Page 59 of Unexpected Love
I want Jules to be happy. And I want her in my life. I’ve gotten so used to her being in my apartment, so much a part of my every day… much like Charlie has become essential, so has Jules.
I’m locking the door, ready to go get my girls, when myphone blares with a ringtone that simultaneously sends chills down my spine and also makes warning bells scream in my head.
I haven’t heard from my sister in weeks.
“Dani?”
My name falls through the phone on a broken sob, and all the things I’ve thought I might say to her vanish.
No matter how much of a fuckup she’s been, she’s still my baby sister. Still the little girl I left behind with tears in her eyes all those years ago.
“Danielle. What’s wrong?”
My heart thuds and then cracks in two when she sniffles, followed by the sound of something rustling. Almost like she’s shifting the phone.
“I fucked up,” she whispers and then dissolves into tears again.
I’m pacing the sidewalk, but in my head, I’m thrust back to that podunk town. That place where life offered so little and came with so much heartache. It’s like I’m reliving the last time I was at home. When my mom was raging with our neighbor about how the cops were all on the take. How “the boys” were unfairly targeted.
The boys.
That’s what they’d called us. That’s how they’d treated us. Like unruly kids who didn’t know any better, and not a bunch of rowdy twenty-year-olds with too much experience and too much idle time on our hands. Until that fateful day that I’d been forced to stay home sick while my friends had been out getting high, using half the drugs they were supposed to sell.
“Dani, calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
She draws a shaky breath, then admits, “I got arrested.” Her voice is small, contrite.
A myriad of emotions flash through me. But the one I nearly choke on is guilt. If I hadn’t left Dani behind, if I’d been able to get her out of there, maybe I could’ve prevented this.
“Can you bond me out?” she asks. She tells me what she needs, and I’m choking again for a different reason.
“Dani, I don’t have that kind of money. What the fuck happened?”
“There was a raid.”
That’s it. That’s all she fucking says.
I spear my fingers into my hair, tugging because I feel the sudden urge to do something. Hit something. Doanything. And I’m helpless.
“Dani, I don’t know how to help you right now. I don’t have that kind of money.” But I don’t even know if I’d bond her out if I did. And that realization makes everything worse. I feel like the worst brother ever right now. My footsteps thud against the sidewalk as I pace in front of the shop. “Do you have an attorney?”
“Tabby’s got a name of someone.” Her reply is muffled, pouting. And it’s the slap back into reality that I need.
Tabby. Our mother. Who made us call her by name instead of Mom.
“Mom? Of course she does.”
“Don’t act like you’re so much better than us now.” She sounds just like Tabby used to. Same hateful spite in her voice, even though she’s the one who called me needing something. “So are you gonna help us or not?”
“Us?”
“Well, yeah. You should give Tabby a call sometime. She knows you’ve got Charlie. She says she’d love for you to come home for a visit.”
Nope. No way in hell am I opening that can of wormsand offering her a place in my life. I cut ties for a reason all those years ago.
“Dani, I’m already helping you as much as I can.” I keep my voice as level as possible, not wanting this to turn any uglier than it is. “I’m taking care of your daughter.”
“Fine. Whatever,” she says. “Thanks for nothing.”
