Just Exes

by Charity Ferrell

  Luke plays with his bottle. “I was worried when he moved back home. He couldn’t bullshit me. Sure, he had good intentions, going back for Amos and to clear his head, but I knew he was ultimately doing it for you. In the back of his mind, his heart, he knew you would be the only person who could heal him. And I fucking prayed you would.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. The first time I saw him in years, he arrested me.”

  He raises his brows. “I like that. It’ll give you a good story to tell your kids one day.”

  His response steals my breath, and my heart falters. With all the chaos that has happened since Gage told me about Andy, I’ve never questioned his outlook on having a family—until now.

  “Do you …” I stutter while searching for the right words. “Do you think he’ll want to have kids after this?”

  Luke doesn’t answer until we make eye contact. “That’s something you need to talk to him about. He never talked about having children until Missy came along, but then again, he never thought you two would have a second chance.”

  “Let me guess …”

  The gravelly voice causes me to jump.

  Gage steps into the room with sleepy eyes and yawns. “I’m the center of whatever you two are talking about.”

  “No way,” I draw out. “We were talking about best-friend things.”

  Gage snorts. “You two best friends now?”

  “Damn straight,” Luke answers. “We’re ordering our friendship bracelets tomorrow.”

  I nod. “They’re going to be pink.”

  “Blue,” Luke corrects before standing up. He squeezes my shoulder and then slaps Gage on the back. “I need to hit the shower. Good night.”

  We both say good night, and Gage waits until he disappears down the hall before falling to his knees in front of me.

  “I’m not sure if I thanked you for coming here,” he says, grabbing my chin and caressing it with his fingers. “But thank you, Lauren. Thank you for everything—for thinking of my dad, for thinking of Andy, for wanting me even though I was acting selfish.”

  A tear falls down his cheek and hits my leg.

  “I’d follow you anywhere,” I say around a sob. “And trust me when I say this, Gage Perry, I will never walk away from you again. Never. You’re stuck with me now.”

  A small glimmer of a smile passes over his lips. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  My lips meet his.

  He gets up to grab my hand, and I can’t stop myself from smiling at the sight of the scratch marks on his back as he leads me back to bed.

  Thirty-Five

  Gage

  Andy Amos Perry.

  My son.

  The sweetest and most badass kid I’ve ever met.

  The tiny tot who wrapped his small fist around my heart and held on tighter as he grew up.

  The boy who was just confirmed to have been found in the lake.

  The phone falls from my hand after Cory breaks the news.

  I run to the bathroom.

  Vomit.

  Slump down against the wall and cry, my knees to my chest.

  I wish my life would end.

  I didn’t fucking protect him. I didn’t do my job as a father.

  I knew the moment Luke called me and said they’d found a body that it was my boy, but there was that unknown hope that Andy was still out there. Maybe Missy had dropped him off somewhere, like his birth mother had … or maybe she’d given him to someone else in order to hurt me.

  Missy is as manipulative as she is beautiful.

  It’s no surprise when Lauren comes to my side and pulls me to her. She doesn’t flinch at my sobs. All she does is hold me close and let me release my pain.

  She’d take it on as her own if she could.

  And I’d do the same for her.

  Maybe that’s when you know your love for someone is real. You’d gladly take every ounce of their pain and lift it onto your shoulders. You’d rather be the one to suffer, the one taking each stab to the heart, than watch them hurt. Loving someone means their pain is your pain, and you’re there to carry them when they’re down.

  Right now, Lauren is ready to carry me wherever I need to go.

  Lauren and Luke tried to talk me out of coming here, but I can’t accept the truth until I see it for myself.

  Their love for me is what has them by my side as we walk into the police station.

  Cory doesn’t want to show me the pictures to identify the body. He suggests Luke do it for me, but I shake my head. It has to be me. I’ll regret it as soon as the photo is put on display in front of me. My hands go to the desk to stop myself from falling when Cory shows it to me.

  My worst nightmare is now my reality. I’ve seen plenty of crime scene photos. I knew not to expect his smiling face. But he was my son, and it tears me apart.

  My little boy.

  Correction: my little boy’s body.

  The decomposing corpse isn’t the boy I played soccer with or the son who wanted to be a cop, just like his daddy, when he grew up.

  All I have left of him now are memories.

  “Hey,” Lauren whispers, her voice shy, when I walk into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist, post-shower.

  I got in the shower the moment we got back from the station. After seeing those photos and the autopsy report, I was hoping to wash away all the thoughts of how my son had suffered.

  It was comforting to have Lauren by my side this time. I went through it alone when Andy went missing. Sure, I had Luke, but there’s a difference between a lover and a friend consoling you.

  I sit on the edge of the bed. “Can we talk about why you left now and how my dad admitted it was him who had asked you to leave?”

  She lifts her hands up, and her brows gather in. “Gage … I can explain.”

  I stop her from going on. “As much as I want to be angry with you, you thought you were doing the right thing for my father.” I let out a heavy sigh. “So, for that, I don’t know what I think about it.” We’ve both made mistakes that we regret, and every time I look at Lauren, I see her regret for letting me go.

