I rev the engine and hope they get the fucking clue and back off so I don’t run them over. One more rev of the engine and the slight movement backwards has them all running off to get in their cars so they can chase me.
Fucking Christ.
Have drama, please fucking follow. If I put stupid-ass bumper stickers on my car, that’s what it would say.
I check for kids and rev the engine once more before I quickly leave the lot. I get clear of the craziness when I lose most of the cars at a red light I fly through on the tail end of a yellow. I finally breathe a sigh of relief, can have a minute of peace humming along to Best of You on the radio, and then I look down at my phone.
And the air I just got back gets fucking sucker punched right out of me. My foot falters on the gas like a fucking rookie driver from the text displayed on the screen.
Sealed envelope sitting on my desk. Results are back. Call me.
My entire body freezes—lungs, heart, throat, everything. I stare straight ahead, my knuckles turn white as I grip the steering wheel, trying to get a grip on the onslaught of emotions burying me alive.
I force myself to breathe, to blink, to think. The minute my head’s commands to my body click, I swerve across the lane causing horns to blare. I pull into the closest driveway I see, a strip mall parking lot, and slam on the brakes.
I pick up my phone to call my lawyer but put it back down as I squeeze my eyes shut and try to get a handle on the nerves suddenly shooting through me. This is it. The answer on the other end of the line is going to be either my biggest fuck up or my greatest relief.
The certainty I felt before that this couldn’t be true, doesn’t feel so fucking certain anymore. I blow out a breath, pound a fist on the console, grab a figurative hold of my balls, and pick up the phone.
Each ring destroys me. It’s like waiting for the chair to be kicked out from beneath my feet with a noose looped harmlessly around my neck.
“Donavan.”
It takes me a minute to respond. “Hey, CJ.” My voice sounds so fucking foreign, like a little kid waiting for his punishment to be decided.
“You ready?”
“Fucking Christ, tell me already, will you?” I bark.
He chuckles as I hear the paper tear. Easy for him to fucking laugh right now when my heart’s hammering, fucking head is pounding, and foot is bouncing on the floorboard. And then I hear CJ exhale.
“You’re good.”
There’s no way I heard him right. “What?”
“She lied. The baby’s not yours.”
I pump my fist out into the air and shout. I squeeze my head in both of my hands as the adrenaline hits me at full force, hands tremble and fucking tears well. I can’t even process a thought. I know CJ is talking but I can’t hear him because my heart is pounding in my ears from the adrenaline hitting me like it does at the start of a race. I raise a hand to run it through my hair but stop midair to pound on the steering wheel before scrubbing at my face because I’m so overwhelmed … so inundated with fucking relief I can’t keep a single thought straight, except for one.
It’s not mine.
I didn’t fuck up a poor soul’s life by tainting it with my blood.
By being born to a manipulative bitch like Tawny.
“You okay, Wood?”
It takes me a minute to swallow and find my voice. “Yeah,” I sigh. “Better than okay. Thanks.”
“I’ll have Chase issue a press release for—”
“I’ll cover that,” I tell him, wanting nothing more to than to feed the vultures a taste of crow and get their fucking obtrusive cameras out of our lives for a bit. Let Rylee adjust to my fucking crazy life while we find our footing.
There I go again. Thinking about finding our fucking footing and the future and shit with her. My fucking kryptonite.
Motherfucker.
And it hits me.
Rylee.
I need to tell her.
“Thanks again, CJ, I gotta call—I gotta go.”
I hang up and immediately start to dial Rylee but my hands are shaking so badly from the adrenaline racing through my blood, I stop for a second.
And then I realize I want to end this once and for all before I talk to Ry. I want to call her with the slate clean so I can tell her this is all behind us. Baby, Tawny, lies—everything is over and fucking done with.
I take a deep breath as I dial the number that used to be so familiar but now just makes my blood boil.
“Colton?” I like the fact she’s surprised, that I’ve caught her off guard.
Time to play ball.
