Family Bonds- Emma & Warren (Amore Island #22)

Prologue

“ H i, Warren.”

“Hey, Bailey. What can I get you?”

Bailey placed her arms on the high deli counter, leaned in, and tried to give him a good view of her cleavage while she looked in at the meats. She came in often to flirt with him while he worked.

He didn’t have time to flirt, date, or even hang out with his friends. He’d finished practice at four-fifteen, jogged the mile home, showered quickly, then walked the block to his part-time job, getting there right before his shift started at five.

He’d bust his ass while on the clock and not be distracted by anything.

Including the hot cheerleader everyone wanted, and it seemed she only had eyes for him.

“I’ll take a ham and cheese,” Bailey said. “Do you have to work late tonight?”

“Until nine,” he said. The mini mart closed at ten, but he didn’t stay that late; he couldn’t at sixteen years old.

“That’s a bummer,” Bailey said, batting her eyes. It looked more like rapid blinking to him. She should probably work harder at that skill.

He pulled the ham out and started to slice it, then the cheese, and assembled her sub the way he knew she liked it. She’d been a regular since he started working here six months ago.

“Yep,” he said. “It is what it is.”

Warren wasn’t going to cry to anyone about his life. It was pointless, as nothing would change.

When her sub was done, she walked to the large cooler, pulled out a raspberry iced tea, and moved to the checkout counter where he was waiting for her.

“Do you have to work Saturday?” Bailey asked, cocking her hip slightly. “Ava is having a party because her parents are out of town.”

“I do,” he said. “Most of the day.”

He took a double shift because he couldn’t work on Friday nights due to his games this time of year.

“Maybe you can still stop over after,” Bailey said, angling her head and grinning. Her teeth came out to pull her bottom lip in.

“We’ll see,” he said, ringing her up and handing over the change after she’d paid.

“See you around,” Bailey said, giving him a little wave. Her hips were swaying more than normal, but he turned to go back to his job.

The door opened before he made it to the counter to clean up the remains of the sub he’d assembled when he saw the man who walked in.

Fuck. Talk about distractions.

“Warren,” his father said. “Can’t wait to see your game tomorrow. Last Friday was great. It was like looking in the mirror at myself.”

“No,” he said shortly. “Not even close.”

“Well,” his father said, “we did play different positions, but I’d like to think you got your moves from me.”

Slick Showers, nicknamed that due to his smooth slick moves on the field sidestepping tackles, was nothing more than a deadbeat Dad to him.

In Warren’s eyes, the slick stood for slime that slid through your fingers when you tried to pin him down to be a man and support his family.

“As I said,” he said, “not even close.” He looked down to see the amount for the gas pump. “It’s twenty. Do you have money for Mom this week?”

He wasn’t sure the last time his mother said his father paid any support for him and his sisters. Warren contributed more to the household from his part-time job.

His mother refused to take the money, so he used it for food or necessities his sisters might need so that his mother could keep the roof over their heads on her income as an LPN.

“I’m a little short,” his father said, handing over a fifty.

He took it out of his father’s hand, his eyes drilling into the older man who’d abandoned them for the bottle years ago.

He counted out the change and put it out to his father. “A little goes a long way,” he said stiffly.

His father looked over at Warren’s boss, then said, “Keep it. Give it to your mother.”

“Yeah,” he said. Warren wouldn’t thank the man. He shouldn’t have to ask him for the money.

He didn’t even want to do that, but he hadn’t lied. That money could be stretched here at the mini mart for food since the owner let him buy what he wanted at cost.

“Everything okay?” Zach Brown asked him. Zach had gone to school with his father, knew the asshole that he was birthed from, and had offered Warren this job the day he turned sixteen.

Zach was more of a father figure to him than his dad would ever be.

“It’s all good,” he said to Zach.

Zach nodded his head, and Warren went back to work.

He didn’t want to cause a scene or bring trouble to anyone.

He had a way out of here for himself and his family and couldn’t risk it.

At the end of his shift, he’d spent the thirty dollars on the essentials. Milk, bread, cereal, some sandwich meat for lunches, and candy bars for his mother and sisters. They’d like the treat.

He wasn’t filling his body full of processed junk while he was training.

Football was his way out of this hellhole and there were a lot of things he had going for him as an aspiring pro athlete that his father didn’t.

Did he get pure talent from the man?

He did. But Warren got drive, determination, and commitment from his mother and he was going to make sure he exhausted it all to give his family a better life.

“That’s a lot of food,” his mother said when he walked in the door twenty minutes after his shift. “And you carried it home? I told you not to spend your money on us. You should have called for a ride on top of it.”

He considered it part of his workout routine to carry the four bags a block home to their small rented house.

“It’s from Sean,” he said. He wouldn’t call the guy Dad.

“Your father dropped money off?” his mother asked.

He started to unload the few bags.

“He came in for gas and handed over his change to me. He probably won’t return or at least won’t do it and hand me a fifty again.”

His mother laughed and put the groceries away. “Who intimidated him into giving you the money? You or Zach?”

He laughed. “We both might have been staring him down. No one forced his hand though.” Maybe the prick had a tiny conscience that was knocked loose.

“Zach never liked your father in school,” his mother said.

“Maybe you should have listened to Zach back then too,” he said.

“Warren,” his mother said. “We can’t change the past. I wouldn’t have you, Stephanie, and Stacy if I hadn’t dated your father in high school.”

The football star and cheerleader who got knocked up.

He wouldn’t be repeating history like his parents.

Thankfully his mother was at BOCES getting her certification to be an LPN, which gave her a decent enough job in this area. Just not enough to support four mouths.

His father? Warren wasn’t sure what the man was doing right now and didn’t care.

That man could go fuck himself and he’d make sure no one ever compared the two of them again.