoulder. “We’re going to bake shit that’s really bad for us while we have a movie marathon.”
“Jonah,” I breathed on the verge of tears. For the entirety of my adult life, no one had taken care of me except for me. I couldn’t even begin to find the words to describe how much it meant to me to have someone like him by my side.
“You have five minutes to decide what we’re watching. If I don’t have it, order it or whatever, but your chance to pick expires in exactly five minutes,” he said and glanced at his watch, “starting…now.”
I bolted from the kitchen and grabbed the remote. I already knew what I was going to choose, so I made my selection and returned to the kitchen with two minutes to spare.
“You want to start with cookies or brownies?”
“Brownies, please.”
Once the brownies were in the oven and the timer was set, we curled up together on the sofa and I started the movie. I thought he’d figure it out right away, but he didn’t until the title was displayed and his reaction was not what I expected.
“If this is what you want to watch, baby, I won’t complain, but I will spank your bare ass if you tell anybody I watched a movie about sparkly vampires with you.”
I laughed. “No, this isn’t what I want to watch. I mean, they are good movies, but I picked something I thought we’d both enjoy,” I said and selected the movie I did want to watch.
Jonah kissed my cheek. “Good choice. I’ve only seen the first one and it’s been a while. Wait, do you actually want to see this or do you just want to gawk at Paul Walker?”
I grinned. “I want to see it, and I want to gawk at Vin Diesel.”
In between movies, we put a batch of goodies in the oven. Jonah would get up when the timer went off and return to the living room with a plate of warm goodies and a fresh glass of milk. I’m not sure if it was due to sugar overload or sheer exhaustion, but I fell asleep not long after the third movie started.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Judge
When I noticed River had fallen asleep, I fully intended to move her to the bedroom, but I’d fallen asleep as well and was startled awake by my phone blaring close to midnight.
“Yeah,” I answered groggily.
“Need you to come to the clubhouse. Grant’s coming to stay with River,” Copper said.
“Fuck,” I grumbled. “I’ll be right there.”
I normally didn’t mind being woken up and called to the clubhouse in the middle of the night, but normally, I could’ve brought my girl with me and let her sleep in my room while we dealt with club business. Since her bail stipulations included a curfew, taking her with me wasn’t an option.
“What’s going on?” River asked sleepily.
I scooped her into my arms and carried her to my bedroom. “Copper needs me at the clubhouse, but he didn’t say why. Grant will be outside while I’m gone, and I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said and softly kissed her lips.
“Be careful. I love you,” she said with a yawn.
“I love you, too,” I said and kissed her one more time. “I’ll see you soon.”
Grant pulled into my driveway as I was backing my bike out of the garage, but I didn’t stop for pleasantries. I gave him a chin lift as I passed and headed for the clubhouse wondering what kind of hell was awaiting me.
I walked into Church and went straight to my seat before looking around the room. When my eyes landed on two somewhat familiar faces, I sucked in a sharp breath. Why in the hell was Oliver’s stepsister at the clubhouse with her baby in the middle of the night? And was her cheek red and swollen?
