“What the hell, Boston?” I gasped, trying to get my heart rate under control. “Why did you scare the crap out of me?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t intentional, Soph. It was just me being here in the dark, eating the rest of the pizza from the box. I thought you saw me.”
“I didn’t,” I admitted, walking over and grabbing the slice of pizza from his hand and taking a large bite. I’d really worked up an appetite. “And as to your question, yes. Me and your dad.”
I wasn’t stupid.
I knew they’d heard us.
I was just thankful that it was Boston hearing us and not Clem.
Not that it made it any easier for anyone to hear you having sex, but if it had to be one of the two of them, I was glad that it was Boston.
Speaking of…
“I thought you were staying with your mom this week?” I asked. “Why are you home?”
Boston sighed. “I’m home because my mom said I couldn’t hang out with my friends tonight because she has some big meeting in the morning. Something in which she couldn’t have me ‘keeping her up all night for.’ So I came here…next time I’ll be sure to call, though. Robbie thought it was hilarious. Me, not so much.”
I winced. “It wasn’t intentional, promise.”
Boston waved that comment away. “I know it wasn’t. I’ll try to be more considerate about just showing up, though. Dad’s used to us just showing up like that.”
Yes, he was. And, Haggard wouldn’t ever say no to having his kids home.
With how much he worked, Trista spent a lot of her time with the kids, but inevitably they chose to live with Haggard now that they were older and got to choose who they stayed with. Haggard loved having his kids around, and the glow on his face when they were all together showed it.
“You can come over anytime you want,” I paused. “But just sayin, I can’t promise what you’ll walk in on.”
Boston chuckled and offered me the crust of his pizza, which I took.
I loved the crust.
If I could get away with only eating crusts the rest of my life, I would.
“Thanks,” I said as I finished it off, then followed it up with a small glass of milk. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Boston saluted me with another piece of pizza, and I made my way back to the bed that I’d been sharing with Haggard.
He was exactly where I’d left him, which made me smile like the loon I was.
Crawling in beside him, I curled up to his side, knees to my chest, and used his buff shoulder as a pillow.
For all of two seconds.
Why?
Because my phone rang, jolting me out of surprise, that’s why.
I groaned and rolled over on the bed.
The very last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed, but when my phone rang on the dresser all the way across the room, I got up anyway. Because there were only two people it could be at this point. My dad or Clem.
Smiling when I saw it was Clem, I answered and said quietly, “Hey, Clem! How’s the party going?”
HAGGARD
I woke to the phone ringing, and though it felt like sandpaper was underneath my eyelids, I opened them anyway and watched Sophia across the room as she spoke into her phone.
She stiffened minutely, and I was out of bed in a half a second, reaching for the phone.
The ‘party’ being a company retreat that she’d been ‘forced’ to attend to look as if she gave a single fuck about the new company she’d just started with.
She hadn’t wanted to go.
In fact, she’d wanted to stay home and watch the Hallmark channel because Christmas in July was on or some crap like that. She’d actually had to leave the house instead of doing that, and she hadn’t been a happy camper.
The new company she was working for called EngioTech was her first job out of college. The first job that would be her ‘real life’ job for the rest of her life. At least, that was what she kept saying.
I didn’t know much about the company.
It was new to the area, and it was in engineering and electronics, two things that I tended not to know much about since those weren’t my areas of expertise.
“Baby, it’s me. What’s going on?” I barked.
There was a long pause and then, “Daddy. I’m scared. Can you come get me?”
The words froze my heart solid for two point five seconds, then I was running toward the closet where I kept my clothes now.
“Where are you exactly?” I asked, not wasting time in why she felt scared.
I didn’t need a reason to protect my kid.
All I knew was that she needed me, and I was going to get there no matter what.
As Clem relayed the information to me, she cursed silently between breaths. “My phone is going to die. My charger isn’t working correctly.”