Read Online Unsteady (The Torqued Trilogy Book 1) by Shey Stahl - Free Book Online Page B

off the door frame and onto my arm. Her eyes immediately go to my forearm and the tattoos on it. All women stare at my tattoos. Probably trying to decipher what they are and their meaning. “Can I get an Americano and a chocolate donut for the little one?” I gesture in the backseat with a nod to Nova, who’s fully engrossed in my cell phone and the game she’s playing.
    Jessie leans out the window. “Hey, Nova.”
    Nova gives a nod, but doesn’t even say hi, or look up from my phone. Little shit. Laying my right hand over the back of the seat, I nudge her foot. “Don’t be a brat. At least say hi.”
    Nova raises her eyes to Jessie. “Hi.” And then drops her stare back to the phone.
    Jessie laughs it off, but I still feel bad. Nova has a tendency to be standoffish with women. I don’t know if this is because for the most part, the only ones she’s around are my mom and Raven. Or because she has a good bullshit detector and can tell a lot of the women she meets are trying to get to her daddy.
    When I turn back to Jessie to hand her money, she’s still hanging out the window with my coffee and Nova’s donut reaching out to me; her breasts pushed up to the point her cleavage is all I see. Can’t look anywhere else at that point.
    I’m not sure what to say, or do, but it’s pretty fucking obvious she did that on purpose to get me to look, and it worked.
    I grab my coffee and donut and hold the twenty up. Her fingers brush mine as she takes it. “Thanks… I’ll be right back with your change,” she says, and winks back at me.
    When she returns with my money, I eye her chest once more and then look out the windshield after tipping her.
    I know I’m a good-looking man, and it seems being a single dad just adds to the appeal. Which I guess is the reason I have half the girls under twenty-five in Lebanon chasing me around. The thing is, I’m not overly nice or flirty to any of them. Why is it they take that as an invitation to show me their breasts?
    “Daddy?”
    “Yes, darlin’?” My eyes raise to the rearview mirror to Nova seated in the backseat, only she doesn’t look up.
    “Do you like that girl?”
    She asks me this a lot. “No, why would you ask that?”
    Nova shrugs. “She seems to like you.”
    “Who doesn’t like me?” I tease.
    My kid doesn’t think I’m funny. “I don’t like you sometimes.”
    “Like when?”
    “Like when you make me go to daycare.”
    And we’re back to that. Every day it’s a struggle to get Nova to daycare. She wants to spend the day at the shop with my mom and sister, and while I allow it on Fridays, we can’t do it every day because it’s a place of business and needs to stay that way. If I start letting Nova come to work with me every day, I’d never get anything done. She has a tendency to come out of the office and watch us work, which isn’t watching. It’s playing with our tools and hiding them in places that takes us days to find.
     

    “DON’T HIT OR punch anyone today,” I tell Nova when we’re in the car outside Elle’s house. My eyes are on the house when I turn off the ignition and look at Nova standing up in the backseat as she grabs her backpack she insists on taking with her.
    Her lips part in surprise as she hands me back my cell phone, her hands placed belligerently on her tiny hips. “You’re putting too much pressure on me. What if he hits me first?”
    “Well then deck the little jerk.”
    I probably shouldn’t be provoking her because I know what’s gonna happen. She’s going to pretend he threw the first punch. She’s sneaky like that.
    Knowing it’s nearing eight, I need to get to the shop, but I also need to talk to Elle about yesterday and what the heck is going on with Nova and Kale.
    Once we’re in the house, Nova jets in the direction of the Littlest Pet Shop toys she always plays with as I approach Elle, who is attempting to clean strawberry jam off a toddler’s face. “Hey, Red,” she says, standing from