“Tawny.” My voice is flat, unemotional. I don’t say anything else. I want her to squirm. I want her to wonder if I know or not. She’s ballsy enough to lie to my face, let’s see if she’s gonna keep up the fucking charade or lay her cards on the table.
Because fuck if the paternity test isn’t my ace in the hole.
“Hi,” she says so softly that I can’t really figure out if she’s being timid or trying to sound seductive.
Either one has my stomach churning.
I chew my cheek, trying to figure out where I want to go with this conversation because as much as I want to make her suffer, I just want her fucking gone. Sayonara, adios, the whole fucking goodbye. She clears her throat and I know the silence is killing her.
Good.
“Colton,” she says my name again, and I have to bite my tongue, let her suffer. “Did you need something? I—I’m surprised to hear from you …”
“Really? Surprised?” The sarcasm drips from my voice like fucking motor oil. “Now why would that be?”
She starts to stutter out words but none of them get past the first syllable. “Save it Tawn. Just tell me one thing. Why?”
When the fuck did she get like this? When did she go from my college sweetheart to the conniving, manipulative bitch on the other end of the line? What the fuck did I miss?
“Why?” she asks, drawing the word out. We’ve been friends for so long, I can tell she’s fishing. She’s looking for a clue so she can take it and twist it and manipulate it into whatever I’m going to say that suits her best.
And I’m done. The innocent routine ended a long fucking time ago when it comes to her and her goddamn lies. At least I recognize it now. After what she did to Ry? And now tried to do to me?
Batter up, sweetheart.
“Yeah, why?” I bite out. “Because you fucking lied through those perfect white teeth of yours? Used my accident to—”
“Colton I didn’t try to—”
“Shut the fuck up, Tawny! I don’t care about your goddamn pathetic excuses! ” I shout at her because I’m on a roll and fuck if it doesn’t feel good to let it out. Release all of the anger and the fear and the uncertainty that’s ruled my fucking life over the past few weeks. Left me a goddamn disoriented mess just like driving blindly into the smoke after a crash to hope I come out the other side of its oppressive fucking haze. “You didn’t try to what?”
My anger’s eating me raw. I need to move. Need to expel some of it so I shove open the door of the Rover and start pacing back and forth, shoving my free hand through my hair as my feet hit the fucking ground beneath me.
“You didn’t try to use my accident—my fucked up head—as a means to get what you wanted? Tell me I fucked you when I didn’t? Trap me into being the daddy for your illegitimate kid? How fucked up is that? What kind of piece of shit does that, Tawn? Huh? Can you answer me why the woman I used to know—was my friend once upon a fucked up time—had to stoop so damn low that you used a kid to try and get me back?”
There’s not enough fucking asphalt in this parking lot right now to help me abate the fucking fury in my veins, because the more I think about it—about what she was trying to do to me—the stronger my rage grows.
Goddamn right she’s quiet, I tell myself, when she doesn’t respond to a single thing I’ve said. All I hear are whimpering cries on the other end of the line.
; “To think I used to care about you. Fucking unbelievable, T.” I shake my head and swallow a huge gulp of air. “Is this how you treat the people you claim to love? Use a kid to manipulate? To fucking deceive to get love?”
“You got back the results.” It’s not a question, just a soft statement that’s eerily calm.
And she knows.
“Yeah, I got them back.” The quiet steel in my voice should have her running for fucking cover.
“You fucked with me once, Tawn. I dealt with it as gently as possible since our families are connected.” I lean my back against the Rover and just keep shaking my head, my pulse racing, and breath panting out in shallow breaths. “But you obviously don’t care about that because you just majorly fucked with me again. Tried to ruin me with the one thing you know would fuck me up more than anything else. So I suggest you listen closely because I’m only going to say this once. I’m fucking done with you. Don’t contact me. You sure as fuck better not contact Ry. And family functions?” I laugh and it sure as fuck isn’t because I’m feeling happy. “I suggest you have the stomach flu or some other reason not to attend. Got it? You were my friend and now you’re just … nothing.”
