Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
He put his hand on the door and pushed, which was when I reacted.
I brought my hand up and around and stabbed him in the stomach before bringing my leg up and kicking him as hard as I could in the nuts.
He fell backward, and I took that time to slam the door closed, lock it, and shuffle backward to the cookie jar where I kept my revolver.
I aimed it at the door and yelled, “I have a forty-five in my hand and aimed it at the door. If you come into the apartment, I’ll shoot you.”
There was a hard thump on the door and then nothing.
“Should we call the cops?” the shaky girl’s voice whispered.
I didn’t want those cops anywhere near me.
Not after them following me around for the last month.
But…
“Daddy!”
I blinked and risked a glance over my shoulder at the teen girl behind me.
She was sixteen but already looked like a woman.
She had gray eyes that looked so freakin’ familiar, and a cherub face that would make angels weep.
She didn’t have any of that awkward teen look about her at all.
She had the phone pressed to her ear, and she was watching the door warily.
“I need you to come home,” she begged. “I’m at your neighbor’s apartment.”
She started to cry then, and I fought the urge to go to her.
If that guy decided to kick the door in, I’d be ready.
I couldn’t even get close enough to check the peephole because if I got too close and he kicked it in, he’d take me out along with the door.
So I stayed in place, revolver in hand, and kept it aimed at the door, ready and waiting.
I stayed like that for a long time, long enough that my arms were shaking and I was shifting from foot to foot.
“Yeah, yeah,” I heard her say long moments later.
She moved toward the door, and I dropped my gun.
“What are you…”
“He’s here,” she said. “He says there’s no one out on the landing.”
That’s when she opened the door, and a very angry looking Detective Haze Hopkins was allowed entry into my apartment.
He was the father?
How on earth did that make him hotter?
Have kids they said. It’ll be fun they said.
Well, they forgot to tell you about the hell years where you would constantly question your life choices from the ages of thirteen to nineteen.
—Haze’s secret thoughts
HAZE
Angry didn’t begin to explain how I felt in the moments after my daughter explained the situation.
“One more time,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
“So Mom was out of town…”
“Why was she out of town?” I paused, trying to compose myself.
My ex-wife, Julia, was a part-time mom.
Well, according to the courts, she was a full-time mom. She got the twenty-five hundred dollars a month for child support to prove it.
However, she only wanted full custody to give a big fuck you to me.
Twenty-five years ago, when Julia and I had met in high school, we’d been great.
At eighteen, after dating for three years, we’d decided to party a little too hard and thought…let’s get married. The next morning after graduation, with a hangover from hell, I’d realized that maybe marrying Julia wasn’t the best idea in the world.
We were both off to college in three months, her at Texas A&M and me at Notre Dame.
I had a football scholarship that was paying my way, and she had a full ride through her FFA—Future Farmers of America—earnings in high school as well as an agricultural scholarship that paid for what wasn’t covered by her proceeds. Our parents had always been good friends, and so we’d always had a great relationship and were close.
However, after I’d asked her to marry me, I’d felt kind of trapped.
I should’ve taken that feeling and ran with it, and maybe when I was thirty-five, after fifteen years of unhappy marriage, I wouldn’t have hated her guts. Nor would I have a kid that had to be used as a tug o’ war rope for two years as we fought for custody.
But I hadn’t run with the gut instinct, and I’d been stuck in the marriage from hell to Julia.
And when I’d finally pulled myself free of the hell that she put me through, I hadn’t had the heart to make my daughter, Desi, go through hell with me.
So I’d taken the weekly visits on Wednesday and Sundays, and every other weekend.
I didn’t complain that it wasn’t enough time.
I didn’t take her to court to ask for equal sharing.
Mostly because whatever I did in court would be taken out on Desi at home, and I couldn’t do that to my daughter.
Desi loved her mother and even went as far as to cover for her like she’d just told me she had.
“She’s, uh…” Desi looked uncomfortable. “She’s visiting her new boyfriend.”
“And where does her new boyfriend live?” I asked carefully.