CHARLOTTE

“Okay, girls, let’s get in line at the barre please.” I had to raise my voice to get the attention of the class.

Today had been an exercise in control, that’s for sure. Being late had been the least of my worries.

After Deck dropped me off, then wrangled my car keys from me, and kissed me senseless again, the office attendant made me sign a tardiness form. Seriously! Then I had a lecture from the day care administrator about the tardiness despite my car troubles and it not being my fault. According to Mrs Fumberg, regular maintenance of my vehicle could have prevented such disaster. After all, I had a responsibility to the children to be on time considering ballet was just a token class, and they could be doing much more important things.

“Miss Char?” Shiloh’s voiced concern interrupted my thoughts. Looking at the girls, I saw they were all ready and waiting for my instruction.

“Oh, what good girls you are,” I praised them, and then joined them at the barre.

Placing my hand on the barre, I turned my head to watch my students.

“Okay, now, first position.”

And then I lost myself in the barre exercises and teaching.

 

————

 

I had to admit I was nervous as I sat outside on the front curb with Shiloh. Her father excited me like no man ever had. Not that I’d had many men. In fact, I had only kissed two men in my life, one of them being Deck. To say I’d lived a sheltered life was an understatement, but I felt ready. Ready to explore something new. I had never wanted to let a boy touch me growing up. I was shy now and was worse as a teenager. Ballet was my escape from my family, their nastiness and their hatred for me, forcing me to create the shell I lived in. Protecting myself became my main mantra, getting away from them my main goal. Something I’d come so close to achieving until…

“Miss Char?”

“Yes, precious.”

My radar picked up. Shiloh was using her hurt voice.

“Can I still wear my shitkickers to class?”

What? Where was this coming from?

“Of course, you can. Shiloh, why are you asking me this?”

“Mrs Fum said I can’t wear black boots to the dance re-thingy.”

I stifled a laugh because, despite her vocabulary, Shiloh was being serious.

“The dance recital is still far away, so we have plenty of time to figure out your shoes for that night. Okay?”

The big, fat crocodile tears that had been threatening to fall instantly dried up.

I loved that she looked at me like I had all the answers to the world’s problems. This was what it felt like to be important to someone. It gave me hope.

“Oh, that’s effing great, lady,” Shiloh declared, reaching her tiny little fist out to me.

Confused, I was about to ask what she wanted me to do when the deep voice came from beside me.

“She wants you to bump her fist,” Darth explained. For his size, his stealth was admirable, but it was becoming a habit of this man and his friends. My heart was going to have to get used to it if I wanted to stay around.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry. Do what to her fist?”

Shiloh collapsed in a fit of giggles, causing the large bodyguard to smile indulgently at his cute little charge.

“Here, Miss Char.” Shiloh helped me make a fist, then bumped hers against mine before making a production of miming a hand exploding and adding a puffing noise. 

“I have no idea what that means, but it was fun.”

“Make the noise, too, Miss Char. Youse hafs to make the bomb noise, too,” Shiloh cried excitedly, making another fist so we could bump again. This time, both of us made a bomb noise at the end.

“I seriously had a boring childhood,” I mumbled to myself as I got to my feet, only just realising Deck wasn’t here.

“Deck?” I asked Darth as he performed a more complicated looking fist bump with Shiloh—obviously their own special tradition.

Never taking his eyes from Shiloh, Darth grabbed her bag and took her hand in his incredibly large one.

“Doing shit.”

Okay, that was helpful. Not.

“Come on, let’s go. Got shit to do,” Darth said, taking off towards his large truck.

Seriously? How much larger can trucks get? His looked even bigger than Deck’s truck.

“Gots shit to do, Miss Char,” Shiloh parroted. “Get a move on, woman.”

That comment earned a low chuckle from Darth and a really loud one from me.