“Please listen,” she pleads and her voice—the voice that used to mean something—does fucking nothing to me. At all. “Don’t be so cold—”
“Cold?” I shout at her, my body vibrating with anger. “Cold? Cold? Get ready for the polar fucking ice cap because we’re done. You’re dead to me, Tawny. Nothing else left to say.” And I hang up the phone despite the sob I hear coming through the other end. I turn and brace my hands on the side of my car as I process everything. As I try to comprehend how a childhood friend could do that to me.
And I realize it doesn’t really fucking matter. The whys, the what fors. Any of it.
Because I have Ry now.
Holy shit. I’m so wrapped up in my head and what I just did, that I forgot the whole reason I did it.
Rylee.
I get in the car as I fumble with the phone in my hand, and it takes me a second to bring her up from my recent calls list. The phone rings but I’m fucking impatient. “C’mon, Ry!” I pound the steering wheel with my fist as the ringing filters through the speakers of the car.
“Hey!” She laughs.
The sound. My fucking God, that carefree sound in her voice grabs a hold of my fucking heart and just squeezes it so tight I feel like I can’t breathe. It’s like all of a sudden all of the bullshit is gone with Tawny and the crash, and even though I can’t take a breath, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in a long ass time. Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Fucking clarity and shit?
I start to speak and I can’t. What the fuck? It’s like I want to say everything to her at once and yet I can’t think of how to start. I start laughing, like batshit crazy laughing, because I’m the middle of some shitty strip mall and it hits me now?
“You okay?” she asks in that sexy tone of hers.
“Yeah,” I choke out through my laughter. “I just—”
The giggle comes through the speaker loud and clear and I just stop talking. It’s Zander’s and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard it. The sound cuts me fucking open like a filet knife. I swear to God I couldn’t be any more of a chick right now with my emotions all over the fucking place.
“Go get your glove in the backyard and we’ll get going, okay?” I hear him agree through the line. “Sorry, you were going to tell me what was so funny.”
And I start to talk, begin to tell her about the test results when I hear a sound that is so horrifying it reaches into my chest and tears into my hardened heart. “What the fuck is that?” I can’t say it quickly enough because despite the high-pitched scream that sounds like a wounded animal fighting for his life, I can still hear Rylee moving through the phone line.
My stomach churns at the fucking sound and her goddamn silence. “Ry? Tell me what’s going on. Ry?”
“No, no, no, no!” she says and there’s something in her voice—fear, disbelief, and shock mixed with defiance—that has shivers dancing up my spine and has me immediately starting the car and throwing it into gear.
“Goddammit, Ry! Talk to me. What the fuck is wrong?” I yell into the phone, panic overtaking me, but all I hear is her heavy breathing. And then whimpering. “Rylee!”
“You can’t have him!” she says in an eerily calm voice, which sounds far away and has me cutting off some poor fucker in the lane next to me.
“Who’s there, Ry? Tell me, baby, please,” I plead, fear like I’ve only ever known in my youth tasting like bile in my mouth. Fear in my every fucking nerve. I struggle with deciding whether to hang up and call 9-1-1, but that would mean I’d have to hang up on her—not hear her, not know she’s okay.
“You fucking bitch!” is all I hear before she cries out in pain and the phone goes dead.
“No!” I scream and smash my hand into the steering wheel. My eyes blur as I try to push the numbers on my phone, but my fingers are shaking so fucking bad that I can’t even manage 9-1-1 until after the third try.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” The disembodied voice answers.
“Please help them. They’re screaming and … they’re screaming!” I plead with her.
“Who’s screaming, sir?”
“Rylee and Zand…” I can’t fucking think straight; ice floods my veins and my only thought is I need to get to them so I don’t even realize I’m not making any fucking sense. “Please, someone is there and—”
“Sir, what’s your name? What’s the address?”
