Hence the other reason I’d decided to agree to Reggie’s pleading rather than tell her no like I’d wanted to.
“I did.” Travis’ deep voice had my heart fluttering.
Hell, anything the man did made my heart flutter.
We were right there, almost in this exact same spot, when I’d met him for the second time.
And the same thing happened then as it had today.
***
387 days ago
“You’re the one who has holes in her scrubs,” my new co-worker, Wednesday, commented dryly. “You asked where the best place to go was, and I, being the nice person that I am, volunteered to take you.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I told her. “Okay?”
She rolled her eyes and started walking away, not bothering to look back.
I looked in disgust at the mall.
I hated shopping. I hated crowds, and most of all, I hated being in a mall that had me only inches away from the most fattening food in the city.
My eyes kept going back from the cookie display, to the way that Wednesday headed without me.
I was having a long, stern talk with myself about how much I did not need a cookie. But I couldn’t help it.
They had my favorite. Double Doozies. With the chocolate icing instead of the white.
Oh, my God. They were so good.
And normally I could walk right past this display and not have a problem. Today, however, I was on my period. Today, I was feeling sorry for myself.
Today marked two entire days since I’d had one hell of a conversation with the hottest man alive.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Every time I turned around, my thoughts would stray to him. What was he doing? Where was he at? Would I ever see him again?
Annoyed with myself, I tried to take a step away but was held up by a male body sidling up beside me.
Which was the excuse I needed to stay.
Maybe just one tiny cookie. They made the ones they called the ‘Mini Doozies.’ Maybe just one…
“What are you getting?”
“I think one of the Doozies,” I murmured, then stopped and turned when I realized that it wasn’t the man behind the counter that had asked me that question, but the one standing beside me.
The moment that I saw his face, my breath stalled in my chest.
“I’m going to get a slice of the cake,” he murmured, winking. “Are you getting the big one or the ‘mini’ one?” He paused. “I’ve had both. They don’t taste the same. I think you should get the big one, and maybe just eat a quarter of it if you’re planning on going with the mini.”
I laughed.
“You think that if I have an entire giant-sized Double Doozie that I’ll be able to eat ‘just a quarter?’” I questioned him.
Was he crazy?
He shrugged. “You’re in incredible shape. Figure that you are able to control your appetite.”
I snorted. “Yeah, that’s a big fat no.”
He grunted.
“And it’s even worse when I’m on my period, like today,” I mentioned.
That was when I realized that I just told the man that was sexy as sin that I was on my period…like he would want to know that.
Oh, God.
If the ground could open up and swallow me whole, that’d be great.
“Good to know,” Travis said, not cracking a joke or even a smile. “My sister liked those.”
He pointed at the red velvet brownies, and I scrunched up my nose. “I’m not that fond of them myself.”
In fact, if there was one thing on this entire shelf display that I did not like, it was those.
When I was pregnant with Reggie, those had been the only thing that I could stomach for over a month, and throughout the rest of my pregnancy, I’d eaten them over and over and over again.
If I never saw another one of them again, it’d be too soon.
“Who’s next?”
I gestured for Travis to go—mostly because I wanted to check his ass out without him noticing—and he stepped forward. He said something quietly to the cashier who nodded, reached for two Double Doozies, took two slices of cookie cake, and then rang it all up.
When Travis turned around, my eyes snapped up to his and a guilty look crossed over my face at him catching me checking him out.
He didn’t so much as tease me.
Instead, he handed over the Double Doozies he’d just ordered and walked away without saying a word, leaving me to watch.
“Man’s hot.”
I turned to the chick behind the counter and nodded.
“He is.”
***
Present day
And he still was hot. Even a year later, he was hot as sin.
Sure, he was a little grayer around the temples, but a crazy ex-wife, a kid that hated you, and a newborn, would do that to a man.
Without even asking, he walked up to the cookie counter and ordered some cookies, even going as far as to have the worker make a Double Doozie with chocolate icing because he knew what I liked and they’d run out.
When he handed over my Doozie, as well as Reggie’s, he winked. “Where to now?”
I licked my lips and looked away, my heart starting to ache.
God, I loved this man.
I loved him with my whole heart and soul, but I couldn’t be with him.
It was the worst kind of situation anybody could ever be in.
And I couldn’t even leave at this point because I had a kid with him, and I’d be no better than stupid Allegra if I did that to him.
So I stayed, despite my heart hurting each and every time I saw him.
“Crazy 8, I guess,” I croaked. “If she doesn’t find anything there, we’ll go to Kohl’s.”
And that’s what we did.
To all passersby, we were like one nice, big, happy family.
Only, they’d be wrong.
Chapter 5
I’m confident my last words will be, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
-Travis’ secret thoughts
Travis
370 days ago
It was the first time I’d seen her with her kid.
It was the first time she’d seen me with mine.
