Baby Girl: Bad Boys of Summer Series, page 10
"How did you--"
"Find you?" she finishes. "It wasn't easy. In fact, I'm sure I could qualify for some type of P.I. merit badge if there were such a thing."
I laugh and take her hand to pull her over to the side of the stairs. I want to touch her. I want to make sure she's real and standing in front of me, and I'm not talking to ghosts.
"I came home for a break, and Dad had been cleaning out Kate's room. He's the only person in a five-bedroom house, but he wanted to turn her room into a gym." She laughs. "Anyway, I went through all the boxes he'd set out for charity and came across her journals.
She had your sister's name written in one and a phone number."
"You called my sister?" Connie will never hear the end of this.
"She said the pieces all fit together when I spoke with your sister. Cole, I hope you're not angry I came, but I never had the chance to explain my side or even say goodbye."
I glance at my watch. "My class starts in five minutes."
"I only need four."
I lean on the brick wall behind us. "Fine. shoot."
She takes a deep breath, and I watch emotions flicker across her face, though I'm not sure what emotion it is until her voice breaks.
"I think I'm in love with you." She shakes her head and shuts her eyes, and when they open again, the tears fall. "No. I don't think. I know I am. And not just to get someone's attention or to break out of my shell. What I feel is much deeper. I've been lost since you left, and honestly," she makes a sound deep in her throat, and I'm leaning in to hear her words, "you're the only attention I ever really needed."
"That's great, Ash, but you and I. We don't fit together in my world, and we aren't welcome in yours."
"Then we make our own world, right here. Right now. We're three hours apart. There's a train and a bus that travels both ways daily."
I take my hand and cup her cheek. She's put thought into this. "For here and now, that's great, but what happens on the holidays when you go home to Daddy and Marshville, and I'm still here? What then?"
She's quiet for a second, and my heart almost stops. I never intended to scare her off, but the facts are still true. I don't fit in her world any more than she does in mine.
She glances up at me again. "I told my father before I left if he ever wanted to see me home again, he'd do two things."
"You told your father?" I grin. "That's my girl."
She smiles, and my heart melts. "You'd be surprised how far I've come."
"So, what two things did you tell your father?"
"One, if he ever wants me to come home again, he's going to have to accept and make a strong attempt to get to know you."
"Okay," Fat chance that will happen, but I'm not going to burst her bubble when it makes her look so damn beautiful to be happy.
"And two?" I ask.
"Two. He knows your case was a farce. Camron's father all but admitted it when I called him out after you left. The second condition is he turns his partner into the bar association for falsifying records on your case."
I'm shocked. Mouth hanging open shocked. This girl who couldn't hang with anyone at her party four months ago accused a family friend of committing fraud and demanded her father turn him in to save a nobody like me. Damn. Baby Girl has grown up.
"I'm impressed, Ash. I really am. That's cool of you to do. But don't get your hopes up. You're asking a lot of your old man to roll over on a friend like that."
"Already done," she says, and I swear her smile gets wider even though there is no room left on her face to do so. "Turns out my father's heart is actually somewhere in his chest, and when I explained what Snake told me and showed him Kate's journals, he rolled. Not happily, but we're making progress. You'll be hearing from him soon. His firm would like to take on your case, free of charge, of course, to make up for everything that's happened."
Holy fuck. I want to reach my arms around her and hold her. Ash is the most amazing person I've ever met. She's making mountains move.
"Ash, I," I'm speechless. "I don't know what to say. No one has ever done anything like this for me."
She scoots her body closer to mine. Her heat invades my sweater, and I feel her all the way to my bones. I want to touch her. I want to pull her into the building, find a closet with a locking door, and show her how much her trust means to me.
"You saved me once," she says, her voice growing soft. "That day, at my party. I was drowning in memories of my sister and in the life of my father's making, and I wasn't even fighting it. You showed me how to fight and why I had to."
"You taught yourself that," I say and give in to touching her. I back her in the corner of the staircase and press myself up against her until my mouth is hovering over hers.
"You gave me something else too," she says, and I have to fight not to kiss her to find out what.
"What's that, Baby Girl?"
She blinks then studies me hard. "You gave me back Kate. Because of you, I know what her last days and months were like. It's helped me say goodbye. That's the biggest gift anyone has ever given me."
I smile. She can't know how important she is to me. How she's given me my life back. She's given me everything. I want to tell her how much she means to me. I want to tell her I'm in love with her, but before I can form the words, her mouth is on mine, and her hands are pulling me in closer.
She's so sweet on my lips. So soft and warm, and there's an unyieldingness to her kiss that wasn't there before.
She's not my baby girl anymore. She's all grown up, and I can't wait to see where our new adventures will lead.
Note From The Author
Baby Girl is a departure from my normal writing style and genre. In truth, this story is what started me on the path to writing shorter stories.
Cole kidnapped my imagination first during the last week of October, 2019 while I was preparing to write a longer romance for NaNo (National Novel Writing Month). Cole wouldn’t shut up no matter how I tired to silence him, so I gave him a week to tell me his story before jumping in to a longer project.
Ash wasn’t as willing to talk. She started out as shy in my head as she does on paper. It took lots of asking questions and coxing to finally get her story on the screen, but once she started sharing, I feel in love with her immediately.
Since 2019, these two have lived in my computer… Google Drive to be exact. They’ve taunted me every time I scroll through my files looking for my current work in progress until today, a foggy Monday afternoon in February, when I can hold their story back no longer. They may not be perfect, but they are ready to share their love with the world.
I hope you enjoy Cole as much as he demands and you’re able to feel Ash’s deep understanding of the mutual relationships between trust and love.
Reagan
Books By Reagan
The Blue Line Brotherhood Series
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Baby on Board
Her Brother’s Best Friend
Tattooed By Her Silver Fox
Her Bad Boy Bartender
Staking His Claim
Her Tattooed Single Father
Tattooed and Taken Box Set
Stand Alone
Lone Star Sizzle
Second Chance Cowboy
Dad Bod Next Door
Tempest Eilte MC Series
Bear
Doc
Gunner
Scout
Hawk
Smokey
Reagan Phillips, Baby Girl: Bad Boys of Summer Series
