Just Like That (The Kings)

If she could pretend to be asleep when I’d crawled into bed last night, then I could pretend I was unintentionally spooning her and wishing the sunrise would wait. Beside her, sated and warm, I slept better than I had in years.

My first thought upon waking wasn’t the laundry list of bullshit I had to deal with; it was her. Hazel’s rose gold hair was fanned across her shoulder, and my legs were hiked up behind her. My hand flexed on her hip as I breathed in the bright citrus of her scent.

She shifted and I clamped my eyes tighter, fighting the reality that our night was over. In my arms, she tensed as she started to wake. I kept my eyes closed as Hazel quietly slipped from beneath my hand.

I stifled a laugh when she bumped the bed and whisper-shouted, “Son of a biscuit!”

Through lowered lashes I watched as Hazel pulled on a pair of shorts. She whipped off her sleep shirt, and I enjoyed her perky little tits bouncing as she pulled a clean tank top over her head.

My cock surged to life, and I rolled to hide the fact that her mere presence had caught his attention.

When she slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her, I rolled to my back with a groan. I was rock hard and tented the sheet. My brain was looping on how things could have gone had we been alone, or at my place, or in any other situation besides a thirty-five foot diesel school bus.

I could hear Hazel talking quietly with Teddy, so I sat up and scrubbed a hand over my face.

I wonder what her tarot would have to say about last night.

I smirked and pulled a fresh shirt from the duffel bag on the floor before going in search of Teddy and Hazel.

Through the window, I spotted them outside, walking around the campsite and straightening up. I walked down the steps and squinted in the early-morning sunshine. “Morning.”

“Morning, Dad,” Teddy called over his shoulder with a yawn.

Some unknown emotion flashed across Hazel’s face as her attention moved from Teddy to me. She didn’t say good morning, and despite the urge to walk over to her and greet her with a kiss, I stuffed my hands into my pockets.

Something was on her mind. I could tell in the way she avoided eye contact and focused every ounce of her attention on Teddy as he bounced around the campsite.

We had definitely crossed a line last night.

Again.

Still, I couldn’t find it within me to regret it.

“Can we swim in the lake this morning?” Teddy asked. “Please?”

Hazel’s mouth opened and shut as she looked at me. “Uh . . .”

“Sorry, man.” I could be the bad guy if she needed me to be. “I have to get back to work. Vacation is over for me.”

His face fell and I felt like a total asshole. “Oh, okay.” Glumly he kicked a rock and walked past me toward the skoolie, his shoulders sagging with disappointment.

“Don’t take it personally,” Hazel said, but she still wouldn’t look at me. “I think he’s testing out guilt trips as a new manipulation tactic.”

I leaned back on my heels. “Got it. I won’t.” I studied her as she folded up a camping chair and stuffed it in the storage locker under the bus. “I’m kind of taking the cold shoulder from you personally, though.”

Her attention moved to me and her features softened. Her delicate hands covered her face. “I’m sorry.” She gestured between us. “I’m just . . . last night was . . . you’re just so . . .”

I raised an eyebrow. “I hope I’m going to like the way those sentences are supposed to end.”

She laughed and exhaled. “It’s very confusing. I am supposed to hate you.”

My lips flattened and my gut twisted, imagining any reality where Hazel Adams actually hated me. “I see.”

She let out a frustrated growl. “See? That.” Her hand flipped in my direction. “How am I supposed to stay mad at you when you’re just so . . . you?”

I mulled over her words and nodded. “Why don’t you let me in on why you’re supposed to hate me and we can go from there.”

Hazel toyed with her lip. She paused, blinking as indecision buzzed through her. Finally, she sighed and slapped her thigh. “Fine. Stay here.”

Hazel breezed by me, and I sneaked a tiny hit of her perfume as she passed, breathing it in deep and holding it in my lungs.

When she came back, she stood in front of me and held out a letter. “Here.”

I took it from her and slipped the rumpled note from its envelope. It was handwritten in loopy feminine handwriting.

“It’s from Olive,” she explained. “There’s a lot in there, but read here . . .” She flipped the paper over and pointed to the middle of the page. Her finger stabbed into the paper. “She tried to tell you. She came here to tell you about her pregnancy, and you wouldn’t even speak to her. You sent a crying, pregnant woman away in the rain. She said your father was the only person who cared enough to listen.”

My eyes scanned the page. “My father?” I scoffed. “That’s impossible.” I grabbed the paper and tried to focus on reading the words as my mind spun.

. . . he was there and refused to see me. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes and tell me to go away. Instead, he had some old guy wearing Moon Boots ask me to leave and practically tossed me out in the rain.

