Hustle Me (Bank Shot Romance #1)(48)
Author: Jennifer Foor

While sitting there, my phone started to ring. His picture flashed on the screen and I calmed myself down enough to answer.

Hello?

Hi, baby. I just wanted you to know that Ryan has had his dinner. He’s in the back watching cartoons. Do you think you’ll be home before seven?

I’m on my way now. They couldn’t help me. I started crying again.

Are you alright to drive?

Yeah, I’m pulled over.

Just come home. I can manage the bar tonight, if you need the break. Be careful, Charlie.

I’ll see you soon.

I let myself calm down before I pulled off the shoulder and started driving again. All I wanted to do was fall into Jammer’s arms. I felt like if he held me, it would take away all of my pain, at least temporarily.

Chapter 28

Jammer

The conversation with my father was weighing heavily on me, especially since Charlie had struck out getting help from her rich friend’s family. I was really counting on my mother to be of some assistance to us, but from the likes of her this morning, I doubted if she was going to be able to get through to my father. We had thirty days to figure out a way to make fifty grand. I was good for maybe five and if I went out on the road, I may have been able to pull ten grand in a good month, but that was being optimistic. Playing guys for big money, usually meant better players. Even if we had a fundraiser or some kind of big event, it wasn’t going to bring in the amount of money we needed to buy off my damn father.

When Charlie walked in the door, I could tell she’d been crying. Her makeup was smeared and her eyes were all red. Aside from her being upset, she was still the sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on. I loved her wavy chestnut hair and the way she swayed her hips when she walked. Today Charlie didn’t have that sexy walk. She sulked her way behind the bar and pretty much fell into my arms. I pulled her into my chest and kissed the top of her head. Her shampoo smelled sweetly familiar and I loved that I knew exactly what the inside of her shower looked like. It was little things like that to remind me of how special she was to me.

"It’s going to be alright."

She shook her head, but kept it against my chest. "It’s really not. I don’t know what else to do. The bank won’t give me any money. There was no life insurance money left after the medical bills. I have no friends or wealthy relatives that are willing to fork out fifty g’s. I just don’t have any more options."

I pushed her away and ran my hands through my hair. "God, I f**king hate that man. How could he continue to do this? I’m his f**king son. Has he no shame for who he hurts?"

"So he just flat out said no?"

I couldn’t tell her what he really said. I couldn’t break her heart again. "Pretty much."

"What if I went to see him? Maybe if he talked to me, he would change his mind. I didn’t even know Joe. In fact, I had nightmares about him until…well, until you moved in with me. I guess you made me feel safe."

I was flattered that I could take away something so dreadful for Charlie. If I could make sure she never felt pain for the rest of her life, I would. Now that my father was being such a thoughtless dick, I wanted to fight for Charlie even more.

" I guess we both have Daddy issues."

"Yeah, except I am actually considering f**king killing my bastard father. I swear, if I ever have a kid there is no damn way I could ever act that way to them. How could a parent want to sabotage their kid’s life and feel good about themselves every day?"

She grabbed a beer and handed it to me. "Don’t go murdering anyone on my account."

"Yeah, I couldn’t go through with it, well, I don’t think I could. I’m telling you, he really pissed me off. You would think after six f**king years he would have at least been cordial to me. No, everything is about business. He has no f**king soul."

She started walking away from me, grabbing a couple glasses to clean in the sink. "You don’t have to cuss about it to me. I think your father is a grade A douche."

If she knew what he expected me to do, she would want him to be murdered, but I wasn’t going to worry her with that. I wasn’t going to let my father rip us apart. "Charlie, maybe you should try to sell the tavern. I know you don’t want to, but you could walk away with something to start a new venture with. Screw my father and his f**king lien. It’s all bullshit anyway. For all we know, it never even existed until he wanted it to. I’m asking you to take a leap with me, Charlie. Let’s just leave and go somewhere new."

"It’s not that easy. It would go against my credit if I couldn’t sell it and walked away. We’d never be able to rent an apartment or buy a house. We have to think about this and not make compulsive decisions, no matter how good they sound."

I walked over and grabbed her hand. "Charlie, I’ll do whatever you want. Just think about my offer. We could just leave and take Ryan somewhere nice. We could have a yard for him to play in."

She smiled and looked down at our hands that were laced together. "You’d really want to settle down like that with me?"

I let go of her hand and reached up to cup her face. "Yeah, I really do, but only if it’s with you. I’m not saying we have to rush into that paper commitment, neither of us are ready for that label, but I know when I am ready, it’s going to be with you."

"You’re being really sappy. I hope my badass boyfriend is still somewhere in there. I like how he gets in the bedroom."

I reached around and stuck my hand down the back of her jeans, cupping her bare ass. "Don’t worry, he’s never too far away."

She giggled and reached up to kiss me. It started out slow, but soon intensified. Unfortunately, I felt someone patting on my leg. "Jammer, I want to shoot pool now. You said when Charlie got back we could."

I pulled away from my beautiful girlfriend and threw the little four year old over my shoulder. He started laughing as I carted him toward the billiards lounge.

After a few games he started yawning and I knew Charlie would want him to go get ready for bed. He wasn’t too happy that I cut our playtime short, but his sister came and snatched him up anyway and took him upstairs. She didn’t come back down for almost an hour and when she did a couple patrons had come in. I gave her a sexy eyed look and she rolled her eyes. A couple girls were sitting at the end of the bar and they were eying me up more than I wanted to know about. It was obvious that they were looking me up and down and talking about me. I’d never seen Charlie act jealous, but she had enough to worry about, so I continued to ignore the girls. Unfortunately, they got louder as the time went by and soon they were calling me ‘sexy’ and slipping me notes on napkins. While being a bartender, you get your fair share of women hitting on you. In my experience, it was always better for business to flirt back. Still, I didn’t want Charlie to assume that it was ever more than just business. When I served the ladies their next drink, one of them grabbed my arm and they both began tracing over my tattoos.