Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 130673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
He jerked his chin in a sharp nod. “I never meant to hurt her.”
“Good. Good.” I clapped his shoulder a tad too aggressively, a serene smile stretched across my face. “Accidents happen. I get it. Like, if someone were to mess with what’s mine again, even though I’d warned them, I could have an oopsie too, you know. Chop their fingers off to ensure it was the last time they hurt a woman or disrespected me. Being theoretical here, of course.”
Tucker rubbed his jaw miserably. Unfortunately, he was still handsome. Fortunately, no pretty face could fix the ugly on the inside.
“Dude, point taken. You want me not to hit on your girl, not to hurt her, not to bail on her.” He studied me through silent fury.
I nodded briskly. “See? Row always said you were so dumb you couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. I disagree. I don’t think you’re dumber than average, just more malicious. Which was why I felt the need to give you this little welcome despite Dylan begging me to forget all about it.”
“So…Dylan didn’t send you to hit me?” He worked his jaw back and forth, holding it in his fist to ensure it wouldn’t fall off.
“Of course not. Doubt she even remembers she saw you today.” I snorted, downplaying how pissed off I was at the prospect that it gave him hope. “This was all me.”
“Well, you can’t keep me away from my daughter. I wanna see her.” Tucker lurched his chin up.
“Yeah? What stopped you until now?” I parked a hand next to his ear, leaning against the wall, and he instinctively flinched. I chuckled.
“I was going to. This Easter. Go back to Staindrop. I’m better now.”
“Hardly fucking impressive, seeing as you can’t do any worse,” I muttered, rubbing my chin as I considered what to do with him. It was time to wrap it up. “Where were you until now?”
He shrugged, looking childlike. And, to my horror, a little like Gravity. Their lower lips stuck out in the same manner when they were going to cry. Only Gravity was actually fucking adorable when she did that.
You don’t find her adorable. You find her annoying. What the hell are you thinking, Coltridge?
“After Allison got thrown in the can, I stuck around Maine for a little while so I could see her,” he explained.
Allison was the woman he’d been cheating on Dylan with. It was the equivalent of breaking your diet to gulp machine oil.
Tucker’s face clouded. “But then she’d get all difficult and snappy with me when I forgot to top up her inmate card or get her books and magazines, so I decided to travel for a while. Saved up, went to Australia, New Zealand, traveled the Far East by myself a little…”
“Single life is great, isn’t it?” I drawled.
He recoiled again. “I was a kid.”
“So was Dylan. She still stepped up.”
“What do you want me to say, man?” he whined. “I screwed up. I’d do anything to make up for it.”
I shook my head, realizing I wasn’t the one he owed these answers to. Stepping back, I raised a finger between us. “Upset my fiancée again, Tucker, I fucking dare you. I’ll finish the job without blinking an eye. You hear me?”
With that, I turned around and disappeared into the night.
DYLAN
Dylan: Hi. Tate?
Tate: Who is it?
Dylan: Dylan Casablancas.
Tate: How did you get past the security codes to message me?
Dylan: Row gave them to me. Hope you don’t mind.
Tate: I do.
Tate: Also, I’m not interested.
Dylan: I’m not offering, you…you…
Tate: Asshole? Bastard? Waste of oxygen?
Dylan: All three.
Tate: Glad we settled it. Have a good life.
Dylan: I need your help.
Tate: I am not in the habit of giving it for free, and there is nothing you can offer me that I don’t already have.
Dylan: If this goes sideways, Row’ll drop everything, your mutual businesses included, to come to my rescue. So technically, it IS in your interest to help me.
Tate: What do you want?
Dylan: Advice.
Tate: Have you seen my life?
Tate: I could think of 7.9 billion people better equipped to give you sound advice.
Dylan: LEGAL advice.
Tate: Shoot.
Dylan: My ex Tucker is in town. We are about to work with each other. He wants to see our mutual kid even though he’s never met her before and walked out on us. Does he have the right to see her?
Tate had passed the bar in New York sometime in the previous decade. He wasn’t a practicing lawyer, but he seemed like the kind of man to know everything about anything.
Tate: That’s a complicated question. Did he ever abuse you? Hit you? Hurt you?
I thought about my bruised wrist. I was pretty sure if I went to the police, Tucker would be able to convince them it was all a big, fat mistake. That he was swept up, excited to see me, the mother of his child, and wanted to talk. And maybe it was the truth. Emotions had been running high. He’d never physically hurt me before.