That had led me to now, as I sped walked toward Wolf’s bike, with a very angry Travis at my back.
“Your husband-to-be isn’t going to kill you,” he promised.
The sick feeling in my stomach only got bigger.
“He’s not my husband-to-be,” I managed to tell him.
Then, with a new pep in my step, I got on the back of Wolf’s bike—like I’d done quite a few times before—and waited for him to mount in front of me.
He did, but I didn’t scoot closer like I would’ve once done.
No matter how pissed off I was at Travis, Wolf had a wife now. A wife that I adored, and I’d never do that to.
I attempted a look under my lashes out of the side of my eye at where Travis had last been standing and nearly jolted at the look of cold fury in his eyes.
Oh, yeah. He was pissed. So pissed, in fact, that I knew I’d hear it when we got back.
Did that stop me from leaving? No.
Did that stop me from laughing when Wolf said something to make me giggle moments later? No.
Why? Because Travis was a big, fat jerk.
Chapter 20
Mom: Watch your language.
Me: Oh, fuck. Sorry.
Travis
“You’re being a complete dick to her,” Baylor pointed out.
I flipped him off and walked to the truck that I’d unlocked for her.
“What’d she get out of here?” Baylor asked curiously.
“Her purse?” I guessed.
“No, she had her purse with her,” he said.
I thought about that for a moment. I didn’t know what she got if it wasn’t that. Maybe her water bottle? She’d been trying to drink more water lately.
I shrugged. “Then I don’t know. Not that I really care, either.”
He grumbled something under his breath that I didn’t bother asking him to clarify. I didn’t really want to know what my brother thought. What little he’d told me already this morning was enough for me to know that I didn’t want to hear any more.
He thought I was being an ass, and maybe I was.
But all in all, I was just pissed off.
I fucking hated the system and how things worked. I hated that Allegra was able to get the hell out of jail on her own fucking recognizance only hours after she’d had an accident that had put our daughter in a Life Flight helicopter hours away. I hated that she came up to the hospital acting like a concerned mother only a day later.
And the icing on the cake was what the judge had just done.
Who the fuck would give a woman that had almost killed her own daughter fucking jail time on the weekends so it didn’t fuck with her work? Work that she did with her own father, so they couldn’t even say she’d be fired due to missing.
Yeah, I wasn’t buying it.
Her father had done something.
Then, he’d then given Alex the choice to go home with her during the week while she wasn’t in jail—and we all knew how that would turn out. Alex would go, and then I’d get her back, and she’d be the same hateful kid that she’d been before her accident.
So no, I wasn’t mad. I was angry. I was furious. I was livid.
I was sad.
Then, after all of that had gone down, I’d walked out of the courthouse, intending to apologize to Hannah, only for her to ride out on the back of some other man’s bike. The same man that had been about to divorce my baby sister before she was killed.
Which meant now I was angry with her, too.
“I feel like it’s deserved, don’t you think?” Baylor asked.
I looked over to him and walked around the back of the truck, trying not to watch as Wolf and Hannah rode out of the parking lot.
“I think that she got a sentence,” he said. “It may not be what we were looking for, but I’m guessing it’s about as good as we could expect.”
I opened the truck and got inside, looking over at him.
“How do you figure?” I snapped. “I was hoping for her to be in there for at least two fuckin’ years.”
The lawyer said since Allegra had been charged with a DWI—driving while intoxicated—with a child passenger under the age of fifteen, that she could face up to two years in prison. And that was before all the assault charges were placed on her due to what Alex had faced after the wreck.
“She’s the county favorite,” Baylor replied. “Everybody knows her. Her father kisses everyone’s asses so he can schmooze them. Hell, just last month, he gave the judge a really good deal on a car.”
I started the truck and backed out of the spot, then accelerated a little too fast as I made my way home.
“Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that you’re lucky she got anything,” he continued, not noticing my shitty driving because he drove even shittier. “Plus, from the way Alex has spoken over the last few days, I don’t really see her voluntarily going back to her mother.”
I frowned and looked toward him momentarily to gauge what he was saying.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that over the last couple of days, she’s asked everybody and their brother if she has to go back to her mom’s, and when we say ‘no’ she looks all relieved and shit.”
I thought about that for a moment.
She’d asked that when we got her home from the hospital a few days ago, and then again this morning before she returned to school. When I’d told her that she wouldn’t be going back for a while, she’d looked relieved. In fact, she’d hugged me so hard that I worried about the state of her fractured ribs.
But she’d hugged me, and then had skipped away.
“I guess I can see that,” I murmured under my breath. “But it won’t be long before she’s asking to go back. I know she misses her.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, too.”
I pulled onto the road that led to the school, and then past it to our house, and swung into the school’s lot instead.
I needed a fuckin’ hug, and I wouldn’t be getting one from Hannah. My daughter was going to have to hug me instead.
I sure as fuck didn’t want one from Baylor.