“Co-Colton,” I stutter out when I realize I don’t even know the fucking address. Just the street. “Switzerland Avenue.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Hang on, baby. Hang on. I’m coming. It’s all I repeat in my head—over and over—as my body shakes.
“What’s the address sir?”
“I don’t fucking know!” I shout at the 9-1-1 operator. “The one with all the goddamn paparazzi out front. There’s no one else in the house but her and a little boy. Please! Quickly.”
And when I look up from ending the call, I have to slam on the brakes as I hit fucking road construction.
“Fuck!” I yell, laying in on my horn like it’s my fucking lifeline.
Rylee.
She’s my only thought.
Rylee.
Please God, no.
“Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman. Spiderman. Batman …” Zander repeats it over and over as he sits balled up in a corner behind me in the backyard. It’s the only thing I can hear over the buzzing in my head right now from the force of the punch. Zander’s hands are over his ears and he rocks back and forth as he chants, withdrawing into himself. Into the world he wants to exist, where there are no bad men wielding guns or fathers holding knives cutting their wives apart.
The problem is that in Zander’s world, they are one in the same.
I notice all of this in the split second after I’m punched in the face, my body flinging and twisting from the impact to see my sweet boy shrinking into himself. Time stands still then begins to move in slow motion. The pain in my cheek and eye does nothing to abate the fear in my heart as I look up to meet the eyes of the man that’s been a constant presence in my life over the past few weeks. His hat and dark glasses have been knocked off and it hits me.
I know this man.
I’ve seen him before.
He’s the man who gave me the creeps in the Target parking lot. He’s the man from the dark blue sedan parked outside of The House and my house, following me. Without his hat and sunglasses I can see Zander in him. I know why he seemed so familiar in the parking lot that day. He has the same color eyes, the same features; his hair is longer and a bit darker, but the resemblance is unmistakable.
My eyes skim over the matte black metal of the pistol he has pointed at me and then to his eyes—dark pools of unemotional blackness—that are flickering back and forth from me to Zander and his incessant chanti
ng of superheroes in the background.
“What did you do to him?” he shouts at me angling the gun over to Zander and then back to me. “Why’s he doing that? Answer me!”
Stay calm, Rylee. Stay calm, Rylee.
“He—he’s scared.” You did this to him, I want to scream at him. You did this, you useless piece of murdering sack of shit, but all I do is repeat myself, trying to hide my fear and keep myself from stuttering. I try to focus on the pounding of my heart, counting the beats thumping in my ears to keep me calm. I can feel the rivulets of sweat trickle between my shoulder blades and breasts. I can smell the fear and my stomach revolts, knowing it’s mine that I smell—mixed with his.
And I hold onto that thought.
That he’s scared too.
Think, Ry. Think. I need to keep him calm but protect Zander, and I have no clue how to do that. The unfettered fear I feel is scattering my thoughts, robbing me of coherency. Of what in the hell I should do, because I know he’s murdered before. Murdered the mother of his child, his wife no less.
What’s going to stop him from murdering me?
He has nothing to lose.
And that more than anything scares the shit out of me.
I force a swallow, my eyes flicking all over the backyard. I see his camera and fake press pass on the ground by the gate. I see my cell phone in the edge of the grass, where it scattered when he hit me, and I immediately think of Colton.
I instantly grab on to the hope that he heard me, knows we’re in trouble, will call for help—because if he didn’t, I have no chance at protecting Zander against this madman. Of protecting myself.
My tears sting, and the swelling in my eye from where he ambushed me, hurts like a bitch. My hands are shaking and my breath hitches in fear, while the increased volume of Zander’s chant is adding a heightened level of stress to the whole situation.
It’s the only sound I can hear in the early morning silence—the chants of a little boy knowing he has no hope left. And with each passing moment, the whispered words get louder and louder as if he’s trying to drown out the sound of his dad’s voice.
“Wh—what do you want?” I finally ask over Zander’s voice, sensing his grasp on reality is long gone. And I don’t know how to rationalize with a crazy person.