Hustle Me (Bank Shot Romance #1)(20)
Author: Jennifer Foor

When I got to my bathroom mirror, I’d liked to have died from my appearance.

I could hear the guys in the kitchen talking about my face, as I stood there seeing it for myself. One eye was totally black. My nose was swollen and my other eye had a purple ring underneath of it. My hair looked like a rat nested in it and my tank top let the whole world know that it was a little bit chilly.

“Oh my God,” I cried.

How much worse could my life get?

I got myself dressed, including a bra, and made my way out to the kitchen. Jammer slid me a cup of coffee. “I took a guess and gave you cream and sugar.”

I grabbed the cup and took a sip. It tasted perfect and I hated that he’d guessed right. I didn’t want to be friends with this jerk, but the more I tried to hate him, the more I didn’t.

This was going to be a problem.

A big one.

Chapter 12

Jammer

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

Coming back to town was going to be the worst mistake of my life, I could just see it. For the second night in a row, Charlie had been threatened and, for whatever reason, I had been around to save her. If that wasn’t giving me reason enough to stay and help her, the guilt of almost walking away was.

Charlie was the most stubborn person I think I had ever met. It was very clear how much she loathed getting help from me. It actually intrigued me more to do it. I liked the way I could piss her off by just talking. I didn’t know anything about the girl, but I could tell that she didn’t take shit from anyone. I admired that in a woman, but I also got the feeling that, in order for her to be that way, she’d had a terrible life so far.

Last night, telling her I was going to stay and work for her, had been a compulsive decision based on me thinking I could somehow be this hero that I clearly wasn’t. I wanted to back out immediately. The last thing I wanted was another reason to stay in town. When Charlie not only agreed, but took me upstairs and showed me the guest room, I just couldn’t leave.

Even though I was back in that little twin bed I used to sleep in, I had the best night’s sleep in years.

Since I’d lived in the apartment before, I knew where to find all the things to make coffee. I had just poured in the water and hit brew when the little boy came out. "Hey, what are you doing in my house?"

"My name is Jammer and I am going to be helping out your sister for a little while. So, what’s your name?"

"Ryan Joseph McNally, but my sister calls me Ry." The kid had his father’s eyes. I felt so guilty not telling Charlie that not only did I know her father, but I also lived in this apartment with him.

I held out my hand and shook his. "It’s nice to meet you, Ry. So how long does your sister usually sleep?"

He shrugged. "I usually wake her up, but sometimes it makes her a meanie head."

I couldn’t help but laugh at his comment. "So she gets grumpy?" It wasn’t hard to believe. She never smiled.

"A lot! Hey, can you make me pancakes?"

I wasn’t exactly good at cooking. I’d never had to be. It couldn’t be that hard. "I can try. Will you still eat them if they taste like shi… Err, I mean crap."

"You were going to say a bad word."

"Yeah, I guess I have to be more careful. I’m not really used to being around kids." I also wasn’t used to having a job, or living with people.

"It’s okay, I hear a lot of bad words. Daddy said them sometimes. I could hear him saying them when he was working in his shop. Did you know that my daddy liked to play pool? He was the best player in the whole universe."

I laughed a little and began mixing the batter up for the pancakes. "Do you like to play pool, kid?"

His legs were hanging over the counter and he was steady swinging them back and forth. "Yeah, but Charlie doesn’t like it. She says it’s too loud."

I could see where she would complain about everything. I had poured the batter in the pan, but our conversation distracted me and the next thing I knew, the whole room was smokey and the smoke alarm started blaring. I grabbed a towel and started fanning it at the ceiling, trying to get it to go off. Ryan covered his ears and began laughing, while I fought to get the damn thing to shut up.

All of my attempts didn’t work, as Charlie came walking out of the bedroom looking like death. She had two black eyes and her nose was swollen. Aside from her face being beaten, her little body was still smoking.

It became obvious, at first glance, that she was not wearing a bra. In fact, her ni**les were so hard, they were begging me to look. I swear it.

Just as I was looking at her, I caught her looking at me. I guess I should have thrown on a shirt, but this was all so new to me.

"What’s going on?" My eyes got real big. This wasn’t going to be good.

"I asked Jammer to make me pancakes." Little Ryan was trying to take up for me.

"I tried," I admitted.

"It would be great if you didn’t burn down our home while you’re staying here."

When she ran back into her room and shut the door, I had expected her to tell me I had to leave. I grabbed a cup and poured coffee into it. "What does your sister put in her coffee?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don’t know. Her face looks real bad. What happened to her?"

I held up the milk and the sugar bowl. "She had an accident last night, but she’s okay now. Does she put these in?"

He shook his head. "Yes, she likes lots of that powder stuff."

I had to laugh. When someone talked about powder, it was normally referring to cocaine, but I knew the kid meant sugar. I made her coffee the same way I took mine and slid it across the counter to her. "I took a guess and gave you cream and sugar."

She cocked her eyebrow and took her first drink. I was really thinking she was going to get up and pour it out to make her own. She didn’t though. She sat down at the counter, with new clothes on and her hair up in a ponytail. "Thanks for this. I hate waiting for it brew."

I leaned over the counter. "You hate a lot of things, don’t you?"

She looked over at Ryan. "Go get dressed for school, buddy."

Once he was in his room, she turned around to face me. "Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but you and I aren’t friends. You don’t have to pretend to be nice to me. I know you feel like you have some obligation to help me, even though you don’t, but you don’t have to make conversation with me."

"If I’m going to be staying here and working for you, I think you should at least be nice to me. You can go on saying that we aren’t friends, but that won’t last very long." She could fight me all she wanted. I’d seen her looking at me. I knew the truth. She might hate my attitude, but there were other things she didn’t hate.