“Why do you say that?” I put the truck into park once I pulled into a spot.
“I think that she doesn’t want to go back,” he answered. “I happened to overhear her and Hannah talking, and she asked if she was going to get her own room now.”
Right now she shared a room with Reggie when she came over. We didn’t have enough rooms for them all to have their own room, and since at the time Alex hadn’t lived with us, I hadn’t seen a reason to buy a house with the extra bedroom.
But if she was staying with me permanently, then I’d definitely start looking for somewhere else to stay.
“Be back,” I muttered.
Chapter 21
Boyfriend & boy friend. That space is the friend zone.
-Fact of Life
Hannah
I waved at Wolf as he dropped me off beside my car and said, “I’ll see you in a couple weeks. What does Nathan want for his birthday?”
Wolf shrugged his large shoulders. “Baseball stuff…Star Wars shit. I don’t know.”
I rolled my eyes and waved at him one more time. “Go. Let me know when you get home okay.”
He gave me a thumb up.
“Oh, and tell Raven to make sure she gives me an idea of what I need to bring.”
He gave me an ‘okay’ sign with his thumb and forefinger, then gunned his motorcycle and drove away.
Before I could get into the house, though, my phone rang.
I looked at the caller ID, which said it was the daycare.
“Hello?”
“Umm, Hannah, are you okay?”
I frowned. “I am, why, what’s wrong? Did Travis forget to get something?”
TJ’s daycare teacher snorted. “You could say that. Was he supposed to be getting TJ today?”
My stomach san
k.
I looked at my watch and saw I was running late.
“Yes,” I moaned. “He didn’t, did he?”
“No,” Angel said. “And Reggie’s here, too.”
I frowned. “Alex?”
“No, not Alex. She didn’t get off with Reggie. Reggie said that Travis picked her up.”
I clenched my back teeth together and angrily yanked open my car door. “I’ll be there in five minutes, tops.”
I didn’t wait for her to hang up as I backed out of the driveway, going a little too fast.
My tires squealed in protest as I slammed on the brakes and accelerated down the road at a speed probably not meant for a neighborhood.
Regardless, I drove at least ten over the speed limit the entire way to the daycare and arrived within eight minutes, not ten.
My kids were the only ones left in the entire building, and I started apologizing the moment I pulled the front door open.
“I’m so, so, so, so sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t know that Travis didn’t get them.”
She waved the apology away.
“I know. And it’s truly not a big deal. However, since you’re late, the daycare owner won’t let me get away with not charging you the late fee. It’s two dollars a minute.”
I looked at the clock. It was six thirty-three. That was sixty-six dollars that I didn’t have. I pulled open my purse and unzipped the secret compartment that I used to hold my extra petty cash for a rainy day. After counting off sixty-six dollars, I handed it to her and shoved the last five that I had back into the pocket.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “I know you say it wasn’t a big deal, but I still feel like shit.”
She smiled gently at me. “No big deal, honey. Everyone does it.”
Not me, I wanted to say. Instead, I just smiled. “Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Reggie reached for TJ’s diaper bag as I reached for TJ, who was strapped into his car seat, asleep.
Asleep.
I winced.
That would mean that he’d be wide-awake here in the next few minutes or so, and that would also mean that he’d be late going to bed. Which would make me late going to bed.
Wonderful.
“What happened, Mom?” Reggie asked as she walked at my side out to my Jeep.
I swallowed the words that threatened to come out and controlled my emotions before saying, “I don’t know, honey. I’ll figure it out, though.”
That was for damn sure.
Travis was also supposed to make dinner. My guess was that he forgot to do that, too.
Hence the reason for swinging into McDonald’s and ordering two Happy Meals for the girls before driving home.
By the time I pulled back into the driveway, TJ was well and truly pissed off and very much awake, and I was on the verge of tears.
After the day I’d had, I was convinced the day couldn’t get any worse.
I was wrong.
Chapter 22
Some things in life are better left unsaid. Which I generally realize after I’ve said them.
-Face of Life
Travis
“I’m hungry, Daddy.”
I looked up from the motor I was tinkering with and let my eyes move to the clock.
Then my stomach dropped.
Six forty-nine pm.
Holy fuck.
I dropped the wrench I was using to tighten a bolt and reached for Alex’s hand. “Come on, we have to go get…”
The door of the garage was kicked open, and Reggie came barreling inside, two Happy Meals in her hands. “I got food!”
Alex semi-clapped her hands together due to the cast on her arm and reached for the meal that Reggie was holding out to her.
Together they turned on their heels and walked back inside, and I followed at a much more sedate pace.
I could hear TJ hollering his displeasure the moment I rounded the corner of the kitchen, and I winced when I saw Hannah standing at the sink staring down at the dirty dishes…dishes I was also supposed to do.
TJ was in the seat on the counter directly next to the sink, and she started muttering under her breath when she turned on the faucet.
