Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Christie nodded as if she understood something.
“Darlene supported me when I made the move. Worked at a branch here until I didn’t, but when we had James, she worked less and less until it was all on me.”
“Well, she had to, didn’t she?” Christie asked. “Someone had to take care of him.”
“Yeah, but after a while, it was more about what she was doing and what I wasn’t. I didn’t get much of a chance. I wasn’t absent if that’s what you’re thinking—”
“I wasn’t.”
“—I just ended up having to work a lot to stay steady. And living here is expensive as hell.” I shook my head. I couldn’t make more excuses. “When I started the landscaping stuff, we fell behind on bills, but even when we caught up, there just wasn’t enough time, you know? Always so much work, and I didn’t want to turn anything down. I didn’t want us to go back to not paying bills, not even for a moment. It was pressure. I don’t do well with pressure.”
“And you feel like Darlene pressured you?”
“We did a lot of dumb things before we were ready. Not that I’d ever regret James—I don’t. I love my boy. But I spent a lot of time buying and then keeping us in a house, furniture, a nice, safe car for her and the kid, clothes, and now that we’re divorced, she gets to keep it all, and she’s moved on to someone else. That’s fine. I don’t care, but she will not let it go. It’s still about making me look like a horrible father, and I’m tired of it.” My chest filled with the anger I’d suppressed all evening. “I just want to be there for my kid, but she never lets me forget how often I screw that up, and I’m tired, just so fucking tired of her shit and her lying and—I’ll take her through hell in court before I let her take James from me.”
I saw it in her eyes before I realized what I’d said. Shock, wonder, confusion. I’d put a lot on her with that last part, but that was what it boiled down to. The thought of suing James’s mother bothered me. I still hadn’t finished discussing it all with Jerry. But more and more, I felt like I could win this, and not knowing her next moves made me feel like I didn’t have much choice.
Christie still hadn’t said a thing. The weight of her gaze made me feel small, almost nonexistent, but I couldn’t figure out why. “She’s given me so much hell for not having time, but Christie, you don’t understand. She’s been playing everyone. Even her new boyfriend, she’s cheating on him. I’ve been finding more dirt on her just in the past few days that I—”
“Dirt?” Her condescending tone made me cringe. “Are you serious, Ryan?” Her tone softened, and I shoved back the fighting voice that seemed to instinctively rise to the surface. “There has to be another way, Ryan. I can’t imagine she’d want to take James away from you.”
I scoffed. “Why, because you know her?”
Then it hit me. The guilty look forcing her attentive gaze to the table made me wonder, but she’d picked up her fork quickly like she was going to take a bite—of what, her sandwich? But how would that even be possible unless . . .
“Did you talk to Darlene? Did she call you when you had my phone?” My confusion quickly turned into anger, and again, it felt like I was being backed into a corner with only one way out.
“I didn’t call her.” She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I didn’t—it was that night when I left you at the bar. You’d invited me to your place.”
“I was kidding. I left your phone at my place in the garage. Did you go to my house?”
Fear paled her face, and without a word, I knew she had. She had, and she’d met Darlene, and now she and Darlene were buddies plotting against me to take away my son.
“Ryan, I need you to listen. Please, I can see everything you probably want to believe right now but let me finish before you get angrier than you need to be.”
“You’re one to talk.”
She closed her eyes and took a visible breath slowly until her chest expanded, then deflated. I tried that myself, but my mind kept swimming with fire and the betrayal she was going to try to justify.
“Yes. I went to your house. The address was on your phone. I was angry and insulted, and I went there to demand my phone back from you. But you weren’t there. She was. I’m sorry.”
“She knows we’ve had sex, doesn’t she?”
Christie nodded. “I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to get between you two. But I didn’t have a good reason for being there other than the truth. I wanted my phone and thought that was your address.”