Page 19 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Thirteen

Stay the fuck out of my bubble.

—Sutton to Jackson

SUTTON

He kept glancing into his side mirror, and I started to get a little worried.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I looked into my own side mirror.

There was a black SUV following us, but they weren’t doing anything scary.

“SUV behind us has been following us for the last ten minutes,” he said as he put on his blinker.

I watched the SUV do the same in my side mirror.

“What do you think they want?”

He sighed, long and loud. “Unfortunately, I forgot to mention a few things.”

I whipped my head toward him. “What?”

“I have two elderly stalkers,” he admitted resignedly. “They follow me everywhere I go, take pictures of me. Have their private investigator follow me. Stake out Lottie’s daycare.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Why?”

“Lottie’s mom, Laney, was estranged from her parents when she passed away.

She was estranged because her parents were overbearing assholes who wanted to control her every move.

They hated her friends—Audric and Creole.

They hated Creole’s mom and dad. They hated Audric’s dad.

They hated even more that Laney was using the money that was given to her out of her inheritance from her grandmother to pay off debts for both Creole and Audric.

Then, they hated even more that the money that they wanted to be theirs went to their firstborn granddaughter.

Now, they want to have custody of Lottie so they can control her inheritance and likely brainwash her to think like them.

But they’ve tried and failed to get custody of her multiple times now.

But they’re still trying to find something that’ll prove I’m a bad father.

Getting sued is a little overdue, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried that again today. ”

“You’re joking, right?” she asked.

“Unfortunately not,” he grumbled as he pulled into the Mexican restaurant. “We’ll linger outside for a few moments to see if they’ll approach. That way they don’t make a scene while we’re trying to enjoy our queso.”

I shook my head and got out, my eyes on the black SUV that parked a few rows down from ours.

Gunner didn’t seem surprised in the least to find a man looking all official like getting out of the SUV and heading our way.

He also didn’t seem surprised to find an older couple following the man, their faces smug as fuck.

God, what assholes!

“Lottie coming into my life was amazing. Lottie’s maternal grandparents coming with her, not so much,” he murmured as they got closer.

The older woman behind must’ve heard his words, because her face soured.

“Mr. Penn,” the older man beside the smug-faced woman said.

“We have an emergency hearing in the morning to discuss your inability to parent Lottie sufficiently.

The judge, as well as us, feel like you are gone too much to provide the kind of care that your daughter needs.

He agrees with our worry that you leave Lottie at daycare too long—sometimes twelve hours a day is completely ridiculous—and he thinks that she will have a better life with two very fit grandparents who are able and willing to give her a stable home where she can be taken care of at home instead of being raised by daycare workers.

“You’ve been served, Mr. Penn.”

Gunner didn’t reach to take it.

Also, I didn’t move, because if I did, I would explode and punch that smug look off that bitch’s old face.

“She’s there for two days a week, and only once was she there for twelve hours. That was the day that I was stuck in a wreck on the interstate,” Gunner snarled. “She’s in my arms every day by four in the afternoon, and I take her to work with me.”

“That’s another concerning factor, yes. It’s unsafe to have her with you,” the bitch of a “grandmother” said.

“We’re also worried that she has no female influence, and she gets bounced around through your disgusting, criminal club too much.

We’re bringing all of our grievances to the judge, and we will be discussing this in detail tomorrow.

But let’s just say that Lottie will thrive more with two solid people living with her, where she doesn’t have to wonder where she’s staying that day.

She can be at home, with us, twenty-four-seven.

You can’t offer her that, but we can. Do the right thing, Mr. Penn. ”

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“Oh, well, that’s false information then,” I purred. “We’re getting married as soon as we figure out a date and Lottie is already expecting a younger brother or sister, so she won’t be alone at all. She’ll have a sibling to love on in the very near future.

“Oh, well, that’s weird.” I turned so I could bat my eyes at Gunner. “They don’t count you having a fiancée that lives with you as a positive female influence?”

Gunner’s eyes met mine, and luckily he was able to hide his confusion.

“Apparently not,” he drawled. “I guess having a part-time working stepmom living with you who is a medalist in the Olympics isn’t all that positive.”

I tapped my lips. “You’re right. But we can also talk about how we’re expecting a little brother or sister for Lottie soon, and how their grandparents want to take her away so she can’t spend time with him or her.”

Gunner stiffened slightly, but I’d gone too far to back down now.

“Thank you for serving these in enough time that we could bring this up with our lawyer,” I said as I took the papers from the uncomfortable-looking, official-looking man. “We are sorry that you had to be pulled into the middle of this farce.”

The man backed away once he no longer had the papers.

I turned to pat Gunner on the chest. “Let’s call our lawyer, honey. We don’t want to wait on this. She needs time to prepare.”

“You’re joking, right?”

I turned to survey the older couple.

I wasn’t sure of their names.

All I knew was that the man I was currently hanging on had suffered enough.

An intense wave of anger overwhelmed me, and I squared my shoulders and narrowed my eyes at them.

“No, we’re not kidding,” I snapped. “Who should be kidding is you. What kind of vicious attack dogs are y’all?

What you should be thinking about right now is that Lottie just found Gunner.

