Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence before Luce said, “I really fear for the genes that you’re passing on, Braxton. Let’s hope they take after your parents and not you or her.”
Braxton sneered at her. “I’m smart.”
“Sure you are,” she agreed too quickly. “You just have no common sense or decency. The decent thing to do would be to approach your mother when she wasn’t set to leave for work. Or eat her morning meal when you knew that she needed it to start her day right. The common sense thing would be for you to stay away from eighteen-year-olds that just don’t have the cognitive ability to see when they’re sticking their foot into it. The decent thing to do here would be to stay away from this house when you damn well know that I’m here. Since I had the decency to text you last night to let you know.”
“You were the one who texted him?” Telly screeched, the insults to her person completely flying over her head.
“I have common sense,” he disagreed.
“You are a spoiled brat who doesn’t know how to manage your money. You blew it all the moment we got divorced. Which I’d been keeping you from doing the entirety of our marriage. Now, you’re having to degrade yourself by asking your mother to throw you an expensive baby shower when you damn well know that she won’t have time. She’s been talking about this project for months. Which you very well know about seeing as I haven’t even been around and I know about it.”
“You were the gatekeeper of hell on my money. And it was exhausting,” he snapped. “You had no right to my money.”
“Actually,” my mother had finally had enough. “She did. She should’ve gotten half of it in the divorce. You make stupid decisions, you have to pay the consequences.” She looked over at Luce. “Not that you’re a stupid decision. I more mean that he is, cheating on you and getting a teenager pregnant.” She sighed. “And not even this one.”
Telly blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I leaned back in my chair as Braxton took Telly’s hand and tried to lead her outside. Telly stood her ground.
“Wait, I want to hear what that was supposed to mean.” Telly yanked her hand. “What are you talking about, Hilary?”
“I’m talking about you being the third teenager he’s gotten pregnant in the last three years. You weren’t the reason they broke up,” Mom explained. “You are at the end of the line of a long line of casual flings and broken promises. If you think that he’ll stay with you once the baby is here, you’re wrong. He’ll leave just like he’s done with all the rest. Then I won’t get to see the baby, because he’ll have broken something in you that you will want to hold a grudge against anyone that is related to him.”
So that had happened.
Twice now.
With a third on the horizon.
Braxton got a girl pregnant. He stayed around long enough for the girl to think that he cared. Then he left her high and dry at the most vulnerable time—right as she went into labor with the baby.
Seriously, it’d happened twice now.
It was like Braxton had a thing for pregnant women or something, because the moment the pregnancy was over? So were they.
“Oh, boy,” I heard Luce say. “Fighting words.”
“Your input is not needed,” Braxton snapped. “You have no clue what’s going to happen.”
“Well, prove me wrong, baby boy. Because I’m getting kind of tired of knowing I have grandchildren out there that their mothers refuse to let me see. Going as far as to move all the way across the country to keep it from us because of you.”
Braxton snarled something under his breath and left without another word.
Telly looked from us to him, then followed.
“You think that’s gonna happen with this one?” I asked as the door slammed shut not once but twice.
“Yes,” Mom answered. “Unfortunately. And this one isn’t even sweet like the other two. This one is a moron and a witch.”
“Maybe she’ll just leave the baby to Braxton and then you can see him then,” Luce hoped. “Because that girl as the sole parent? That doesn’t seem like a good thing to wish on an innocent baby.”
Mom sighed. “I have to get to work.”
She finished her last bite of pancake and then got up to head to the sink. She dropped her plate inside just as I finished my last bite.
I got up and bumped my mother away with my hip. “Go. I got this.”
Mom leaned her head against my shoulder, then did as I asked.
It was only after she was gone from the kitchen completely that Luce said, “It’s like you got every single bit of the common sense, smarts, decency and love that they provided you with. Like Braxton was literally left with nothing.”