Page 64 of Wait For Me

“Well, he doesn’t live here anymore, so I’m not sure why you thought it was okay to stop by my house.”

She twirled a lock of blonde hair around her finger, but to my shock it was a nervous gesture, not a flirty one. “I wouldn’t have ever bothered to find out, but things have changed, so…”

“What are you talking about?”

The woman glanced at me and huffed. “I don’t know her. Can she go to another room or something? This is personal.”

“If you think something personal involves me, then she’s going to know about it whether you say it in front of her or five minutes after you leave, so just get on with it.”

“Bagger,” she pleaded. “Please, I don’t want your whore in my business.”

“What the fuck did I just say to you at the door?”

She flinched back. “Sorry, it’s just, this has nothing to do with her.”

I stood back and watched as Jared took a deep breath and then let it out again, obviously trying to get his temper in line. “Vina, shit or get off the pot! You got something to say, spit it out now because my patience is wearing thin.”

“I have a daughter.”

“Okay, and?”

Shit. I could see where this was headed from a mile away. I rolled my eyes and put my drink down on the counter.

“She’s in daycare right now, that’s why she isn’t with me.” She dropped the piece of hair she’d been twirling and looked up at him with her big, blue eyes. I could see what she was trying to convey to him, but Jared wasn’t getting it.

“She’s trying to tell you that you’re her baby daddy,” I interjected.

Jared’s head snapped around to me. “What the fuck?” He turned back in time to see the little twat glaring daggers at me.

“See, this is why I didn’t want her in here. It’s not her business and I was trying to break the news gently.”

“The only person I’ve ever stuck my bare dick in is standing right behind me,” Jared informed her. The woman, Vina – he called her, shook her head.

“No, I think there was once,” she started to say.

“Never!” He argued immediately. “I’ve never fucked you or any other club girl bare. You know better.” He took a minute to think and then shook his head. “I only remember being with you once about a year or so before I got with Missy. Halloween party the year before,” he said as if the memory was just conjured out of thin air. I had to hold back the gag in my throat knowing he had to be picturing the two of them together since he remembered when it was.

“Yeah, that’s why I came to see you. My daughter was born on July second last year.” You bet your ass, I did the quick math. Jared turned to look at me and shook his head, knowing that I must have assumed there could be some truth to this story.

“I wasn’t the only man you were fucking back then. You were a club girl, living on site, any of my brothers could be your baby daddy, or hell, someone else entirely. I don’t know what you got up to when you weren’t at the club.”

“If you think I’m just going to accept the fact that you seem to want to pin this kid on me, you are dead fucking wrong.”

“I’m certain that it was you,” she told him. Missy even said that my daughter looked like you when she saw us in the store the other day.”

“Missy?”

Vina nodded. “She drove me here. I couldn’t remember where the place was because Breakneck brought me before. I never paid attention.

“Missy brought you here?”

“Yeah, she’s outside in the car,” she said.

Jared turned and all but ran for the door. That fucking cunt had probably put this poor girl up to this shit. I moved over to her. “I wasn’t around when you worked at the club house, but I used to live there. Tripp is my dad,” I informed her. I don’t know why, but suddenly my heart went out to the woman. It was clear she was being manipulated by that fucking bitch of an ex that Jared had.

“If she brought you, she’s long gone now,” he said to Vina when he came back in. Her pleading eyes met mine and I nodded.

“There was a silver Mercedes parked outside when I answered the door,” I informed him.

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