But my laughter stopped when I came up to the vehicle and realised I was going to have trouble getting into it. My skirt simply would not allow a ladylike climb. Deck had lifted me in and out this morning. Was Darth going to do the same? As I was about to contemplate how I was going to hike up my skirt and still leave my decorum intact, two large, strong hands gripped me around the waist, and like a rag doll, I was tossed rather unceremoniously into the cab of the truck. My body jarred from the force of Darth’s dumping, and I let out a small shriek.

“Darf! Be gentle with princesses,” Shiloh scolded the large man, who had the decency to look contrite.

“Sorry, Squirt. Sorry, Charlotte.” His deep voice really was spectacular.

“You can call me Charlie if you like. Deck seems to have taken it upon himself to shorten my name. You are welcome to, as well,” I offered with a shrug. The truth was, until Deck, no one in my entire life had called me Charlie. I had always been Charlotte—or Charlotte Victoria when I was really in trouble, which wasn’t often. My parents would have needed to care and speak to me for that.

Darth shook his head no. “Nope, I’m good,” was all he said before he slammed my door closed with a bone-jarring thud.

Well, okay then. I tried not to feel the sting of his obvious rejection, but I did feel it.

My day had been horrible. My hours and subsequent docked pay. My car—well, it had to be worse than I’d thought. Deck had growled that it was a piece of shit accident waiting to happen. Another garnishment payment to my family was due from my bank account today at five p.m., and now Darth obviously didn’t like me.

So, bursting into sobbing tears made perfect sense, didn’t it? Well, maybe to a twenty-four-year-old woman, it did, but not so much to a three-year-old and a large biker man with a ridiculously deep voice who now looked panicked.

Then things got worse. Shiloh noticed my heaving sobs, and to Darth’s utter horror, she began her own wailing. Unfortunately for Darth, my sobs fed Shiloh’s and her mine. So I was even more mortified when his phone sounded in the cab through his Bluetooth. The ringing tone rang for three rings before Deck’s clear, strong, deep voice came through the speakers.

“What?”

“Brother, listen to this fuckery,” Darth ordered, then was silent so Deck could hear the woeful sounds of two females crying.

“Sweetness? What the fuck? Hang on—is Shiloh crying, too?”

I could tell from his raised voice Deck was not pleased, but I seriously couldn’t get myself under control. The floodgates had opened, and there was no closing them yet.

Simple fact. I needed to cry.

Shiloh, however, upon hearing her daddy’s voice, was able to talk with no problems.

“Daddy, Darf frew Miss Char, and he doesn’t like her name,” Shiloh tattled, putting Cindy Brady to shame. Her crying was getting stronger and picking up speed.

“Darth! What in the ever-loving fuck?” Deck roared across the line. I could almost hear him panting.

“Deck, seriously, calm the fuck down. I put your woman in the car a little too vigorously. Then she asked me to call her Charlie. I said nope.”

He looked over at me, his head nodding up and down, encouraging me to agree.

“You said nope. That’s it? Just nope? You didn’t tell her why? Jesus, brother, just get my girls to me fucking right now.”

Darth reached over to end the call. “I’ll be fucked if I am getting a timeout for this shit. Hear me, Squirt?” Darth grumbled, looking in the rear-view mirror at Shiloh, who, by now, had just about stopped crying and was busy pressing buttons on the DVD player attached to her car seat. Good Lord, the child had everything.

“Kay, Darf. I lub you.” She hiccuped.

I stole a quick look at the big man and watched his eyes and face soften as he took in the beauty that was this child.

“Back at ya, Squirt.”

“I lub you, too, Miss Char, lots and lots.”

My heart stopped. Literally. The declaration of love was my first in so many years that I couldn’t begin to remember how many. Not since my beloved grandmother had anyone told me that, and here, in the cab of a massive truck, sitting next to a ruggedly handsome but extremely scary biker, a little raven-haired girl just stole my heart. The tears that had abated started again, but I managed to sob out a response to Shiloh.

“Oh, sweet baby girl, I love you, tooooooooo,” I cried.

“Oh, for fuck sake,” Darth muttered.

I was sure picking me up from work was easily becoming his not so favourite pastime.