When she reached for the first pot, I stopped her by saying, “I’ll do that.”
She turned only her head and glared. “If you were going to do them, I’d think you’d have already done them.”
I didn’t have much to say to that.
She was partially right and partially wrong. I’d forgotten, yes. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to do them at all. Eventually, I would’ve come into the kitchen and seen them there filling up the sink, and then I would’ve washed them. Sure, it might be after dinner…oh, shit.
Not only had I forgotten to pick the kids up from daycare, but I’d also forgotten to cook dinner. Oh, and let’s not forget to wash the goddamn dishes.
I barely restrained myself from slapping my forehead in complete and utter failure.
“Hannah,” I started.
She shook her head. “I’m not in a good place right now. Please don’t make me start yelling at you in front of the kids.”
I snapped my mouth shut and then walked over to where she was standing.
I’d had a bad day.
I’d had a really, really bad day.
I’d started it out bad by Hannah walking in and overhearing what I was saying to Baylor—which had been me talking out of my ass, doing something stupid.
Then, I’d had to deal with all that shit swirling around me due to what Allegra had done.
The icing on the cake had been arriving outside once it was all over and seeing Hannah get on the back of a man’s bike—a man that I had a lot of unfinished business with.
Then I’d gotten my girl so I could have a talk with her about her mother, and what had gone down that day. And she’d calmed me down by saying just a few short words— ‘I want to stay with you, Daddy. I don’t want to go with her.’
And that had been the last of my anger.
So we’d talked, and caught up, and I hadn’t thought much about the rest of the afternoon. I hadn’t thought about dinner or getting the kids from daycare.
I hadn’t thought much of anything but spending time with a kid that didn’t tell me she hated me every chance she got anymore.
And I could tell without even speaking to her that Hannah was pissed.
Honestly, I couldn’t say that I blamed her.
“Okay,” I said, knowing when to stop. I was by no means finished with this conversation, but I knew that it needed to happen without the kids aware of every single thing that came out of our mouths.
So instead, I picked my son up and cradled his angry body to my chest.
He only wailed louder.
This, although kind of sucky, I could handle.
I could handle angry babies.
I could handle angry kids.
I could not handle Hannah’s anger. It hurt.
It physically hurt my heart to think of her upset in any way, and I knew that I was the one to make her upset. I was the one that put that frown on her face. I was the one that said something this morning that I didn’t mean.
Yeah, I had a lot of shit to make up for.
And I’d do that starting now.
Stopping next to TJ’s diaper bag, I pulled out the pacifier and popped it into his mouth.
It wouldn’t stop him from crying for long, but until he figured out that he didn’t like it, the screaming would be at an end.
“Travis, you forgot us.”
I winced at Reggie’s accusing words.
“I’m sorry, girl,” I told her sincerely. “I didn’t mean to forget you. I was working out in the garage, and since there were no windows, I couldn’t see that the sun was setting—signaling it was time to come get you. I’m sorry, Reg. Forgive me?”
Which was the truth. The garage had no windows, and
if the garage door wasn’t up, then I had no basis for what time of day it was unless I looked at the clock on the wall. And even then, it was hit or miss on whether or not that was the real time or not.
That wasn’t a good enough excuse, though, and we both knew it.
“If you got me a phone, I could’ve called you and told you it was time to go,” she pointed out.
I grinned at her. “I think you mentioned needing a phone, but tell me, does an eight-year-old really need a phone?”
She nodded enthusiastically, as did my daughter.
“We really do.”
I rolled my eyes and looked down at TJ, who was sucking on his paci without a word of protest. The champ.
I sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
Reggie grinned. “In that case, yes, I forgive you.”
I wish it was going to be that easy to deal with her mother.
A mother who was staring at me over her shoulder like I’d just promised her daughter a one-way trip straight to hell.
Shit.
Deeper and deeper I went.
Her eyes fell to TJ who was happily chilling in my arms and then back to my face before she turned around and started washing the dishes again.
“You want some bacon and eggs?” I asked her.
That I could make fast, and I knew that she liked them.
Hannah shrugged.
“I managed to go get Bear’s Smokehouse bacon on the way home…”
Hannah’s shoulders slumped slightly.
“And I got buttermilk. I can make pancakes,” I continued.
Hannah sighed.
Still she didn’t speak.
So that was either one of two things. Yes or no.
I decided to go with yes and went about getting the electric skillet out and plugging it in before I got the bacon out.
I shifted TJ up to my shoulder and bounced him lightly as I used one hand to open the bacon and start setting it out on the quickly heating surface.
The bacon sizzled, filling the room with noise, as Reggie and Alex continued to talk about the benefits of having a phone as an eight-year-old.
They were on number seven, which was being able to call me or Hannah anytime they wanted—and yes this was number seven instead of number one—when Hannah shut off the sink, signaling the end of the dishes.
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