He could forget about a lot of things. I didn’t want to make decisions when I was mad, but this was unacceptable. It was immature and disrespectful. I didn’t want this to be hard, but if it was about to become that way, he had nobody to blame but himself.
We rolled up the driveway, and I paused in my seat, looking out the window at him. He was waiting outside the door with Jaden. Guess he wanted to be rid of me as fast as I wanted to be rid of him. He wasn’t even going to let me inside to say hey to his parents. Marcus offered to come with me, but it wasn’t going to take long. I hopped out of the car.
I walked up to him, not really seeing him, but seeing Jaden. It was irrational of me to think that I would find him covered in bruises or something after a long weekend with his father at his grandparents’ house, but that didn’t stop me.
“My parents told me you called them,” Jared said, out of all the things he could have said instead. That was where and how he wanted to start? Because I hadn’t nearly had a meltdown wondering where my son was the day before?
“I would have told you myself, the twenty or so times I called your phone. Your provider is being weird or something, right? You didn’t just ignore me?”
“I was going to have him back by Wednesday.”
“No, you were going to have him back on Monday evening because that was what we discussed and what you agreed to. If you wanted more time; why the hell didn’t you just ask for it? Why didn’t you just call me and ask?”
“Because you would have said yes? I wanted to spend time with my family, my whole family without all that shared custody bullshit.”
“Shared custody bullshit? As difficult as it may be, it’s the reality of our situation, and you need to wake the fuck up and accept that.”
“When the fuck am I going to be able to do this again?”
“When you tell me before taking my kid across state lines. Why would you… why wouldn’t you say something first?”
“Come on, Addie. What did you think happened?” he asked.
“No,” I said shaking my head. He wasn’t going to make me feel unreasonable about this. “You failed to show up with my son and weren’t picking up phone calls. What did I think? Fucking anything, Jared. I was afraid what you were going to say when you did pick up the phone. You can’t do that to me, not when it comes to Jaden.”
“Aw, you were worried about me, Addie?” he said, smiling.
“I don’t care about you. I care about my son. I won’t hesitate to make sure he’s protected if you push me,” I said. Before he could answer, Jared’s eyes went over my shoulder, and I knew immediately what he was looking at.
“You brought him?” he asked.
“Not now, Jared. I’m not going to argue about this with you.”
“Get rid of him. Honestly, Adina, it’s embarrassing. We both know that isn’t real.” I felt a rush of indignation. I knew what he was doing, and I wasn’t going to allow him to do it.
“Think what you want. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Jared,” I said, reaching for Jaden. He let him go with no protest. I hugged him close, smelling his hair and kissing his little face.
“Is everything okay?” I heard Marcus ask behind me. His hand was on my shoulder. He gently stroked Jaden’s head.
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Let’s go,” I said.
“Hey. We need his bag,” Marcus said to Jared. The bag was at his feet. I watched him consider what to do next, hoping he would choose the right thing. Just give it to him, Jared, I willed silently. He picked it up.
“What’s she doing? Is she paying you?” he asked.
“What?”
“What’s she giving you for this? Is she sucking your dick?” he spat. “You can tell me. I know she’s good.”
“Not now, Jared. Shut up. Marcus, let’s go,” I said. Marcus had walked closer to the other man. I didn’t want them to fight. I didn’t want Marcus to hit him. I wasn’t afraid he’d get hurt—he wouldn’t, Marcus was built like a brick wall. I wasn’t even afraid Jared would get hurt. Part of me wanted him to get a punch in the face, but I knew he would use it against me whenever we disagreed about Jaden again.
“Are you just sorry you’ll never have her again?” Marcus asked.
“I can have her whenever the fuck I want,” Jared said. “I don’t know where she found you, or what she told you, but that bitch is mine. Her and my son. Both of them.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Marcus said. “Fuck with her again and see what happens.”
“What? She’ll have her hired thug beat me up?”
“No. She’ll ask me not to beat you up. She respects you, but I don’t. I’ll break your fucking jaw, and I’ll enjoy it. Do it one more time, Jared. You’ll be eating nothing but soup for a year.”
“You don’t scare me, you fucking thug,” Jared said. He shoved Marcus away from him, making him stumble back slightly. I gasped seeing him cock his arm back to throw a punch. Marcus ducked out of his way. I hid Jaden’s face in my chest.
“Marcus, don’t. Please stop,” I said weakly. Marcus hadn’t touched him, but I didn’t like it. Why was Jared fighting for me now? Where had he been when I wanted him? When I needed him?
Jared lunged at Marcus again. This time they connected, but as fast as they began, it was over. Marcus managed to kick Jared’s legs from under him and drop him. I recoiled thinking he would kick him, but he didn’t. He stepped over him and started for the car.
“Come on,” he said, without turning around. I scrambled to grab the forgotten bag and followed him. I let him strap Jaden in the back seat and start the car. He had listened to me, I thought. He wanted to fight him, but he didn’t do anything but defend himself. He was fine, Jared had gotten the worst of it, but all I felt was embarrassment. What kind of man had I allowed to impregnate me? God, Marcus must have thought I was an idiot.
