Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I continued, my voice monotone as I did. “Toomey told me he was sleeping with Abilene. He said that she and him had a thing, but something happened and he had to back off. When he went to pursue her again, she’d started hanging with me. I knew that she was fucked up…knew it the second that she asked for me to fu…make love to her. I don’t know why I did it. I just…shit. I felt terrible. So I did.”
She blew out a shaky breath. “That was when he died? When he was shot in front of you?”
I bobbed my head.
“Hayes, he was the officer that shot Officer Toomey,” I explained. “But he told me after everything happened, he said, ‘She’s yours, man. You can tell by the dimples. Neither Toomey nor Abilene had them. Dimples are hereditary.’” I let my head fall back to rest against the headboard. “That didn’t cause me to feel any better about anything, though. Because what he didn’t know was that Abilene had dimples. Her brother and mom do, too. So me having them…that’s not really reflective on whether or not she was mine or not, you know?”
She pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“And the kid’s a freakin’ genius. God, is she smart. And I’m not dumb, but I’m definitely not MIT material like she is. And though Abilene was smart, she wasn’t just godforsaken smart, either. A few months after the ordeal, I just felt like I really had to know, you know? I had to know. So I went behind my mom’s back, went off to Dallas, and got a DNA test. I found out six weeks later that she wasn’t mine.”
“Oh, hell,” she said, unsure what to say to make it right.
She couldn’t say anything.
“But even though I knew that biologically she wasn’t mine, I decided that it didn’t matter. She was mine, no matter what a silly DNA test told me,” I said.
“And that’s all that matters, Slone,” she whispered. “She’s yours, and that’s that.”
I closed my eyes as I felt a weight lift off my chest.
I’d never told another living person that in my life. But it was the most exhilarating feeling ever to know that I didn’t bear that secret on my own anymore.
CHAPTER 16
Can anyone tell me if the skulls of your enemies are dishwasher safe?
-T-shirt
CARISTONIA
The alarm on Slone’s phone started to ding, and I glanced at him as he turned it off and shoved it into his pocket.
He started to swagger toward me in his suit, and once again I was struck with just how beautiful he was.
He bent down and placed a kiss onto my upturned lips. “Have fun with Sweetie today. She won’t be here next week because the doctor said she can’t fly past thirty-six weeks. Take care of yourself.”
And I did. I took care of Sweetie, too.
We arrived late.
Really late.
As in, ten minutes into the game late.
But not because we’d intended to or anything, but because Sweetie had started to experience what she thought were contractions, and we went to the ER.
Turns out, they were only Braxton Hicks, but it was enough to make us way later than we wanted to be.
Not that I minded.
I would never leave Sweetie alone in a big city by herself.
“Shit, I knew we were gonna be late.” Sweetie apologized for the fourteenth time in as many minutes.
I sighed. “Sweetie, I already told you it’s fine. Not to mention, you literally rolled me into the stadium last game in a wheelchair, after lifting me from the cab. I think we’re beyond apologizing at this point.”
She sighed and took a seat in the back, which was the only space available.
My eyes went to the glass wall.
I found him on the field, once again dressed in all his gear, staring at the scoreboard as if he was disgusted.
They were losing. Badly.
I didn’t know quite what the issue was, but they were only about ten minutes into the game, and there was some sort of pall hanging over the WAG box that I couldn’t quite place.
Everyone was playing horribly. As in, in the minute that I’d been sitting there, they’d dropped the ball twice. And from what Slone had told me, that wasn’t a good thing.
“Let’s sit over here,” Sweetie suggested, pointing to a couple of open seats toward the far wall.
We moved toward it, pushing past a shit ton of women taking selfies, and took a seat.
Sweetie sighed, pressing her hands on her belly, and said, “This is exhausting.”
“Living?” I teased.
“Yes!” she groaned.
I had my mouth open to say something else, but my words were interrupted.
“When did y’all get married?”
I turned to look over my shoulder to find an older woman there looking familiar, yet not.
I couldn’t place how I knew her, but I knew that I’d place it eventually.