Page 39 of Fought and Freed

“Tell me he’s not stupid enough to ride that skank bareback!” Cody paced angrily around the living room. “What was that idiot thinking? He finally gets his life back in order and screws it up again!”

“Cody, stop it!” Maddy shouted. “Skylar doesn’t need you being hard on him. He’s already doing that enough to himself. What he needs right now is for us to understand and support him.”

Maddy was getting tired of Cody jumping to conclusions all the time. “It’s not like he went out and did this on purpose. Plus, he said he used a condom every time, and I believe him.”

Cody’s shoulders collapsed. “You’re right, Maddy. I’ll be supportive. But he needs to get a paternity test.”

“Amber said she’d get one once the baby was born and not before.” A massive headache was forming, and Maddy rubbed her temple. “She has a doctor’s appointment she wants Skylar to go to.”

“All she wants is to get her hands on our money.” Cody grabbed the mantle of the fireplace. “That’s all this is.”

Jace crossed his arm over his body. “Right now, I’m more worried about Skylar riding his bike out there.”

“I’m not exactly pleased about him doing that, either, but he’s been riding for years, and he knows what he’s doing.” Cody walked back toward the couch and sat.

He ran his hands down her hair. “You know he loves you, right? If the kid turns out to be Skylar’s, it won’t change how he feels about you. Everything will work out, Maddy.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, listening for the sound of Skylar’s bike.

After a while of silence, Cody finally breaks it. “Do you want to watch some TV, Maddy?”

Maddy couldn’t focus on a movie right now. “I’m sorry, but I want to go up to my room and do some reading.”

Cody came back around and pulled her into a hug. “Skylar will be fine, Maddy.”

“I know.” She leaned into his embrace. “It’s just everything that’s happened the last couple of days. It all hit me at once.”

Jace hugged her next. “You know where to find us if you need anything.”

Maddy kissed both of them goodnight and headed upstairs.

She stopped at Skylar’s room to grab one of his shirts to sleep in, then walked to her room, where she hopped into the shower to wash away the day.

When she grabbed the shampoo, her hand trembled.

She shook out her arms, then rubbed them. God, she just wanted something to block out all these feelings. Everything felt like too much right now, and her mind turned to how, when Mike was slipping her drugs, she crashed so hard at night that she didn’t hear his parties. That sounded good right now.

Well, she guessed this answered Dr. Hayes’s question about whether she’d get cravings.

“Argh!” she cried out, hating feeling out of control.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, held it, then let it out, repeating the process. Not that it helped much.

She continued with her shower, but it wasn’t as relaxing as she hoped. Her mind was reeling with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. She’d became rich, planned a trip to California, and found out her nemesis was, supposedly, carrying her boyfriend’s baby.

She got out of the shower and dried herself off before putting on Skylar’s shirt, but she was still too restless, so she cleaned up in the bathroom, too.

When that didn’t help, she crawled into bed.

Needing to get out of her own head, she picked up the book she was reading. From the first page, this book had pulled her in. A few times during rehab, she had found herself so into the book that she lost track of time.

Maddy opened to the page she left off on and started reading.

She read the words on the page, but when she reached the bottom, she had no idea what had happened.

Frustrated, she stuffed the bookmark back in place and laid the book down beside her.

Pregnant! She couldn’t get over Amber having Skylar’s baby. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

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