“I’m sorry about Jared,” I said quietly.
“You don’t have to apologize for him. It’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault. I’m sorry for what he said to you. I’m sorry it has to be him.” He was quiet, watching the road for a while.
“You couldn’t have seen this coming,” he said.
“He wasn’t always like that,” I said. Or at least I didn’t think he could be.
“I know. Are you okay?” he asked me.
“I’ll be okay. Do you have a shift today?”
“Yeah. Tonight. Do you want me to stay with you?”
“I’d like that,” I said. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“That might be a little hard today,” he said, not looking at me.
“You need to go back home?”
“Well, yeah, at least for a while, but there’s something else.”
“I have to call my PO. He might call me in.”
“Why?”
“Violating my probation,” he said, glancing at me. “I need to be cleared through the court to travel out of state.” My jaw dropped.
“How does he know you left?”
“Because I told him. He knows I did it. I need to report my violation to him, or the penalty will just be worse.” I shook my head. He was being way too blasé about this.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, indignant. He couldn’t have told his probation officer at any point before last night. If he knew he couldn’t travel, then why did he come?
“What was there to tell? I wasn’t letting you go alone.”
“What’s going to happen? Are you in trouble?”
“I hope not. I mean I narced on myself; that should get me something. I guess we’ll see when I talk to him.”
“Don’t make jokes, Marcus. Why would you do something knowing it would get you in trouble?”
“Because your maniac ex kidnapped Jaden.”
“I wouldn’t have let you come if I knew you were breaking the law doing it.”
“I came with you knowing the consequences. I care about you, Adina and I care about Jaden. I wasn’t goin
g to let you go through this alone. I want you to be able to count on me.”
“I can’t count on you when you’re in jail. What’s going to happen to you?”
“I don’t know. Depending on what the judge and Jonas think; fines, extended probation, maybe even jail time,” he said. “I knew something was going to happen, Adina.”
“Then why didn’t you stay? I would have understood if you told me. I don’t want you to go to jail,” she said sadly.
“I know you can do it,” he said. “All of it. You can raise your son, and you can have a career, and deal with Jared. All of that. I know you don’t need me to strong-arm him, but I want to be there for you. I want you to let me fucking take care of you sometimes.”
“You always help me, Marcus.”
“Not like that. In the ways that count,” he said. “I want you to trust me. I want you to know I’m there for you. You and Jaden.”
I was glad he was driving because if he wasn’t, him looking in my eyes would probably have made me cry as he said that. I had been feeling frighteningly strong feelings for him, the kind I wasn’t so sure it was safe to feel so soon after meeting him. I’d been burned before, and I knew I could take being burned again.
But I had a son. I wanted something strong and constant for him as much as I wanted it for myself. I saw glimpses of the family I thought I had lost when I lost Jared with Marcus. Not perfect. Not all the way traditional, but it would work for me… for us. I believed him when he said it, but he had to show me. He had to be there the way he was now for as long as it took for me to know he always would be.
“I know. You’ve been great, Marcus. I really appreciate what you’ve done for us.”
“God, try sound more detached, hon. You appreciate what I’ve done?” he said, glancing over at me. Sounded like a challenge to me. He wanted it again, this time with feeling.
“Thank you, Marcus. I trust you, and I love you. Thank you for being there for me.” He smirked, satisfied.
“I told you. You can try to get rid of me if you want. But it won’t work.” A short while passed with no words said between us.
“I love you too.”
22
Marcus
Adina thought it was her fault. It wasn’t of course, and I told her it wasn’t, but she had asked me questions about what would happen to me the entire way back to the city. I wished I could tell her, but the fact of the matter was I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure.
This was the justice system we were dealing with, and I knew firsthand not to fuck with them if I could help it. I had called Jonas and told him where I was going. He couldn’t say that he had no idea that I moved outside of my state of sentencing without his knowledge. Without his approval, sure, but not without his knowledge. That had to count for something.
Even if I ended up going to court, I wasn’t going to end up having an actual trial—just a violation of probation hearing. As long as I had a reasonable judge, then I couldn’t get into that much trouble. I mean, I had been great at this probation thing. This was like my one fuck-up.
I didn’t think jail time would be on the table, but the possibility was always there. You never know who your judge is and who they had to see before they saw you. If my lawyer was shitty, and I got a bad judge on top of that, then hell, maybe I’d get the maximum sentence I was on probation not to have to serve—fifteen years.
I knew that I would get in trouble. I knew. None of this was a shock to me. You never really forgot that prison was only one false move away when you were on probation. You couldn’t because that was the easiest way to end up back behind bars. I just didn’t care. I wasn’t going to just do nothing. When Adina called me crying, everything in my body told me to do something. I was going to. I had to. I didn’t forget who I was, or what I was, or what would happen to me if I did what I was about to do. They just didn’t matter as much. I loved her, and because I did, I wasn’t going to let her face that guy alone.
If I went to jail, then I’d fucking go to jail. The most they could give me was what? A year? I hadn’t gotten rearrested, and I hadn’t been using again. I had a job. I was stone cold sober and hadn’t been hanging out with people of ill repute. Fuck, a single mom and a five-month-old baby? Did it get more wholesome than that?
