Enzo, p.1
Enzo, page 1
Enzo
Copyright © 2019 K Webster
Cover Design: All By Design
Photo: Adobe Stock
Editor: All About the Edits
Formatting: Champagne Book Design
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information and retrieval system without express written permission from the Author/Publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Synopsis
Dedication
K Webster’s Taboo World
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Playlist
K Webster’s Taboo World
K Webster’s Taboo World Reading List
Books by K Webster
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Jenna’s grown up in the system.
Forced to be tough, wary, and hard.
She’s only been able to count on herself.
Until Enzo.
He’s much older and responsible for looking after her.
What should be a job to him, evolves into much more.
Late night phone calls.
Lingering touches.
A forbidden fire that burns brighter each day.
Everything about him exudes strength.
His will to protect her is more than she could ever ask for.
Sadly, though, even heroes have their limitations.
But she doesn’t need a hero.
She just needs him.
Aunt P,
Sometimes people who yell the loudest have the biggest hearts.
I miss you.
K Webster’s Taboo World
Welcome to my taboo world! These stories began as an effort to satisfy the sweeter side of the taboo cravings in my reader group. The two stories in the duet, Bad Bad Bad, were written off the cuff and on the fly for my group. It was later deemed too hot for Amazon, but can be found on my website for purchase. Since everyone seemed to love the stories so much, I expanded the characters and the world. I’ve been adding new stories ever since. Each book stands alone from the others and doesn’t need to be read in any particular order. I hope you enjoy the naughty characters in this town! These are quick reads sure to satisfy your craving for instalove, smokin’ hot sex, and happily ever afters!
Bad Bad Bad
Coach Long
Ex-Rated Attraction
Mr. Blakely
Malfeasance
Easton
Crybaby
Lawn Boys
Renner’s Rules
The Glue
Dane
Enzo
Several more titles to be released soon!
Thanks for reading!
K
“Just let the good happen.”
Past—Fifteen years old
“They’re not going to keep you.”
I look up from my book to meet the bored stare of my new foster brother, Ryder. He’s thirteen going on thirty. Arrogant for a kid in the same boat as me. Motherless. Fatherless. Hopeless.
“Who says I want to be kept?”
He scowls as though just now realizing I’ll never take the bait. The obnoxious kid and his little brother, Rex, seem to think I’m a threat to their happiness. Truth is, I want to stay under the radar. I’m not here to try and take the favored spot away from them. This isn’t my first rodeo. Same story, different home. Over and over again. I just want to be left alone.
“They want to adopt us, but every time they start talking about it, someone shows up with another kid.” He crosses his arms over his chest and frowns at me, as though this is all my fault.
I close my book and slide off the lumpy bed. I’ve been here six weeks and have yet to try and think of it as home. They’re never home to me. Just a new place to sleep and eat. I’m simply counting down until the day I turn eighteen so I can make my own rules.
“Get out of my room,” I bark out.
“Not your room,” he says coolly, squaring his shoulders.
The kid may be just as tall as me, but I’ve gone up against kids taller, meaner, and crueler.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Room.”
He shoves me. “Make me.”
I fist my hands, ready to pummel this little kid, when we hear commotion downstairs. Adults talking loudly. A baby screaming. Ryder bolts, and I’m on his heels. When we reach the bottom of the stairs, he curses under his breath.
Katrina, my social worker, is talking to my foster mother, Amanda, and her husband, Blake, while holding a screaming infant in her arms. Both Amanda and Blake are stiff and nodding as Katrina somehow speaks over the crying baby to give them information. I don’t make it all out, but I hear some things.
She’ll only be here a few weeks.
She’ll get adopted fast.
They’re heaven-sent for taking her on at the last minute.
The screaming becomes too much and I rush back upstairs. We’re not supposed to close the door, but I do it anyway. I curl up on my bed and hate the way my heart hammers in my chest. Who abandons a little baby?
Bitterness creeps up inside me.
My mom, that’s who.
I was given up for adoption immediately. I’ve been in and out of foster homes ever since. When I was younger, I dreamed my mom had only lost me and that she’d come back for me one day. I held on to that hope for years. It’s what had me acting out when people were trying to help me. I was afraid they were trying to take me before my mom could find me. Sometimes I convinced myself it was my dad who would save me—that he was always looking for his lost little girl. Around the age of thirteen, though, I realized I’d been permanently abandoned. My parents didn’t want me. End of story. And every day since, I’ve been convincing myself I didn’t want them either.
The door swings open and Blake frowns at me. “What’d we say about the door?”
