Page 97 of Bad News Babe

Pa-Emmett casually replies, “I’ll be dead before you run this club.”

“Hey,” I mutter while Val spit-takes coffee at me.

While I get into a shoving match with my brother, Pa-Emmett explains, “I’m calling in a favor from a guy I knew in prison.”

Ma-Poppy gasps again and reaches for Alexis, who runs away like a spooked cat. Realizing her redheaded squeeze toy has escaped, my mother joins us on the porch.

“I don’t like anything ever.”

“She’s very disappointed in you,” Val says before I shove him into the bushes.

As his cup goes flying, he cries, “My coffee!”

Chuckling, I realize he’ll want payback, so I use our mother as a shield. She, of course, thinks I want to cuddle and wraps me in a bear hug I’ll never escape. Alexis pokes her head outside, sees I’m trapped forever, and comes to terms with her lonely future without vaginal stimulation.

“Who is this prison friend of yours?” Ma-Poppy asks while swaying my large body with her smaller one.

“He’s a jack-of-all-trades.”

Returning with a fresh coffee cup, Val asks, “What’s that mean? Is he going to build us a new deck?”

“No, son, it means he’s a hitman.”

Ma-Poppy gasps so loudly that Alexis rethinks her attempt to join us on the porch. My dream girl bolts back inside and hides with the cats.

Unfazed, Ma-Poppy belts out, “I don’t want a foul monstrous evil freak around my baby girl and her penchant for bad men. She’ll probably marry him before they reach West Virginia.”

“No, he’s in his forties by now. Way too old. Probably looks like shit these days.”

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t hang out with the guy, Poppy, or else you’d have met him,” Pa-Emmett says while texting. “But we keep in touch. Like when Court needs something handled outside our territory.”

Ma-Poppy asks, “What did he look like when you knew him?”

My father shrugs. “I can’t tell if men are attractive.”

“He better be a dog, Emmett.”

“He’s too old for her.”

“Can he handle Cubby, who’s like thirty?” Val asks.

“Oh, he’ll handle him fine.”

Getting curious now, Val leans closer and asks, “How do you pay him if you never meet?”

“GiveSendGo,” Pa-Emmett replies and checks the guy’s response. “Good news. He’s in Athens. He’ll drive down, smack around Cubby, and bring Tuesday home. She’ll get her drama, and I’ll make a point about men stealing my lovely yet loony daughter.”

“And he won’t hurt Tuesday, right?” Ma-Poppy asks.

Stroking his woman’s cheek, he replies, “No. He’s plenty capable of handling her bullshit, too.”

“And he won’t fuck her, right?” Val asks, causing our mother to nearly gasp herself into a mini-coma. “Tuesday’s not a virgin, Ma. I’m sorry to be the one to unload that truth bomb on you.”

“My baby girl just needs a good man,” Ma-Poppy announces with her hands on her hips. “I should get her on a dating site, so she can marry an upstanding dork.”

Shaking his head, Pa-Emmett asks, “You mean, like Matilda’s respectable businessman husband who smacked her around?”

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