“She’s naming her daughter Julep.”
My entire being went tight like a live wire.
I rubbed at the tattoo on my chest, right over my heart.
There were two names there for the two beings that held a piece of my heart.
One was Nettie. There was no reason to hide how much she meant to me.
The other was my Julep.
My little baby that never got the chance to live.
And my mother knew how much that little girl meant to me, whether she took her first breath or not.
“Why are you not happy?” she asked, clearly reading the fuckin’ room.
“Why am I not happy that my sister, the person that has made it her life mission in screwing me over in the last year, is naming her daughter a name that she can clearly see has meaning to me?” I asked. “Why am I not happy to hear that you’re condoning this?”
I hung up before I could say anything more—like I wish you were fuckin’ dead.
Dad looked at me. “I’ll talk to her.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “You do or I do. But either way it goes, she will not be naming her child after mine.”
I knew I didn’t own the name.
I also knew that I couldn’t control what she named her kid.
But I could make her life a living hell, too.
I’d promised Dad that I wouldn’t.
But clearly, if she was going to play dirty, then I could, too.
“Call Nettie,” he urged. “Get her here.”
I rubbed my hands against my face. “Denver is already bringing her here. Fuck.”
Five
I’m starting to think I’ll never be old enough to know better.
—Nettie’s secret thoughts
Nettie
I figured I’d run into her eventually.
However, I didn’t expect to run into her the moment that I left her son’s house.
Nor did I expect to have to fight two of the snakes off at once.
“Well, lookie here,” Felicia, Boone’s sister, cooed. “Mom, it’s the mother of the first Julep.”
The first Julep?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
