Page 106 of Hold Him Like Gravity

She was a young lady who’d had a healthy amount of boy craziness the past few years. And, being she was the prettiest thing, the boys were interested as well.

But she had a father who could and would literally rip off the arms of a boy who put their hands on her.

Not to mention her uncles.

And, perhaps worse yet, her aunts like Saff and Cinna.

“They’re doing it again,” Joss said, waving to Rico and Bass.

“We’re just reminding her the best ways to defend herself,” Bastian insisted.

“Uncle Bass, I’m literally a black belt. I could beatyouup,” Joss said with a cocky little chin lift.

“You have your pocketknife and your mace, right?” I asked, glancing at her tiny purse.

“Really? From you too?” Joss asked, sighing.

“I want you to be safe,” I told her, tucking some of her brown hair behind her ear. Which she immediately untucked.

“I’m going to be at a coffee place in front of dozens of witnesses. And, I’m sure, Daddy will have half a dozen of his soldiers stationed from here to there.”

The way Rico reached up to rub the back of his neck told me that was true.

“Okay. Alright. We will leave you alone.”

“Do you have enough money?” Rico asked, reaching into his back pocket to hand her a wad of cash.

“You already gave me money,” Joss said. “And I have my own money,” she added, pulling her shoulders back.

Since school was out, she’d been working at the plant shop to make her own cash. Despite the fact that Rico was constantly throwing money at her.

“Well, here’s some more. For a cab,” he said, holding it out until she took it.

“This is two-hundred dollars. Where am I taking a cab? To Jersey? Oh, God,” she grumbled as Rico’s eyes widened. “I’m not! I’m staying right down the street.”

“Baby, go,” I said, waving toward the door, “before your father insists on chaperoning you.”

Joss rushed off, giving me a nervous smile before walking out into the hall.

“I don’t like this,” Rico declared.

“No stupid fucking eighteen-year-old boy is good enough for her,” Bass piped in.

“I mean, you have to give the kid credit for agreeing to take her out even with you two lunatics breathing down his neck, just looking for a reason to toss him in the Hudson,” I said.

“You’re not gonna date, right?” Rico asked as our middle daughter came walking into the living room, knocking her leg into an end table because she wouldn’t look up from her book.

“Boys in books are better,” Della said before dropping down on the couch in her cow-printed wearable blanket, hood up to cover her hair and half of her face.

“That’s right,” Rico said, nodding.

I went ahead and didn’t remind Rico what some of those boys in books and the girls in the books got up to in private moments.

But Della was a couple of years away from those books.

I hoped.

I had to make sure Saff wasn’t corrupting her yet.

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