I wouldn’t send me to jail if I was a judge, but who would send themselves to jail if they had the choice not to? I was straight on every single other one of my probation conditions, and I’d never missed an appointment, not with Jonas and not with my old PO.
Adina would be fine. She didn’t need me like that. I was the one who needed her. Shit was a little rocky when we met, but she was going through a breakup with the guy who treated her like garbage. If Jared knew what was good for him, he’d do whatever was in his power to recover from this fuck-up. He had chosen the best possible girl to get pregnant, and lucky him because chances were, she was still going to let that bastard be a part of Jaden’s life.
I hoped she wouldn’t. Not for me, but for her. For Jaden too. What was next? What wouldn’t he do to torture her? Could he be any more pathetic? Yeah, he had gone to his parent’s house, but that motherfucker left without telling her anything. All that meant to me was that he wasn’t above kidnapping. Was that kidnapping, what he did? It had to be something.
That was a man who needed the threat of the law behind him. Supervision. I bet he didn’t even pay her child support. I bet she wouldn’t even ask him to. What would it take for her to take his ass to court and sort him out? He obviously didn’t know how to act when allowed to make his own decisions. Maybe the threat of legal trouble would make him wake up, give him some real consequences.
That way Jared and I could be in jail together. He wasn’t a fighter. I wanted to kill him. Jaden hadn’t even clocked a year yet; he wouldn’t remember him. Just because you were a kid’s father, didn’t mean it was good that you were. I didn’t like Jared anyway, but everything he had done since I’d known him made me feel like I’d never want my child around him if I had one.
Jonas was cool, but he wasn’t a pushover. He wasn’t going to just let me off the hook. I knew that. We’d talked on the phone as soon as I left Adina’s. He told me what I thought he would—that he was reporting the violation and I would know pretty soon what the outcome of that would be.
I wasn’t going to be arrested or anything, but he was up front, saying it would be in my best interests to lawyer up. I still had to see him the way I usually did on every second Friday. Adina had wanted to come with me. She wanted to tell Jonas I hadn’t gone to New Canaan to do drugs, vouch for my good character or something, but that wasn’t how probation worked.
He was quiet for a long time before he said anything to me. I looked around his office. It wasn’t that great; walls that might have been white when they were painted. Fluorescent light on the ceiling. Hard chairs. I looked at him, noticing he had been looking at me. I didn’t know for how long. Should I have said something first?
“Do you have a good lawyer?” he asked.
“Don’t I get appointed one if I can’t afford it?”
“Marcus, you were one of the few probationers I had who had a near perfect record. Besides the time it took you to get a steady job, I’d say you’ve never done anything that’s made me think you’re in need of stricter supervision.” I nodded. Now that he was done kissing my ass, he was going to get to the point.
“I have the power to let you go with a warning or let this go to court,” he said.
“Why do I feel you aren’t giving me that warning?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t let you if you’d gone through getting permission?”
“You think I want to be facing a VOP hearing? I had to go. It was an emergency. I can’t schedule those and make sure I give you a months’ notice first.”
“What was it? What the hell was so important you knowingly broke the rules for it?”
“It was important, okay?” I said, irritate
d.
“More important than your freedom?” he challenged. Ha, probation wasn’t freedom. “I can’t think of many things I care about that much, besides my family. I know you don’t have kids. What was it?” he asked. I was pushing it. I knew. Jonas and I, we couldn’t have been two more different guys, but we respected each other. He didn’t treat me like an ex-con. He didn’t speak to me like one. Shutting down on him now would just be a bad idea.
“My girlfriend’s ex took her son across state lines without her permission,” I said, generally. I didn’t know how much more detail I had to give him than that.
“Your stepson?” he asked. Whoa. Hey… yeah. My stepson. I liked and disliked it at the same time. It was that ‘step’; that meant he came from somewhere else, but that was what he would be to me if Adina and I ever decided to get married. Marriage—now that was something I hadn’t thought about. I knew Adina had though. Would she want me as Jaden’s dad, I mean stepdad?
“Yeah. He took the kid and went, not a word, no contact at all. I had to go with her. The guy’s an asshole; he used to jerk her around when they were together.”
Jonas looked at me again. I waited to hear him say I was an idiot, or that there was no judge who would give a shit about my girlfriend’s ex or my stepson and that I was going to jail. He shook his head.
“I can understand being there for the people you love,” he said. “And I know a judge would too. I’m sending this one to court. It’s the principle, Marcus. You might not care what happens to you, but that kid and your girlfriend? It affects them too.” I nodded. Shit. I hated court.
“Do I get another PO because I fucked up?”
“No. You’re not getting that lucky,” he said. He might have smiled as he did, it was hard to tell with his mustache. He told me to expect a court date in the next three weeks and sent me on my way.
Mom, Jonny, Kevin and I all sat silently in my living room. Jaden was sitting in my mother’s lap with a toy in his mouth. Adina had excused herself to use the bathroom.
Marcus (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 5) Page 17