Later that day, I was crying my eyes out at a diner when his father came to see me. We sought comfort in each other. The things he said about his son were horrible, but that wasn’t the man I met at Cask & Keg and spent one amazing night with. The JP I knew was self-deprecating and sensitive and a gentleman. I came to realize Russell wasn’t the man I thought he was either.

But I am out of time and out of choices.

One day you’ll see that I’m doing this for Teddy. So he has a chance to have a father who has the capacity to love him. Without JP, Teddy may never have that.

My blood cooled. It made no sense that Olive had the impression she’d come to Outtatowner, that I knew and refused to see her.

The Cask & Keg.

The trees around me spun as blood left my face. Cask & Keg was a tiny dive bar the interns frequented. It had cheap drinks and shitty karaoke on Thursday nights. A fuzzy memory began to take shape. A Halloween party with too many shots and a cute blonde with a wild streak and a great laugh.

Oh, fuck.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Hazel, it was a misunderstanding.”

Her soft brown eyes hardened and narrowed. “So you do remember her.”

“I—I’m not—” I huffed, frustrated at myself that I was stammering and unable to parse out the truth. “I think it’s possible that I knew her, yes.”

She swallowed hard. “I told you. I knew it.” Hurt soaked her words, and I felt like the smallest man to ever live. “I knew it and I still let you in.” She fought tears and my chest ached.

I raised both hands, the unfamiliar rush of panic threatening to overtake me. “I can explain . . . I think.”

“You didn’t even remember her name. I don’t need an explanation.” She ripped the letter from my hands, tearing the corner. “I think I need to get away from you.”

My chest tugged into a knot. I was just starting to feel whole—for the aching emptiness to go away.

“Hazel, please—” My hand twitched and pathetically reached for her before falling.

She spun on her heels, pinning me with an icy glare.

I searched for the right words but came up flat. A solemn nod was all I could muster.

She was right, after all. I hadn’t recalled the one night I’d spent with Olive, until now. It was an alcohol-fueled good time that hadn’t meant much at the moment. I would have sworn on anything holy that I had always used protection, but it was so long ago, I couldn’t be sure.

I had no recollection of Olive coming to Outtatowner—I knew that for certain. She claimed I had dismissed her, sent her away only for my father to swoop in and comfort her.

The entire situation reeked of his manipulation.

On the way back to town, I focused my attention on Teddy and not the gnawing sense that I had already lost whatever footing I’d gained in Hazel’s favor. Her knuckles were white as she wound down the forest roads, back to reality. She had pegged me as a heartless asshole from the start, and recent revelations only proved her point.

As soon as she dropped me off at the office, my phone was in my hand, dialing Dad’s attorney. He answered on the second ring.

I didn’t bother with a greeting. “I need you to set up a visitation with the Department of Corrections. I’m going to see him.”

Russell King had sat in the small, stark cell of the Remington County Jail, his once-imposing figure slightly diminished by the ill-fitting orange jumpsuit that clung awkwardly to his broad shoulders. His salt-and-pepper hair, which he had always kept meticulously groomed, had begun to lose its sharp edges, curling unruly at the nape of his neck—a subtle betrayal of the weeks that had passed.

His piercing eyes, with the same intensity I had inherited, still gleamed with that familiar mix of arrogance and defiance, the look of a man accustomed to commanding rooms, not languishing in them. Even in that miserable place, behind those dull, unyielding bars, he had held himself with an air of superiority, convinced that his influence—his money, his connections—would soon have him walking free.

I watched him through the window as I was cleared to enter. His jaw remained stubbornly set, and despite the sallow hue creeping into his once-vibrant skin, he exuded a haughty confidence, as though the entire ordeal of being accused of murdering my mother was merely a temporary inconvenience—a minor blip on his path back to power.

As he sat, waiting for me, the other inmates gave him space, not out of respect, but because of that unsettling aura he projected—one that said he was untouchable, even there.

I hated him for it, but more than that, I hated how clearly I recognized it. I could see the same tension in his posture that sometimes crept into mine, the slight tremor in his hands when he thought no one was looking. It was the fear that maybe—just perhaps—he had underestimated the system he had always believed he could bend to his will.

I loathed that I understood it all too well.

He was instructed by a guard to meet me in the visitors’ section.

I sat across from my father in the cold, sterile visitors’ room of the county jail. The air was thick with the smell of bleach and something far less clean—like the stench of fear or regret.

A glass partition separated us, but it could have been an ocean, a chasm carved out by years of lies, manipulation, and whatever twisted games he had played under the guise of fatherhood. His piercing eyes locked onto mine with the same smug superiority that had defined him for as long as I could remember.

It didn’t matter.

After his conviction, he’d be transferred to a state correctional facility where he’d be stripped of every shred of freedom, along with that shit-eating grin.

