Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance by Black, L. (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

Jordan moved around his kitchen scavenging for ingredients he could turn into breakfast. Eventually, I got up and helped him start organizing what he had spread out on the counter.

“I spend so much time at the bar that I don’t end up doing a lot of cooking here,” he said.

“I can see that,” I teased. “But you’ve got some good stuff here. We can work with this.”

He smiled at me, and we went to work piecing together the ingredients he had and making them into a spread of breakfast dishes. They might not have all been the most cohesive options, but it was something.

We laughed and joked our way through making breakfast, then spread it all out on his table so we could eat. As we ate, we talked about the safe kinds of topics that kept us away from acknowledging what happened the night before. But that couldn’t last forever.

As we finished up washing the dishes after breakfast, Jordan looked over at me.

“You can stay with me for a little while if you need to,” he said. “If it would make you feel safer to not go back home for a bit until you know he’s not in town anymore.”

The offer made my heart swell. I smiled at him, so grateful in that moment just to have found all the amazing people I had here in Astoria. Especially him.

“Thank you,” I said. “Truthfully, I might have to take you up on that. I’m not sure right now, but I’ll let you know.”

Jordan reached over and ran his hand down the side of my face, pausing for just a second to look into my eyes in a way that made me melt.

“Anything you need is yours,” he said.

I was about to lean in to kiss him when my phone rang in the bedroom. I let out a little groan, and Jordan laughed, kissing me on the tip of my nose before taking the last of the plates from my hand so he could dry it and put it away. I went into the bedroom and searched around on the floor, trying to find where my phone ended up. By the time I found it, it had stopped ringing.

Swiping my finger across the screen, I brought up the missed call log and saw it was from Samantha. Before I was even able to call her back, the phone rang again. I answered it on the first ring.

“Hey, Samantha. I’m sorry I missed your call,” I said.

“Are you okay?” she asked before I could even get the words all the way out of my mouth.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Good. I need you to keep your eyes open and be ready. I don’t mean to scare you, but I just found out that Ethan took off. Nobody knows where he is or where he was going. I’m afraid he’s headed there to you.”

“He was,” I said.

“What?” The word sounded choked in her throat. “Is he there?”

“He’s not here right now,” I said. “But he showed up at my house last night. It was pretty nasty, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Nothing serious happened.”

“Oh, my God. I can’t believe he came all the way out there just to chase you. What did he say? What did he do? Is he still in town?” Samantha asked.

She was right on the edge of completely freaking out, and it felt like I needed to calm her down. I was safe there with Jordan.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It was scary at the moment, but I got through it and I’m fine. I’m staying at a friend’s house for a while, and he doesn’t know I’m here. I’ll be okay. I’ll just lay low until Ethan gets tired of hanging around here without getting to me and leaves.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Absolutely. He won’t be able to hold out his patience for long. You know that about him. He’ll get tired of not getting what he wants, and hopefully he’ll just slink away without incident.”

“I hope so,” Samantha said. “But be careful. Make sure you’re watching out.”

“I will be,” I said. “I promise. Don’t worry about me.”

I got off the phone, and Jordan stepped into the room.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“That was just Samantha,” I said. “My best friend from back home. She was calling to let me know that Ethan ran off, and she was worried that he might be headed this way.”

That afternoon, Jordan brought me back by my house to get ready for work, and then we drove to The Hollow together. We settled into the routine of getting the bar ready for the evening crowds, and I had all but put the incident of the night before behind me when I looked up and saw Ethan walk through the door.

He looked at me but walked right past and headed for a recently vacated table. I stared at him for a few seconds, wanting to be stunned by his brazenness. But I couldn’t be. This was just the way he was. It would probably have been more frightening if he hadn’t shown up. Then I would have had to wonder where he was and when he was going to appear.

This way I had the chance to nip this in the bud and move forward.

Finishing the drink I was working on when he came in, I handed it to the customer and walked around from behind the bar to Ethan’s table. He looked up at me with a smug smile when I got there.

“Hi, Hannah,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

He looked around, holding up his hands like he was encompassing the bar, and gave me an innocent look. “What do you mean? I just came by to enjoy a beer and check out what I hear is the number one bar in Astoria.”

“You need to leave,” I said. “Right now.”

I thought I would be more afraid when I spoke to him,