I shrug. Blake and Amanda are young—in their early thirties—and somehow seem to think God called them to foster kids. They drag me to church every Sunday and Wednesday, and are quite sanctimonious, if you ask me. At church, they preen and smile humbly when people tell them how wonderful they are for fostering kids. But at home? At home, they sigh, they cry, they yell, they slam doors. I’ve been here six weeks and the two kids who were here before me have left. Then they got me. Now, they’ve got a screaming banshee.
He grumbles, but starts setting up a piece of equipment on one side of the room in front of the closet. It takes me all of a few seconds to realize it’s a portable baby bed. Ughhhh, no. I do not want that screaming thing in my room. I can still hear it wailing downstairs.
“Katrina said she’ll only be here for a few days,” he explains to me, exasperation in his tone.
“Cool.”
His head snaps my way and he frowns at me. Blake always wears the same look of tired disappointment. Amanda just cries.
I pick my book back up and try to concentrate, but all I can hear is the screaming baby. I wonder if they’ve fed it. Her. Babies need to eat and this one sounds starved.
“Colic,” he grinds out, as if this makes sense to me. “They sent us a baby with colic.”
“Cool,” I utter again because I don’t know why he’s telling me this.
He pinches his thumb in two of the metal pieces on the baby bed and lets out a string of curse words under his breath.
I heard those…
The giggle that escapes me is inappropriate, and it earns me a nasty glare from Blake. As soon as he finishes with the bed, he stalks out of my room. Minutes later, the screaming gets louder as Amanda brings it—her—into my quiet sanctuary. The baby is flailing, red-faced, and wailing.
“Jenna, can you keep an eye on Cora until we can get everything settled with Katrina?” Amanda asks, the exhaustion already bleeding into her every word.
If she’s tired fifteen minutes into this, how will she ever last a few days?
“Thanks,” she clips out as she deposits the infant into the crib and pulls a diaper bag off her shoulder.
The crying doesn’t let up when she leaves. I don’t miss the fact that she closes the door—and breaks her own rule—behind her. From my bed, I stare across the room at the hysterical baby. Her cries are maddening, so I can hardly blame Blake and Amanda for already losing their minds. With a frustrated huff, I stand and walk over to her. I’ve never held a baby before so I struggle for a moment as I pull her into my arms.
It’s then I smell her.
Poop.
Ughhhh.
&
Her crying is still out of control. I’m able to tune it out as I focus on lying her down on my bed to change her. Inside her bag, I find some wipes and diapers and a few changes of clothes. It takes a long time to get all the poop off her red bottom and I’m pretty sure I got some on me, but I finally get her cleaned. Putting the clean diaper on is difficult, but I eventually figure it out. Her crying has softened some but when I start undressing her, it picks back up.
“I’m getting you out of those yucky clothes and into your jammies,” I explain to her, as though she can understand. “You’ll be cozy then, banshee baby.”
Dressing Cora is like dressing one of the old baby dolls I used to play with, except this baby doll screams and kicks and thrashes. Eventually, I’m able to zip her up in some cute onesie jammies with yellow ducks on them.
The door opens and Amanda thrusts a warm bottle at me. “Try giving her this.” Then, she leaves again, making sure to close the door behind her.
Irrational anger surges inside me. Was this how it was with me when I was a baby? Where is Cora’s mother? How could she not want her baby? Tears burn in my eyes but I blink them away as I gently pick her up again. I sit down on my bed with my back against the wall and hold the bottle up.
“Is this what you want?”
Cora opens her mouth, searching, and I tilt the bottle up to offer it to her. The crying is silenced as she greedily gulps down the warm formula. Her lashes are wet with tears but now she stares at me with large, soulful blue eyes. For a second, I’m caught in her stare.
She’s so beautiful.
A little angel with no wings.
“I’m sorry you’re stuck with me,” I tell her softly. “I’m not good at baby stuff, and unfortunately, I don’t think Amanda and Blake are either.” I stroke her silky blonde hair. Yep, definitely an angel. “But I’ll try. While you’re here the next few days, I’ll make sure those dummies don’t forget to feed and change you. Sound like a deal?”
I nudge her flailing fist and she grips my finger. Her blue eyes never leave mine as she drinks from her bottle. Now that she’s clean and no longer screaming, I kind of like her. She’s the only one who doesn’t look at me as though I’m an intruder in this house. This little baby stares at me like I saved her. My heart melts.
“We could stick together,” I propose, smiling at the cute baby.
She pops off the nipple, formula running down her cheek, and grins a toothless smile at me, before searching for it again.
We could stick together.
Until some nice family adopts the pretty little girl.
Everyone needs someone, even if it’s only for a few days.
Right then, as I watch her drink, I make a silent promise to the both of us. I’m going to take care of her until they take her away. Like a little sister. I never had a sister. I never had anyone.
