Kingpin (Court University 2)

“It’s okay, Daddy. I’m okay.”

I was okay, okay because of him and LJ.

LJ stood off to the side, smiling at us as the streets suddenly filled with flashing lights and sirens. Squad cars came from everywhere, the road a cluster and out of one came, Niko.

“Queenie!” He ran in my direction, ran for me, but LJ held him back. My guy brought his buddy under his arm, staring at me and my dad, and I closed my eyes.

“I’m okay, Dad,” I said, my dad’s tears sounding in my own ears. “We’re okay.”

“We are, Billie,” he gasped. “We are.”

I finally felt we were, at least we would be. He returned me to the ground, but I wouldn’t let him go.

I found LJ’s hand then, an

d he let me have it as I hugged my dad again. I kept them both with me, needed them both in that moment. They’d saved me.

“Everything’s going to be all right now,” Daddy said, over and over in my ear. “You’re okay now.”

I hugged him, squeezing LJ’s hand. Truth be told, I didn’t know what would happen after this moment. I didn’t know where my dad and I would go from here, but I did know I needed him right then. I needed to be my daddy’s little girl for just a second, and it felt so good being in his arms again. I couldn’t let go of that feeling once I had it, I didn’t want to. It mended my soul.

And made me finally feel whole again.

Epilogue

LJ

I stared at my girlfriend from across the dance floor, smiling as I lounged against a high-top table. Her dad took her hand. But even donned in a fancy tuxedo, he couldn’t steal the show away from his daughter.

The shimmering black of Billie’s evening gown glistened across the dance floor as Mr. Coventry tugged his daughter over to him. The material flared off those full hips, hugged her perfect breasts, but the kicker was what she wore around her neck.

My Court ring sat right there between the swell of her breasts, reflecting in the light of the ballroom, and I think it really all hit me then. Not that I’d given it to her, a symbol of my past, but that she was with me. That I’d managed to keep her.

That’s what got me.

I released her for this dance with her father, the father-daughter dance. It’d been her dad’s idea to do this at his wedding tonight instead of the mother-son dance. He’d run it past Billie, of course, before he added it to the list of the reception dances, and Billie, she’d been more than willing to oblige.

My girl had been connecting so much with her dad lately, letting him in. She’d actually been a part of the wedding a bit when Mr. Coventry exchanged vows with his new spouse, Clarise, who also stood across the dance floor.

The woman in a cream-colored ballgown, she stared on, nothing but pride and smiles upon watching her new husband and stepdaughter. I wasn’t too much in the knowledge of how Billie was dealing with that, a woman half her dad’s age marrying her dad. Especially considering the circumstances in which the union had happened, but I did know my girlfriend was at peace with her dad’s decisions. Billie had even flown down early with me for the wedding, the reception and ceremony in a beach house off the shores of Miami. The whole thing had been lit, and Billie’d had the time of her life. She’d enjoyed herself and let herself be a part of all this.

Currently, she beamed up at her father, the two of them in their own conversation as they danced in front of everyone.

I couldn’t seem to steal her away from her dad these days back home in the Midwest. She spent a lot of time with him this summer. I think something about that day when her douche ex snatched her triggered something within her. Things weren’t so simple for her anymore, her priorities changing, and I think everyone saw it that day. She’d burst into tears upon seeing her dad, like she needed him.

I think she really had.

I set my drink down as I thought about that day. It’d been a day of ruin, and it’d taken me basically all goddamn summer not to be leaping for joy that her asswipe of an ex was behind bars and couldn’t darken my girl’s life anymore.

Yeah, he’d made it out of the crash and he must have had angels on his side. He’d suffered some pretty good trauma to the head, but he’d made it out okay. He’d been swiftly arrested after his recovery for kidnapping and attempted murder and if I never saw that guy again, it’d be too soon. Billie’s dad had taken care of that part, put Sinclair behind bars himself.

It was better that than what I’d do to him if he was out in the streets.

It took Billie to ease me back from relishing in her ex’s lock up, not to celebrate the fact but empathize. The guy’d seemed plagued with some heavy shit, and in the end, I accepted that was what his madness had been about. I was still grateful he wasn’t around to hurt Billie anymore, behind bars and unable to hurt anyone else, but I no longer celebrated what ended up happening to him.

I guessed I was at peace too.

A lot of that was going around these days, Billie and her dad. Billie and her mom. The dress Billie wore tonight ended up being made by her, something I guessed the woman used to do on the side before she’d gotten married to Billie’s dad. These days, Genevieve was taking it up again, and Billie said her mom was actually designing a gown now for a princess in Greece to wear at her wedding.