“You look a little lost,” she said to me.
I gave her a dry look.
“What gave that away?” I teased.
She looked at me, surrounded by all the other moms at their Mommy & Me Tea Party at the school, and grinned.
“I think it was the fact that you’re the only man in a roomful of moms,” she countered back.
I winked at her and turned back to my tea.
I didn’t like tea. Well, let me rephrase that. I liked tea. What I did not like was tea that was not sweet. This green tea, or Earl Grey, or whatever the fuck it was, tasted like mold.
What I wouldn’t do for a huge glass of McDonald’s sweet tea right now to wash this disgusting taste out of my mouth. Or a beer, but I highly doubted that the school would approve of me bringing a cooler full of ice cold beer to their stupid Mommy & Me Tea bullshit.
However, there was not a single thing in the world that I wouldn’t do for my little girl, and if I had to sit at a Mommy & Me Tea brunch date with her at her school to make her smile, then I’d fucking do it. Twice, if I had to.
It had never occurred to me that she would be there, though.
She didn’t look like she’d had a kid, let alone did she look old enough to have one that was the same age as mine!
But it was what it was, and now I had something pretty to stare at beside my kid who was clearly not too happy being where she was at, and with who she was with.
She wanted her mother here.
I’d wanted her mother here.
Allegra, however, had something pressing to do, and decided to do that instead of this.
Knowing what this meant to my
kid, I’d decided to bite the bullet and come. Unfortunately, I was straight off of a job, and I was covered in grease. It was ground into my pants, covered my shirt, and I was fairly sure that I had it in my hair.
Alex, being the phobic girl that she was, refused to even give me a hug.
A trait that came from her fucking mother. Her fucking mother who refused to do the exact same thing when I was dirty like I was, too.
Was it too hard to ask for a fuckin’ hug after a long day at work? Was it too much to ask for a woman to not care if her clothes got dirty?
Because that’s what I wanted. A woman that was going to love me unconditionally—dirt and all.
But Allegra had shown her true colors over and over again, and I fucking hated…
“You want some of mine?”
I looked over to find her pulling a chair out, sitting at the tiny mini-human desk right beside me.
She looked funny with her knees up by her chest, and I was sure that I looked just as silly—if not sillier.
“Yours what?” I questioned, looking at her.
“My tea.” She shook the glass.
I stared at the McDonald’s cup in reverence.
“What do you have?” I questioned.
She rolled her eyes and held out the glass. “Sweet tea.”
“You read my mind,” I told her but didn’t reach to take the glass. “But no, I’m not going to take your glass.”
She shook the cup, and the ice and tea inside of the cup swished. “Come on. I’m not going to drink any more. I’ve already had three of them when I had lunch with Wednesday.”
“Who is Wednesday?” Alex asked, a slight sneer in her voice. “What kind of name is Wednesday, anyway?”
Hannah’s eyes turned from me to my kid’s, and she grinned, smiling so beautifully that my heart actually squeezed.
“Have you ever seen the Addams Family?” she questioned. “There’s a girl that’s around your age in it. Her name was Wednesday.”
Alex didn’t crack a smile or even act like she was interested in anything that Hannah had to say.
In fact, the moment that Hannah started to talk, she turned her head away and looked at the women across the room from us.
I didn’t need to look at those women. They were friends of Allegra’s and had already expressed their distaste with having me here instead of Allegra—luckily not in front of my child, at least.
“Are you going to drink that, Mister?”
I looked over to see Hannah’s child staring at me expectantly.
I grinned and pushed my cup and saucer in her direction. “Have at it, pretty girl.”
That term of endearment had Alex’s head whipping around like I’d said something naughty, and I guess that in Alex terms, I might have.
Sweet Girl had been her nickname, along with many others that I’d termed her over the years since she’d been alive.
I hadn’t called her ‘Sweet Girl’ in a long time, and likely she realized that.
If I was being honest, Alex hadn’t been ‘sweet’ for a while.
Her mother had ruined her. Treated her like she was some higher person in society and like her shit didn’t stink.
Allegra and I had split a while ago—years if we were counting the amount of time in which we’d been together but not ‘together,’ at least in the biblical sense.
Since we’d separated, and later divorced, Allegra had made it a point to mold my daughter into the little asshole she’d turned into. It sucked. I missed my little girl.
This staring, glaring, name calling kid wasn’t the one that I knew and loved.
Sure, I still loved Alex, no matter what. But this kid wasn’t the one that had begged me to take her fishing. Wasn’t the one that had pleaded with me to ride in my ‘toe tuck.’
She was Allegra’s child. She was everything that I hated in Allegra.
“Thank you!” Hannah’s girl smiled, her flashy white teeth revealing one single tooth missing.
Which reminded me.
“Oh, hey, baby,” I turned to Alex. “Did the Tooth Fairy bring you some money for your lost tooth?”