“You can call me Sissy,” I tell her with a smile, and kiss her forehead.
She lets out a tiny sigh and I realize she’s demolished her bottle. Her eyelids grow heavy and she falls asleep in my arms.
My heart stutters in my chest when I realize I don’t want to let her go.
Present
My eyes droop and I try to focus on Coach Long’s lecture about the Rational Zero Theorem, but it’s growing more and more difficult. Last night, Cora was up all night crying. She’s prone to ear infections and when she gets like she was last night, I know she has one. If it were up to me, I’d take her right in to the doctor. But it’s not up to me. I have to convince my foster mother Juanita she needs to go.
Absently, I rub the bruise on my bicep. Juanita is older and uses a cane. And I don’t think the cane is for actual walking. I’ve been hit with her stupid cane more times than I care to admit, but I’d gladly step in front of that cane every damn time to keep her from hitting Cora or the boys. Malachi and Xavier get the cane a lot, though. Cora is just small enough to hide behind one of us, thank God.
My eyes burn from lack of sleep and I yawn. I can feel myself drifting off, thinking about how hot she felt this morning.
“…factors of the leading coefficient…” Coach Long continues on.
After school, I’ll need to hurry. Her pediatrician’s office closes at four. I’ll need time to get home from the bus, light a fire under Juanita, and get her in to be seen. She needs antibiotics.
Another yawn, so wide my eyes water.
I met Cora when she was just five months old. It’s like the system paired us together after that because we bounced from home to home together. Cora and I stayed with Amanda and Blake for a few months until they informed everyone they were adopting Ryder and Rex before getting out of being foster parents for good. God was leading them to adopt, they’d said. Down another path, they’d explained. Cora and I weren’t supposed to be on that path, so Katrina took us down another. Another home, another day.
I try not to think bitter thoughts toward Katrina. It’s not her fault she moved to another state. Yet, she was just one more adult who abandoned us in our life. Cora and I were both assigned a new caseworker.
Lorenzo Tauber.
Closing my eyes, I can’t help but think of him. Mr. Tauber is hot. No way around it. When he’d introduced himself as my new caseworker, I laughed in his face. The guy looked better suited for a freaking runway, not catering to unwanted children. He’s been our caseworker for several months now, and I’d been embarrassed he was a part of the transition from our last home to Juanita’s. I still remember the sad way he looked at me. As though, for once in my life, someone might care enough to do something permanently helpful in my life.
But then he left. Dropped Cora and I off with only a few words of encouragement. As though his words would fix everything.
“Hang in there.”
I let out a derisive snort that earns me a warning glare from Coach Long. Several students snigger at my outburst.
Tauber was wrong though. His words didn’t do a damn thing. He’d left us with Juanita and her stupid cane.
My head throbs slightly and I rub at my temples, closing my eyes. One day—only a couple of months from now—I’m going to turn eighteen and I’ll get us out of this place. I’ll adopt Cora and we’ll move someplace happy. She can have all the cookies she wants and will never be told no. We’ll spend our days swinging, chasing crickets, and singing songs.
“Detention, Miss Pruitt. After school.”
I blink open my eyes and gape up at the man glowering down at me. “W-What?”
“You seem to think laughing in my class and then sleeping through it are acceptable. Not in my class,” he snarls, before storming back to the front of the classroom.
Tears threaten and I sit up abruptly. I can’t stay after school. I have to get back to Juanita and convince her to take Cora to the doctor. This is terrible timing.
If we miss seeing the doctor today, Cora’s temperature will keep spiking. She’ll scream endlessly in pain. This can all be avoided if these adults would wake the hell up. A tear streaks down my cheek and I hastily swipe it away. One girl named Winter frowns at me. She’s usually the troublemaker in Coach’s class. I may have a mouth on me sometimes, but I don’t ever jeopardize my time with Cora.
“Are you okay?” she whispers to me.
I nod and bite on my lip to keep from crying as the bell rings and everyone stands up. Winter hands me a piece of paper with her phone number on it. I don’t have the heart to tell her I don’t have a cell phone or access to one. Instead, I fold it and tuck it into my ratty black hoodie.
Coach Long ignores me as he stalks over to his desk. As soon as the room empties out, I stand and rush over to him.
“C-Coach,” I start, my voice hoarse with emotion. “Please don’t give me detention. I—”
“The crying act doesn’t work with me,” he says in a cold tone, not making eye contact as he flips through some papers.
“Please,” I cry out, “you can’t do this.”
His glare snaps to me. “This is my classroom, Miss Pruitt. You sleep and goof off, you get detention. I told you this from day one. It’s not a secret.”
