Missy smiled at me. “Well, you seem to be going through enough right now. Even if he did try something with you, that would be a problem between he and I.”
I nodded and got out of the car. It felt like a brick had settled into my stomach. A lead brick that maybe had little chunky brick babies to weigh me down too. The walk to his door felt like I was headed to the gas chamber after eating my last meal. I did not want to do this.
I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I was about to turn and walk away but could have sworn I heard something or someone thump around inside. I banged on the door harder, thinking maybe they just didn’t hear me the first time.
“What the fuck?” A woman called out as the door was slung open wide as possible. I knew exactly who she was on site, even though we hadn’t met before. Tripp’s daughter was standing there in the doorway, dripping wet, obviously fresh from a shower at Bagger’s house, while his sweet girlfriend, Missy, was waiting in the car for me to talk to her man about the fact that he might have a daughter with me. What was Missy going to think? She wasn’t worried about him cheating on her with me, but he had another woman in his house, and she was obviously comfortable being there.
“Can I help you?” Star asked, and there was nothing polite about the way she did so.
“Who exactly are you?” I asked. Not that I didn’t know who Star Martin was, but honestly, I wanted to know what the fuck she was doing showering at Missy’s old man’s house.
“Hang on, I’m praying for the Lord to give me strength, right now,” Star huffed sarcastically. If she wasn’t the other woman that I would have to tell Missy about, her attitude might have made me smile.
Instead, I was pissed that I would have to break the heart of the sweet woman who brought me here to try to help me and my daughter, even if it might make her life messy. “Where is Bagger? I need to talk to him now!” Yep, I might have been a club whore, but I hated cheaters in any other setting. Truthfully, I hated myself on the rare occasion that I had to lay down with a club brother who I knew to be involved with someone. The fact that the president’s daughter would willingly be the other woman kind of threw me into bitch mode. She had the opportunities to make better choices that I had not been given.
“I’ll go get him and be right back.” Start turned and shut the door in my face at that point. I stood there with my arms crossed over my chest to wait. What else could I do?
“Get your inner judgy bitch under control, Vina. You’re not helping yourself by pissing people off.” I whispered the words to myself in the hopes that my own warning would sink in. It wasn’t my place to judge what a club brother had on the side or who they had on the side. It didn’t really matter, so long as I could get someone to donate bone marrow to keep my baby girl alive. “She is the goal.” Another reminder.
“Can I at least come in to wait? It’s about to rain out here,” I yelled through the door.
“No!” Star yelled back before she called out to one of my potential baby daddies.
“Jared!” I could hear the exasperation in her voice even through the door. “There’s some woman here to see you.”
“Where?” I heard him ask.
“Outside, where she belonged. I don’t know her, so she didn’t get an invite in.”
“Your house, your rules.” Jared told her. I glanced back at Missy’s car with a worried look on my face. That didn’t sound much like he considered Star to be a side piece. It sounded like she might be living with him.
“It’s your house” the woman countered.
“Nope. It’s our house, and when it comes to other women knocking on the door, it becomes your house. You make the rules. You don’t want someone inside, they don’t come in. Period.”
“You have become a very wise man.”
“Yeah? Let me get dressed and see what this chick wants, then we’ll work on all the other things I have to show you that can make you proud of me.”
Seriously? Her house? My stomach twisted again as more of those lead bricks settled into it. I glanced back at Missy’s car once more. She was still sitting there. How could she be sitting there so calmly? She had to have seen that a woman opened the door. If she’d been around the club at all while dating Bagger, then she would even know who the woman was. Maybe. Star had been gone a long time. I didn’t even know she was back in town until she opened the door.
“Do you want her inside?” I heard Bagger ask.
“It’s about to rain, so there’s no need for you to stand outside, but I’m not going anywhere if she comes in. If you’re prepared for me to hear whatever she has to say, then invite her in. If not…” Star didn’t give him what would happen “if not”. It was obvious. Either he left me out in the rain to talk, ignored me completely, or allowed me in and we had to talk with Star present. Star. The woman who was the sister and daughter of two of my potential baby daddies. Shit was about to get messy.
“If not, we’ll have a problem anyway. Twinkles, if a man came to the door wanting to see you, and you didn’t want me to hear what it was about, I’d have an issue with that.”
“Good to know we’re on the same page then.”
It really did not sound like Star Martin was the side chick in Bagger’s world. I glanced back nervously at the car Missy brought me here in just as the door to the house opened.
“Vina? What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in? Your whore of the day left me out here to get rained on.” Okay, as the words snapped free from my mouth, I knew I should have clawed them back.
“First of all, you’re going to drop the attitude about my old lady. Secondly, we never had anything between us, so no matter who I have in my house, it’s not your fucking business to comment about them. We clear?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I mumbled the apology as he stepped aside to let me in. I glanced around and then brought my eyes back to Bagger, avoiding Star altogether. “Looks different since Breakneck moved out.