He grabbed the telephone we needed to communicate and leaned back in his chair. The orange jumpsuit stretched and accentuated his paunch, but somehow he still managed to look like he was the one in control—like this was all just another business meeting, and he was about to close the deal. The flickering fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting sharp shadows that made his face look even more hollowed out than it already was.

“So,” he drawled, that irritating smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “Finally found the time in your precious day to see how I am holding up?” He leaned forward. “Or have you been too busy running my business into the ground to step away?”

I clenched my fist under the table, willing myself to stay calm. But the anger was there, simmering just beneath the surface, and I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it in check.

“I didn’t come here to play games, Dad.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue. I hated that I still called him Dad—he didn’t deserve that title. “I came to ask you something, and I want a straight answer for once in your life.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “I’ve always been honest with you.”

I ignored the outright lie and swallowed around the pebble in my throat. “Did a woman ever come to you . . . tell you she was pregnant? With my child?”

For the briefest moment, something flickered in his eyes—recognition, maybe. It was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by an old, familiar smugness.

He leaned forward, his voice low and dripping with condescension. “You were careless with that woman, JP,” he said, shaking his head as if I were some errant schoolboy. “But there’s not a chance that child is yours. Don’t worry, it was taken care of.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut, and suddenly it was all I could do to keep myself from slamming my fist against the glass between us.

“Taken care of?” My voice rose despite myself. “What the hell did you do?”

He smiled, a slow, cruel grimace that made my blood run cold. “You don’t have to concern yourself with it anymore. The woman was handled. Just like I always do.”

The room seemed to close in on me, the gray walls pressing in, the air growing thinner by the second.

I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the floor, but I didn’t care. “You’re a monster.” My voice shook with barely controlled rage. “I stood by and watched you manipulate good people for years, but I kept my mouth shut. This is different—it was my life and I had a right to know. You should have told me.”

He scoffed, unfazed by my uncharacteristic outburst. “She was a whore looking for a paycheck. Didn’t even look pregnant, if you ask me.”

I shook my head. There was absolutely no getting through to him, even now. “I’m glad you’re rotting in here. I’m going to celebrate the fact that you get to spend the rest of your miserable life locked away for everything you’ve done.”

He didn’t flinch. Instead, his smile widened, as if he was reveling in my anger. “Rotting in here? Oh, JP,” he said, his tone almost pitying. “You really think this is the end for me?”

I glared at him, my breath coming in sharp, angry bursts. “What are you talking about?”

He settled against the back of his chair, the picture of calm, his eyes glittering with something dark. “I’ve been offered a plea deal. And I intend to take it.”

The words hung in the air between us, thick and suffocating. My grip tightened on the telephone. For a moment I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. “A plea deal,” I repeated, the disbelief clear in my voice. “For the murder of my mother, which you admitted to . . . you’re just going to walk away from this?”

He shrugged, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “I was coerced. There’s no proof. Bootsy and Bowlegs were blackmailing me. All those years I lived in fear for what they did to my beloved wife.” His teeth glittered as his smile widened. “It’s all just a game, JP. And I always win.”

I stared at him, at this man who had once held so much power, so much influence, and I felt something break inside me. Not just anger, not just hatred—something deeper, a final severing of whatever thin, frayed thread had still connected us.

His lips were dry and cracked as he spoke. “I know you want excuses—you want to blame me for what you’ve become, but I can’t give you that. You’ll come to see that every move you’ve ever made was born of selfishness and self-pity.”

Fury bubbled inside me. “Selfish?” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “I have done everything you’ve ever asked of me. I ran the company when you couldn’t. All I ever wanted was a shred of acknowledgment. Of love.” I clenched my jaw and refused to let my voice crack despite the emotions thickening my throat.

He scoffed. “Love? Is that what you wanted?” The chair creaked as he shifted. “You know, I learned early on that Abel was too stubborn to fall in line. Royal, too reckless. Whip loved your mother too much to ever listen to me, but you . . .” He wagged a finger at me. “You were my insurance policy.”

Lead filled my veins.

“You were moldable.” He thumped his chest with one stubby finger as he continued, “I made you. Everything you are is because of me. I deserve a thank-you for the life I’ve given you, not this blatant disrespect. You’re better than that.”

Tension in my neck wound tighter, like a screw twisted into soft wood and ready to snap.

I stood and smoothed a hand down my dress shirt, calming my nerves before I broke through the glass and wrapped my hands around his neck.

The conversation was over.

“You might think you’ve won,” I said quietly, my voice steadier and angrier now. I had heard all I needed to hear. “But this isn’t over. Not by a fucking long shot.”

His smirk faded slightly, a hint of uncertainty creeping into his eyes. I didn’t wait for a response. I hung up the phone, turned, and walked away, the sound of my footsteps echoing in the hollow, empty space between us.