Page 29 of Red Flag Bull

I shake my head. “I’ve never fed him at my breast. Only expressed.”

His eyebrows twitch. “Why?”

I swallow hard and look at his boots instead of his face. “Because ’Cinda wanted her boy to have breastmilk, and she didn’t have any. But feeding him skin to skin would have been too intimate. I’m not the boy’s mother.”

“Why are you saying it like that?” he asks. “Why do you call him the boy?”

“Because she named him Jason,” I whisper, wiping my tears and lifting my chin to meet his gaze, “and I can hardly speak your name when it’s not to your face.”

He stares at me, his jaw ticking. “Why would she do that? Is it her husband’s name? Her father-in-law’s?”

I shake my head. “She did it because she’s an entitled shit, who lured me in with a warm smile and gave me a false sense of security, so I’d do what she wanted. You know how I love to whore myself for a shred of kindness.”

Jason’s face remains deadpan. He says nothing, but he demands more information with his unwavering gaze.

I hang my head and sigh. “She asked me my favorite boy’s name. I thought we were bonding. I didn’t know she was going to use it. And when she did, it wasn’t as any kind of favor. Not like, Oh, look, Mandi. I named him Jason, because you have great taste in names, and I want you to enjoy this kid every day and be happy. More like, That’s right, bitch. I stole your favorite name, and I’m going to live happily ever after with it, while you look on with envy. Had a challenge in her eyes, ready to fight me about it and everything.”

“Did you?” he asks.

“Did I what?”

“Fight her,” he says through his teeth.

“Not right away,” I admit, hugging my knees.

“Of course not,” he says. “You kissed her ass and provided her with breastmilk when she demanded it, because that was what was best for the boy.” He takes a seat beside me and looks out to the street.

“It was best for the baby,” I say defensively.

“I’m not arguing,” he says flatly. “Given the chance to make a child happy, you’d martyr yourself any way you could think to do it.”

My eyes burn with the need to shed tears, and I look up at the sky to keep them from falling before I can blink them away.

“What was best for you?” he asks turning to face me.

I shrug. “I’ve never known the answer to that.”

“Haven’t you?” He searches my eyes, and I look away, scared of what he’ll find.

“When did you fight back?” he asks after a while.

“Later.” I sigh, because of course, he hasn’t forgotten that I said I did. “After the baby came, she got meaner as the days went on. She had what she wanted, and she didn’t need to pretend she wanted me around anymore once the boy started solids. It was her way of encouraging me to leave, but I didn’t get it, at first. Stupid, doormat Amanda hung in there, trying twice as hard to please someone who couldn’t be pleased. She was so mean, even her husband felt sorry for me and tried to compensate by being nicer.”

Jason closes his eyes and exhales in a pained way, as if he solved the puzzle and doesn’t like how it turned out. “You fucked her husband.”

“More than I’m proud of. Whore for a little kindness,” I confirm. “True to my nature.” I rest my chin on my knees and wipe my eyes. “It was easy, too. He always had an eye for me and apparently, when you have a guy’s baby and make its food with your tits, he can’t help but grow more curious about your body. He was nice to me, and he wanted to fuck me, so I let him. And eventually, I led him to do it at the exact time I knew ’Cinda would catch us in the act.”

Jason grips my thigh. Hard enough to bruise. “What did you say?”

I lean into the pain, as I frown. “About which bit?”

He tightens his grip, and I yelp as a sudden jerk gets me airborne. He flips me up and over his shoulder and marches me inside.

“Jason?” I try to wriggle backward to see his face, but he holds me fast.

The door slams behind us, and he strides through the house, before heading downstairs with me.

When the lights come on, they flicker with a warm, candle-like glow. The bulbs are shaped like candle flames, but the wall sconces don’t hold my attention for long once I realize I’m surrounded by instruments of pain.

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