  Her face softens, her eyes watering, and she gives me her back while she moves to the closet. She opens my bag and starts dragging out clothes. My chin trembles when she grabs my hand to help me up and then releases the towel.

  “Will you tell me about Andy?” she asks, tossing it to the side.

  My shorts are in her hand, and she helps me step into them while I share story after story about the little boy I wish she could’ve met. I don’t stop while she helps me get dressed or when she drags me to the bathroom to comb my hair. She takes care of me while I give her my memories.

  “I know it’s not exactly sane for a woman to suggest her boyfriend talk to his ex-wife, but in this case, I think it might help you heal,” Lauren says from across the kitchen table.

  Earlier, she gave Luke a grocery list, and he picked up everything we needed for gumbo. I sat in the kitchen and continued my Andy stories while they listened to every word. It felt good to share his memory since I’d hidden every part of him away while I was in Blue Beech.

  “Boyfriend?” I ask. “Are we back to that?”

  Luke left for work, so it’s now the two of us … if you don’t count the reporters camping in the front lawn. Most of them bailed after we shut the door in their faces and have retreated to Missy’s parents’ house.

  “I mean … friend.” She shoves her face into her hands and shakes her head. “Why am I embarrassed? I mean, we’ve been sleeping together, but what exactly does that mean? I haven’t had a boyfriend since you, and come to think of it, we never had the talk. We both just knew what we were to the other. Not that I assume we’re dating,” she continues to ramble. “Let me reword this. It’s not exactly sane for a woman to tell her fuck buddy to go talk to his ex-wife.”

  I lean into the table. “Look at me, Lauren.”

  She slowly pulls her hands from her face.

&n
bsp; “No need to have that talk this time either. You’re sure as hell not my fuck buddy. You’re my girlfriend, the woman I love, my goddamn everything. Let’s make that clear right now, okay?”

  “Okay,” she draws out, a smile playing at her lips. “Glad we got that covered.”

  “Ditto.” My vision starts to go blurry, and my throat feels scratchy as I think about what I’m about to say next. “I think you might be right about the Missy thing.”

  She flashes me a surprised look.

  Even though I can’t stand Missy, we need this closure. When she contacts me, it only brings the memories to the surface. It needs to stop. Her name, even the thought of her, is a reminder of what I’ve lost.

  “Thank you for understanding this situation,” I tell her.

  She stands and circles the table. I grunt when she pulls out my chair and plops down on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck.

  “You’re welcome. Give me a call if you need some reinforcement though. I’d love nothing more than to shove my heel into her throat.”

  “As a man of the law, I’ll act like I didn’t hear you say that.” I lean in to whisper in her ear, “Although I can’t say anyone would stop you or arrest you for doing it.”

  It’s my first and only time visiting her in prison.

  A sour taste fills my mouth as I sit in Luke’s car and wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

  I want to forget about Missy.

  After this, she’s dead to me.

  All evidence against her was circumstantial. She was charged with neglect, child endangerment, involuntary manslaughter, and assault for my stabbing. Her lawyers initially argued, no body, no trial. They claimed there was no cause or time of death, and we had insufficient evidence. Luckily, we had good prosecutors on our side.

  They worked with what little evidence they had. They used the voice mails she’d left me. The first one that threatened to hurt Andy and the second that told me I was to blame for what she did to him. She had Googled different methods of suffocation on her phone hours before Andy went missing and none of the endless stories and alibis she told lined up.

  Missy fought at first, of course. She claimed the birth mother had kidnapped him but that was disputed after Luke hired someone to identify and track down the woman. She’d been in an inpatient rehab facility at the time. Her second claim was that she had gone to shower, and he was gone when she came back, like Andy had wandered off and started a new life somewhere. In the end, her parents convinced her to take a plea deal. She admitted to suffocating Andy and said she dropped his body in a river close to her house. That river was searched for months and nothing was ever found.

  She denied being near the lake where they found his body days ago, even though someone saw her there. I tried so many times to get it searched, but my superiors deemed it unnecessary since there wasn’t enough evidence. The real reason was her parents didn’t find it necessary because they knew there was a chance Missy was lying.

  I grab my phone to listen to the voice mail. It’s the worst time to do it, but I need to go in there with the right state of mind and fight for Andy.

  My head feels like it’s spinning, and my body goes cold at the sound of her voice mail. Her words are screamed out around cries.

  “Gage! Gage! You’d better answer my goddamn phone calls, you hear me? I saw them. I saw all the pictures you had saved of that whore. That stupid cunt you love so much who left you. I’m the one who loves you, Gage, not her. Me! I’ve stood by you and done nothing but try to please you. Me! How could you do this to us? Andy wants his mommy and daddy together with him every night. That’s why we have him—to give him a family—and if you can’t, then we’re wrong for having him … If he can’t have that, then he has no family. A boy shouldn’t have to live without family … I’ll end his hurt for him. I’ll let Andy go to heaven where he can have a real family. Say good-bye to us, Gage, since you’ve decided we aren’t worth it. Andy won’t be here when you get home. Take that.”

