Page 7 of Judge
I let out a sigh. It feels like that’s all I’ve been doing today. “No, I can’t. The boy, Jackson, hates me.”
“Jax.”
“What?”
“Jackson. He likes to be called ‘Jax’.”
I turn to stare at Pops. “How do you know that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I stopped ‘looking’ at them and asked? Jesus kid, are you simple or something?” Pops gives me a disgusted look, shaking his head.
I curse internally but don’t make any move to do anything other than stare at the twins. Like a creep. Like Pops said.
“Can I give you some advice?” I nod. Pops’ advice can’t be any worse than what I’m doing, which is nothing.
“The only way to get to know them is to put yourself out there.” He stares at me, holding my gaze before blowing out a breath. “You’ll have to talk, Son. Use your words. Maybe tell them something about yourself and then ask them questions. That sort of shit. It ain’t gonna be easy. Teenagers are notoriously hard to get to know, but you’re patient so I bet you could win them over. If not, use your massive size to scare them into talking to you.” He slaps me on the shoulder so hard he makes me sway a little. Jesus, he slaps hard.
Rubbing my shoulder I don’t notice Annie-Bella sidling up to me.
“Hi,” she says brightly, a grin on her face.
I’m shocked that she’s here, let alone talking to me, so I stare wide-eyed at her for a beat too long, and her face starts to fall, taking my gut with it.
“No! Don’t get upset, um, hi.” I rub the back of my neck, “Sorry. I was just surprised you wanted to speak to me.”
Her green eyes, so like mine and my mother’s narrow, “Why? Why wouldn’t I want to speak to you? You’re my Da-father, right? Unless you don’t want to speak to me?” Her eyes dart away and I don’t want her to think that. At all.
“No, I, ah, I’d love to talk to you. Do you want to maybe take a seat?” I gesture wildly around me, realizing that we’re standing at the only part of the deck that doesn’t have furniture.
“Sure!” She plops down on the ground at my feet, her legs dangling off the side of the deck.
She stares up at me, waiting. I gingerly lower myself down, knowing that it’ll be hard getting my ass back up.
“Are you OK?” she asks, full of concern.
“Yeah. Just old,” I huff.
“You’re notthatold,” she rolls those familiar eyes. “You’re the same age as Mom, maybe a couple of months older.”
I raise my brows in surprise, side eyeing her. My daughter. “She told you that?”
“She told us everything.” Annie-Bella shrugs. “Whatever questions we ask she gives us age appropriate answers. Once we hit thirteen she told us the whole thing. Probably to discourage us from making the same mistakes I guess. Not that she thinks we’re a mistake,” she rushes, “Probably more getting knocked up by you. I mean, seriously bruh, you were with another girl when Mom came to tell you the news? Not cool.”
“Wow, she really did tell you everything,” I mutter.
“Yeah, I guess she just wanted us to be able to have all the information to make well informed decisions.”
My lips tilt up at that. Annie-Bella may look small and meek, but she’s a firecracker. Just like her mom. We sit in silence for a moment, Jackson, I mean Jax, eyeing us warily.
“Is your brother OK with you being over here with me?”
Annie-Bella glares toward her brother before flipping the bird and then doing the universal sign for jerking off. Then she puts on a sad face, balls her fists up and twists them in front of her face, miming crying, then the jerking sign again.
“He’ll storm over here soon all full of piss and vinegar. He hates when I tease him about cracking.” She grins up at me, showing off the dimples that my mom has.
“Cracking?” I frown down at her in confusion.
“Yeah, I overheard him playing with himself one day and I busted in on him to tell him to stop being gross and he started crying. Get it? Crying and jacking? Cracking? Oh, here he comes!” She bounces in place and I’m not sure what to do with that information. The way she blurted that out reminded me a little too much of Mira.
