Hustle Me (Bank Shot Romance #1)(42)
Author: Jennifer Foor

It didn’t take but a second for me to agree. Any reason to see Charlie was a good enough reason for me. I was just hoping that after she talked to my mother, she would let me be in her life. I was too crazy about her to just let her walk out of my life.

My mother insisted that I drive her Jag instead of my old beat up piece of shit. I think she was okay until we pulled up out front. Her eyes filled with tears. "It still looks the same as when Joe bought it back from the bank. He’d never been so happy as that day when he knew it was his again."

I rang the buzzer and prayed that Charlie would come answer the door. There was a chance that she wouldn’t and this attempt to talk to her would be for nothing.

After about four minutes, I could hear someone approaching and then opening the door. Charlie looked like she was still crying and when she saw me and my mother, she just stood there staring at the woman. I cleared my throat to get their attention. "Charlie, this is my mother, Lydia. She needs to talk to you and I am begging you to hear her out."

She rolled her eyes at me, but opened the door and smiled at my mother.

We followed her up the stairs and I noticed my mother looking all around the bar. I guess it was bringing back a bunch of memories. Once we got upstairs, Ryan came out of his room and jumped in front of me. "Jammer, I knew you’d be back. Who is that lady?"

"That’s my mom. Her name is Mrs. Lydia."

He walked up to her and she bent down to say hello. "You’re pretty for an old lady."

We all started laughing. "Hey Ry, you wanna come downstairs and shoot a couple games of pool with me?"

"Awesome!" He headed for the door.

I looked back at the ladies. "I’m just going to take him downstairs so you two can talk."

I left the ladies and headed downstairs with Ryan, even though I just wanted to stay and be with Charlie. I looked her way as I started to close the door behind me. For just a second, I thought that I saw her start to smile at me.

It was important to me to spend time with Ryan. If Charlie didn’t take me back, I wouldn’t be able to see the kid anymore.

He had already picked out a stick and was grabbing the balls and putting them in the triangular shaped rack. "You break and then I will make the shots."

I laughed. Ryan didn’t understand the rules of the game, but he loved to shoot the ball all around. I grabbed a house stick and broke the balls up. He walked around the table, just like I did when I was scoping out how I was going to run the table. He was cute though. He didn’t know that was what I did, he’d just seen me walking around and started doing it himself. "You see a shot you want to take?"

He put the stick up on the table and got on his tippy toes. Every single time he went to take a shot, his little tongue would stick out. He shot at the cue ball and knocked all the balls around the table. The seven ball fell in the side and his face lit up. "Did you see that?"

I let out a laugh. "Yeah, dude. That was a great shot."

He kept shooting around, while I sat back in the corner chair and sulked about how I’d managed to f**k up something that could have been so good. I wasn’t convinced that my mother was going to help out my broken relationship with Charlie, but at least she would know more about her father.

After a while I sat Ryan up on the table and let him slide the balls all around. I think he liked the way it sounded when they made contact with each other.

I heard feet walking down the stairs and then saw both of the women coming toward the billiard lounge. My mother had a tissue in her hand and I could tell she was crying at some point again. Charlie stood in the doorway and looked over at me. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

I left my mother and Ryan and walked to the front of the bar with Charlie. It would have been nice if she just wrapped her arms around me and told me that I could come home, but she didn’t. "Charlie, please don’t hate me. When we first hooked up it was about f**king each other. It wasn’t about my real name. I know you’re pissed about that, but when I started to have feelings for you, it was too late to tell you the truth."

"Jammer, it doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me the whole time we were together. Your mother told me everything and it’s just a giant f**king mess. I can’t deal with it right now. She can’t help me get the money to save the tavern and from how she explained things, your father will stop at nothing until this building is tore down."

"Let me help you figure out what to do next."

"No, I think it’s best if you just go. I’m not saying I hate you, because I think we’ve dealt with enough lies for one lifetime, but I can’t be with you."

"Charlie," I grabbed her hand and held it with both of mine. "I…"

"We don’t need to get all technical with the goodbyes. It’s best if you just go now, so it isn’t any harder."

I wanted to tell her that I loved her and I guess I should have instead of saying goodbye to Ryan and walking out the door.

When I got back in the car with my mother, she was still sniffling. "John, thank you for taking me to see Charlie. I can see why you love her."

"Yeah, it doesn’t really matter how I feel. She doesn’t want anything to do with me."

She reached over and grabbed my shoulder. "She needs you. You can’t give up on that."

I sighed and kept my eyes on the road. "She’s too proud to have me come back, Mom. I f**ked up. Oh, sorry for the language. I’m just so pissed at myself."

"You’re a grown man. If you need to say f**k to make yourself feel better, don’t let me stop you."

We both laughed for the first time since we’d seen each again. "Mom, I don’t know the first thing about being in a relationship. Every time I feel like I’m doing something right, I’m just messing up. Every bone in my body tells me that I’m supposed to be with her. Do you have any idea how it makes me feel that my father is the damn reason that I can’t be happy?"

"I didn’t want this life for you, John. I knew he was the reason you left, I just wished you would have kept in touch with me. I miss you. You’re my only son."

I stopped at a red light and turned to her. "Mom, I’m sorry. I just needed to get away from him. I knew if I stayed he would be involved in whatever I wanted to do."

"I’m going to try to help you, John. I can’t promise anything, but maybe I can get him to back off."

"Mom, anything is better than where I’m at right now. I’d do anything to have a real shot with Charlie."

When we finally made it back to the house, I had filled her in on what I’d been doing for the past six years. She wasn’t too amused about my choices, especially my tattoos, but I think my mother was just so happy that we were together that it didn’t even matter.