Her fingers grip the book harder, her knuckles turning white.
“I want both of you to come back to St. Louis.”
She continues to glare at me, so pissed her eyes are misting up. She’s always hated that tears are her body’s response to anger and frustration. She’s always seen it as looking weak, and it always makes her double down.
“Both?” She snaps the word like it’s an insult to even suggest.
“Look. Fuck.” I take a step forward and she moves back two. “I fucking love you, Tin. I always ha—”
“Fuck you!” she roars. “This isn’t love. This is another manipulation. I thought you’d grown the fuck up, but here we are, you trying to turn Alex against me. What’s the plan, huh? Get me to St. Louis so it can be easier to take a child from his mother than here in Texas.”
God, I never even considered some shit like that. I want them together, with me. I don’t want fucking every other weekend and alternating holidays.
“I never stopped loving you. Pushing you away back then was for your own good, not because I wanted you gone.”
“My own good,” she huffs. She slaps the book on the coffee table, but even as the sound echoes around us like a gunshot, I don’t pull my eyes from her. “Look around! Does this look like good to you?”
“Tin, I—” She shoves me then, two tiny hands against my hard chest, and I let her move me. Taking three steps back she doesn’t stop shoving until I’m close to the front door. “Please, just listen to me.”
“I’ve heard enough. You want to fight it out in court? That’s what you want?”
“Tin, I—”
“Get out of my—this house!”
There’s no way she’s going to listen to reason or let me explain when she’s like this, and as much as it hurts to see her this way, I need to go before something is said we can’t come back from. Hell, at this point, I don’t know if we’ve come back from those words I said thirteen years ago.
“Take this,” I say, pulling an envelope from my back pocket.
She won’t even look at it.
“Take it, Tin. The ball is in your court.”
I walk around her and place it on top of the book she slammed on the table and walk out of the house.
I never thought this is how things would turn out. I was certain she loved me. I knew she was cautious. What woman wouldn’t be after the history we shared? She has more than just her own heart to consider in this situation. But how does she seem to hate me more now than ever before?
Chapter 28
Tinley
I glance at the bedside table one last time before leaving the room. The envelope, a bomb big enough to devastate my life shouldn’t be able to fit into such a small package.
I didn’t open it. My fingers burned just from picking it up and carrying it out of the living room. I didn’t want Alex to find it, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it either. I’m doing the most irresponsible thing ever, pretending like it doesn’t exist. Well, doing my best because I’ve looked in the direction of the drawer it’s hidden in over a million times since Ignacio left it hours ago.
I’m certain it’s paperwork for a court hearing, so I know I can’t ignore it forever, but I need just a little more time.
A few more hours to wrap my head around losing custody of my son. I asked—yelled—at him about it, but didn’t give him the chance to respond. I didn’t want his answer then any more than I do now. I don’t have a leg to stand on. I could argue that I’m a good mom, but we’re going to be homeless in four weeks. I don’t anticipate Cooper ever showing his face again until he blows through the money from the sale.
On top of that, my boss, pissed that I needed extra time, hired a new girl. Technically, I still have a job, but the hours assigned to me aren’t really enough to even waste the money on gas to get to work.
Gas. Work.
How long will it be before he comes back and claims the car he swears is a rental? I know better. Too nosy for my own good, I looked in the glove box. There’s a signed contract in there for purchase. He’s making payments on that damn thing, not renting it for a few weeks.
Another manipulation, just like I accused him of. Would he go so far as to have it towed, probably the day before court so I miss the hearing or show up late?
As much as I want to, I can’t picture Ignacio doing that, but I let myself believe he’d never hand me court papers for custody either.
I leave my bedroom, hearing Alex come through the front door.
“How was practice?” I ask.
“How did things go with that guy this morning? Did he turn his nose up in disgust and walk right back out?”
“Our house isn’t disgusting. It just needs a little tender love and care.” And about thirty thousand dollars in repairs. Where are the Flip This House people when you really need them? “He was fine. How was practice?”
I refuse to discuss with him the man’s plan for the house. I just pray we can avoid this area long enough that he doesn’t have to know that it’s been torn down.
“Fine.” He shrugs.
“Are you hungry?” Did you eat with him already?
“I could eat.”
That doesn’t answer my unspoken question because honestly the boy is twelve going on thirteen and eats more than a grown man.
“So, you didn’t get anything after practice?”
“I grabbed tacos with Dad, but they put pico on them.” He makes a disgusted sound.
Dad? When did that happen or is this the first time I’ve heard him refer to