She’s spent her entire small life up in the air, because her mother died before she was born.

Her father, or who she thought was her father, wasn’t her father.

And Audric struggled greatly with finding his actual father, Gunner.

Gunner then had to find out that he had a daughter, after he’d always thought that he would never be a father again.

” I moved closer, my finger raised in the air between us.

“Do you think that it’s not going to come out in court that this man behind me is a great father?

That he busted his hump from a very young age to provide his son with everything that one could need or want?

A son who then died in a tragic school shooting at the age of five.

This man behind me has spent years trying to make up for the loss of his son’s life.

He’s gone from school to school to school all over the continental United States.

He’s sacrificed. He’s struggled. He’s spent his own millions on making schools a safer place.

So parents like you don’t ever have to know what it feels like to lose their child to a school shooting.

Shame on you for trying to take his newly found daughter away from him.

I’m sure you have no clue.” I moved even closer and felt a finger loop through the belt loop of my jeans, holding me so that I couldn’t get any closer to the assholes in front of me, “what it feels like to lose a child.” I narrowed my eyes.

“Because you would have to have a heart to feel something like that. But you’re trying to make this man suffer through it for a second time?

What kind of monsters does that make you? ”

The grandmother narrowed her eyes. “You don’t know us!”

“I know enough,” I snapped. “I know that you have no morals. I know that if you truly cared, you would’ve been there from the beginning, and maybe if you’d been nice on how you went about it, Gunner wouldn’t be fighting you back tooth and nail.

I know that there wouldn’t be lawyers involved because Gunner is a nice man.

He knows that this would be hard for normal people.

However, the fact that he’s having to fight this in court means to me that he’s tried doing this the nice way, and you wouldn’t let him.

Therefore, he’s having to get a lawyer to fight for custody of his child.

Meanwhile, that child is so damn happy. She loves him like the air she breathes. You are truly missing out.”

The woman fisted her hands, and somehow I just knew that she was going to hit me.

And she did.

She reached out and raised her hand, swung, and connected with my face.

I let it happen because that would look good in court.

A grandmother fighting for custody of her grandchild, raising a hand to that child’s future stepmom? Yeah, because moving her in with them would make her “safer.”

“I know that you better get her the fuck away from here, right now, or I might very well retaliate against you, Luciano,” Gunner growled, pulling me back into the protective curve of his arms.

Both of his hands went to my hips, and he pulled me in tight enough that I could feel him from shoulder blade to knee.

His hand went to my face, and his cool fingers pressed against my heated cheek.

“Paula,” Luciano hissed at his wife. “What has gotten into you?”

“Them!” she snarled. “They have! I can’t believe this. Just when we have her where…”

She trailed off and zipped her lips, but she’d said enough.

I knew what she was going to say.

Just when they had Lottie where they wanted her—on the fast track to their “loving” arms—I’d thrown a wrench into their plan.

Good.

Fuckers.

I hoped that they stepped on a Lego when they got home.

Luciano dragged Paula away, and Gunner waited until they were in their car again—with the shocked looking man who’d delivered the paperwork earlier—before he turned my face toward his so he could survey it.

“Fucking bitch,” he murmured softly as he lightly swept his fingers over my cheek.

It stung, but in the end, I thought it was worth it.

“Quick, take a picture,” I urged as I pulled away from him.

Or tried to.

He held on to me with his one arm around my waist and held me there until he was done inspecting my face.

He let me go reluctantly and then reached into his pocket for his phone.

He snapped a picture before he hit a number on his phone and speed dialed a man named Malone.

Except, the person who answered definitely wasn’t a man.

“Gunner, I’m already on top of it,” she said quickly. “I have everyone working double time to get us ready for tomorrow. Do you—”

Gunner cut her off, telling her exactly what happened.

“Are you telling me you’re going to have to move some random woman into your house to sell this?” Malone sounded amused.

“She’s not a random woman, and she was already moving into my house anyway,” he said. “Sutton is a friend from high school. She needed a place to stay, and her parents offered free babysitting. I could hardly say no.”

The way he winked at me had my stomach somersaulting.

“Okay, good,” she said. “Because I would highly recommend y’all actually moving in together. Those creeps follow you around twenty-four-seven. And at this point, I think that we need to address that in court, too.”

“She’s movin’ in,” he confirmed. “Do you want me to send you the photo of her cheek?”

“Oh, yes.” Malone actually sounded excited. “I most definitely want you to send it to me. This is going to be gold tomorrow.”

After a few more minutes, Malone hung up with a promise to meet him at the courthouse tomorrow morning.

I waited, shifting from foot to foot, as reality set in, and I realized that I’d insinuated myself into Gunner’s life when he hadn’t asked for me to.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted the moment that the phone call ended. “I just saw red, and I started talking before my mouth could control itself.”

His eyes twinkled.

“You’re not really pregnant, are you?”

I snorted. “No. I have one last Olympics in two years. I can’t afford to be pregnant. Hence the birth control in my uterus.”

“Then I’m not worried about what you said,” he offered. “Honestly, it actually kind of helps.”

My shoulders slumped. “Let’s go have some Mexican food.”

He offered me his arm, and together we walked inside.

And we enjoyed the hell out of some Mexican food.