I’d gotten a text from Allegra that Alex had lost her first tooth about a week ago. Yes, you heard that right. A week ago.
“The Tooth Fairy isn’t real, Dad.” Alex’s snide comment had me clenching my fists. “You know how Mommy doesn’t like to lie to me.”
Unlike you was left unsaid.
Excuse the fuck out of me if I wanted my kid to believe in the unreal for just a little bit longer. Excuse-fucking-me!
“What?” Hannah’s little girl asked in dejected surprise. “Mama?”
I winced, forgetting for a moment that we weren’t alone.
I looked over to Hannah apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “We’re just gonna go sit over there.”
I got up and gave Alex a glare that clearly meant ‘move your ass or I’ll beat it.’
She moved.
I sat down on the next stupid white chair and turned my angry eyes to Alex.
“You know,” I told her, “that was a jerk move.”
Alex batted her eyelashes. “I don’t like her.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Who?”
“Either.”
“Why?” I questioned. “What did they ever do to you?”
Alex crossed her arms over her chest, and the move let her shirt that was already too low for my taste to begin with fall down even lower.
I held my tongue. Barely.
“Why are you even here?” she countered, refusing to answer my question.
“I’m here because I know that this meant so much to you,” I told her honestly. “And I know that you said something about wanting to go.”
She looked down at her lap, a trace of discomfort gracing her face before it fled altogether.
I could see the moment that she decided to be ugly instead of apologizing.
“Well, I don’t want you here.”
Two hours later, I was thankful that I had the choice of whether to take Alex home or not.
Thankfully, her mother would be here to pick her up from the Mommy and Me class, because I was so ready to go it wasn’t even funny.
My daughter was acting like a royal asshole, and I didn’t want to be around her any longer.
Sure, after I calmed down, I would be back to loving my kid no matter what, but right now, with her anger and rude words that she’d tossed at me over the last two hours, I was ready for it to be over.
I looked down and away from Allegra’s car, knowing from experience if I let her see me and stopped, I would be forced to talk to her.
I thought I’d gotten away with it, too. But then I heard my name.
I hesitated, but it was enough for Allegra to notice me. Then call out to me.
“You’re being paged,” Hannah whispered.
I felt Hannah’s hand on my bicep, and turned, pausing in my death march.
“I hear,” I muttered darkly. “I’m heading over now.”
She patted my arm and started to go, but I stopped her by reaching for her retreating hand.
“I’m sorry again for what Alex said,” I told her. “She’s been so rude lately, to everyone including me. But I never in a million years would’ve thought she’d reveal something like that.”
She smiled and reached up to pull a white string off the side of my shirt before replying.
“It’ll be okay. Reggie’s a tough girl. Reggie and I come from tough stock.”
I sighed. “Just wish you didn’t have to. She disappointed me today, and I’ll have a talk with her mother to be sure that that doesn’t happen again.”
“I know you heard me, asshole!”
I gritted my teeth and turned.
Only I made a mistake. I allowed Hannah to witness Allegra’s venom.
And in doing so, I familiarized the two women with one ano
ther, even if they weren’t formally ‘introduced.’
“I heard you, Allegra,” I told her bluntly, making my words steely and hard. “But I’m apologizing to another parent for your daughter’s rudeness. Please, give me a moment.”
Allegra’s eyes narrowed.
Wrong thing to say, apparently.
“You shouldn’t have to apologize for anything she did. Our child is perfect.”
I wanted to laugh at that.
Our child was anything but perfect. She was exactly like Allegra, and that sucked.
“Actually, there was something to apologize for. Excuse me for another minute.”
I turned my back on Allegra, which pissed her off even more.
And that was when I made my mistake.
I completely missed the anger on Allegra’s face, but I would be feeling it, even months later.
***
Present day
“Well, I don’t want you here.”
Where had I heard those words before?
My memories drifted away from that god-awful day.
That was the day that Allegra had found out about Hannah, and the last time that I ever willingly said anything to Allegra about Hannah.
The bitch was always in my face, and the moment she heard about Hannah and me, it was like the gloves had come off.
It would take me a while to see what Allegra was doing, but eventually, I’d caught on.
And now, I hated her even more.
“What do you mean your hours were changed?”
Hannah looked away.
“I got back to work, but since I wasn’t there the last six weeks, they decided that they wanted to change up the hours. I’m only working half the day now.”
Hannah’s words, although soft and unconcerned, were something concerning to me.
“Apply at the hospital in…”
Hannah was already shaking her head.
“I can’t,” she said. “That’s too far. I don’t want to work twelve hours, at least not yet. I can make it.”
I knew she could make it. I would make sure she could make it. But to do that, she’d have to give Reggie less…or likely herself since she wouldn’t allow Reggie to suffer.
Go to Hail (The Hail Raisers Book 2) Page 4