  I shut my eyes to stop the tears. I’ll never forget the day I first heard that voice mail. I was on a fishing trip and never expected Missy would go back to my house in search of more Lauren evidence. We had a key to each other’s places for years. She’d started spiraling downhill the past few months. She’d begged me to move in with her, tried to talk me into giving Andy a sibling, and lashed out when I wouldn’t take the bait.

  I never expected her to hurt him. Me? Sure. But not him. She loved Andy.

  Anger can blind love.

  I called the station as soon as I got the message and raced to her house.

  I was too late.

  Even though they found his body, I’m not sure if my visit will change anything with her charges since she took the plea, but I have to try. I also want to hear her admit to what she did and how she’d sent us on a bullshit hunt for his body.

  I’m close to throwing up that sour taste when she walks into the cramped room. Being here reminds me of the countless hours I interrogated her until her parents’ lawyer stepped in and put a stop to it.

  The door opens, and she strolls in with a smile on her face.

  “Hey, baby,” she greets. Her blonde hair is pulled back into two braids, and bright red lips stand out along her pale features.

  There’s no denying that Missy is beautiful. She’s also sick, and I wish I’d recognized the signs of it before she did what she did.

  I inhale a deep breath and run my sweaty hands over my legs. “Hey.”

  She plops down in the metal seat and inches forward, getting as close to me as possible. I have to stop myself from flinching and pulling away in disgust.

  “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?” she spits.

  “Who?” I already know the answer to my question.

  “That cunt ex of yours.” She slams a hand on the table. “My father hired a PI, Gage. I saw the pictures. She’s the same woman who starred in your sacred box of first-love memories.” Her tone turns mocking. “You don’t forget the woman you despise.”

  It’s becoming more difficult to hold in my anger. “That’s what you’re concerned about right now? That I’m back with her?”

  Tears fall down her cheeks and smear her lipstick. “I gave you so much of myself, Gage! Let you take me any way you wanted, even when I knew she was whom you imagined. I did everything for you—bought you expensive gifts—”

  “Which I didn’t accept and told you to return them and buy something for Andy,” I interrupt.

  She tried buying my love with gifts, just like her parents did with her, but it didn’t work. You can’t buy love from someone who doesn’t have it up for sale.

  I tap my foot while controlling my anger. “I’m sorry, Missy. I’m sorry I couldn’t do enough to make you happy.”

  Her demeanor changes with my apology. She perks up, and the anger disappears from her face. “You did make me happy, baby! You did. I’m upset with myself that I didn’t make you happy. You never acted like I was your world.”

  Come the fuck on.

  The tapping of my foot speeds up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I wore a hole into the floor. “I need you to do me a favor, Missy.”

  “Anything,” she blurts out.

  “Admit to what you did. Please.” My voice breaks. “For Andy. For your family. For me.”

  “Tell me you love me.”

  I stare at her, blinking. “What?”

  “Tell me you love me, and I’ll tell you the truth and nothing but the truth.”

  I grit my teeth. “I love you.”

  Her fists hit the table. “Say it like you mean it!”

  “I love you, Missy, so damn much.”

  She shuts her eyes and throws her head back. “It sounds so awesome to hear you finally say those words. I knew you loved me. It took you long enough to admit it though.”

  I don’t fucking love her. Bile sweeps up my throat, and I can’t wait to brush my teeth for an hour to wash away my words.

 
“Promise you’ll write me,” she goes on. “Promise you’ll visit me. Some inmates earn conjugal visits. Maybe we can do that.”

  “Yes, maybe,” I lie.

  “And you’ll leave her?”

  “Whatever you want. Just give our son the justice he deserves.”

  My fake admission gives her hope, and she lets everything out.

  I want to die as I digest her confession.

  Thirty-Six

  Lauren

  “Are we becoming best friends?” I ask when I answer Kyle’s call.

  “Bite me, Satan,” he replies. “I’m calling about your arsonist reputation. We found the cause of the fire.”

  “Please tell me it wasn’t a sugar cookie–scented candle from my apartment.”

  “It was meth.”

  “Meth! In my apartment?”

  The hell?

  He chuckles. “No, it never started in your place. Another tenant took up the hobby of cooking it.”

  Great, so I was living in a meth lab. Cool.

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope, and your creepy-ass landlord is smack dab in the middle of said meth ring. Turns out, phony rich kid has made some dough, selling drugs.”

  “Can’t say it surprises me.”

  “He has quite the record, including assaulting multiple women. One of his men snitched on him, but we have yet to locate him. You need to be careful until we do. If you see him, call me right away.”

  Yep. My creep-dar is never wrong.

  “I appreciate the heads-up. And can we not mention this to Gage right now?”

  “Haven’t said a word to him. Don’t intend to until shit dies down.”

  “Thank you.”

  He blows out a stressed breath. “How’s our guy doing?”

  I wish I knew the honest answer to that. “He went to see Missy today.”