Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (Road to Redemption #1)(47)

“Uh…”

“That’s Emma, dear. She’s Jackson’s girl—”

“Friends,” I correct my mother. “We’re friends, Pop.”

Mia smirks, the boys giggle like the ten-year-olds they are, and Dad grumbles.

“Not surprised there.” He scratches his ass as he makes his way to his seat next to Ma. He’s definitely hungover. Headache, my ass. I want to say something along the lines of go f*ck yourself with a corkscrew, but Nick is sitting in my line of sight now, and he’s giving me that don’t even f*cking think about it glare. So I drop it. I don’t tend to jump at the opportunity to hang my family’s dirty laundry out at the table while potentially shifty guests are looking on.

Green. I’m talking about Green.

Although I have to admit, my opinion of her might be changing. Slightly. Maybe because she’s showing me a side to her I hadn’t previously been aware existed. Or maybe because she pops up every f*cking where I go lately, and that’s doing some kinda subliminal head f*ck on me or something.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stiles.” She’s polite enough as a plate of fried chicken is passed to her. My father? He doesn’t bother answering except for a wave of his hand and a crack of his neck.

“Nice, Dad.”

“What?” he feigns innocence. “If she’s friends with you, she’s not expecting niceties?”

Green laughs and covers her mouth, unsure whether it’s okay or not. But Ma laughs, too. That makes it better, I guess. Though Green takes her hand away from her mouth, showing off the fantastic shade of red she’s turned, her foot bounces underneath the table about a thousand miles a minute.

She’s nervous.

I put a hand on her thigh, and she stills. More than that. She freezes all together. It takes me a second or two to figure out what’s up, and then it hits me where my hand is exactly.

Too close for comfort, too far away for satisfaction, maybe.

So, of course I can’t help myself. I slide it a little farther up. Not a lot, just enough to cause a knee-jerk reaction in her. It knocks the entire table, and everyone grabs a glass to save some breakage from happening.

I lift mine for a sip of the rum and Coke I made to hide the smile I’m sporting.

Mia’s eyes are on me, hard. I can’t help but give her a look of complete innocence.

“Anything wrong, dear?” Ma offers. Green tucks some hair away.

“No, no, I just had an itch.”

“Darn mosquitos,” Ma adds. Which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard today. And that’s is saying a lot.

“It’s November, Ma. There are no mosquitos.” She giggles and waves a hand at me.

“Did you know mosquitos hibernate?” James, the younger of the twins, announces.

“Yeah,” Remus adds. “And they can lay up to three hundred eggs!”

Just in case you didn’t notice, yes, they’re named after fictional characters. Mia had a serious obsession with Harry Potter when she was pregnant with the twins. They were doomed from the get go.

“Really?” Nick responds to their data dump and leans in. “Well, did you know it’s the females that suck your blood?”

“Nicholas Jason Stiles. No blood talk,” Mia warns him. Probably worried he’s gonna fill their heads with some horror story from the job. He hooks a thumb over toward her, then he whispers to the boys, “Part mosquito.”

You might be wondering why I got the well thought out middle name and my brother got the boring one. Truth is, he’s just lucky. Jason is Greek too. He was the leader of the Argonauts.

I know right?

Moving on.

The rug rats laugh in unison. Green joins them, and I notice it’s one of the few times since I’ve met her that she looks like she doesn’t have her walls up.

It’s kinda cool.

Mia slaps my brother on the arm. My Dad ignores all of us, but Ma, she’s pretty observant. As it is duly noted in the way she’s watching me watch Green.

She’s becoming curious.

“Tell me, Emma, how is it you know our Jackson?”

Nick, who for some reason has decided to stir the pot tonight, decides to fill our mother in. This is where it becomes apparent that now he knows who she is.

“She called Jackie out a couple months ago in an article she wrote.” He chuckles. “What’d she call you, Jack? A—”

“Desperate man in need of feeling applicable in today’s society after being kicked out of the Redemption Police Academy several years ago.” I figure I may as well be the one to say it.

I mean, why the hell not?

At first, Green doesn’t react. Ma looks shocked, and Nick’s shoulders are bouncing at my complete lack of giving a shit.

“That article was a misunderstanding,” Green offers, embarrassed, to my mother and everyone else. She thinks she can blow the whole thing off as sweetly as possible. I’m not in the mood to let it go just yet.

As Ma pretends I didn’t say anything of significance and Dad goes about being a pig, I lean over to tell her quietly, “I wasn’t kicked out by the way. Your sources suck.”

Her eyes widen a tad, and her mouth falls open about as much.

“I didn’t─”

“That’s right.” Dad cuts her off. Of course, now he decides to actually take part in a conversation. Why wouldn’t he? “He quit.”