Page 59 of Wickedly Betrayed

I wipe my tears away and smile back. “I’m starving.”

She turns to walk off, but I stop her with a hand on her arm. When she’s facing me again, I tell her quietly, “Thank you for keeping everything.”

“You’re very welcome, sweetie.” She puts her arm around my waist. “Let’s go eat.”

19

Mac

Her sense of humor…

IPUSH THE END button on my phone for the sixth time, becoming more and more pissed each time I get Tessa’s voice mail. I’ve been trying to call her for the past several hours. I’ve called her cell phone, her house phone, and her work number. I’ve left her three different voice mails and left multiple text messages telling her she needs to call me. I’ve heard nothing from her.

I grip my phone tightly and hear the plastic creak a little. I loosen my grip. What I want to do it is throw it across the room and shatter it against the wall. I drop the phone on the coffee table before I follow through with the urge.

She knows better than to keep me hanging like this. It was always a mutual agreement that if one calls the other we would call them back as soon as possible, just in case it involved T. What pisses me off even more is that her job said she didn’t show up today for work. Tessa may be unpredictable most of the time, but one thing she’s always been religious about is working.

Something doesn’t feel right. The more I think on it, the more I worry that Tessa did in fact have something to do with the shit that’s been going on with Mia. I’ve already ruled out Shady. The day after I found Mia’s tire was slashed, I paid a visit to Dax. He said that Shady had been at his house for several hours and they were together the entire time. If I didn’t know Dax so well I would think he was covering for his friend, but I do know him and trust his word.

The sound of my phone vibrating on the coffee table has me snatching it up and looking at the screen, thinking it’s Tessa calling me back. It’s not. Instead it’s T. It’s not who I want it to be, but I always enjoy hearing from my boy.

“Hey, T, what’s up, kid?” I get up off the couch and walk into the kitchen to grab a bottled water.

“Have you heard from Mom?” he asks. The tone of his voice has me straightening from the fridge.

“No, I haven’t. I’ve been trying to call her for the past several hours. Why, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I’m at my Taekwondo class, and I guess she forgot to pick me up,” he mumbles into the phone.

I look at the clock on the microwave. Shit!His class ended over an hour ago. She should have been there by now.

“Have you tried calling her?” I ask him, while I walk over and grab my keys. I’m walking out the door to my truck when he answers.

“Yeah, but she’s not answering. I left a message, but she hasn’t called back yet.” I can tell he’s starting to worry.

“Alright, T, listen to me. Is there someone still at the gym?”

“Yeah, but the last class ends soon.”

“I want you to go back inside and wait. I’m on my way there now to pick you up, okay?” I confirm this by revving the engine of my truck and peeling out of the driveway.

“Okay, Dad. Do you think something happened to Mom?” he asks with a tremor in his voice. He tries so hard to act tough, but at the end of the day he’s still a ten-year-old boy.

“No, T. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll figure it out. Go inside and wait for me. I’ll be there soon.”

We hang up after he promises to stay inside. I don’t worry about his instructor closing the gym and leaving T by himself outside. I don’t know the guy well, but from the start of T’s lessons, he said he always waits for the last student to be picked up.

The closer I get to T, the more pissed I become. What the fuck does Tessa think she’s doing, just leaving T like that? When I took T home the other day, I sat down with Tessa and asked her what was going on that caused her to be gone from the house so much. Of course, she avoided answering and became defensive. I, in return, told her that shit needed to change. That I wasn’t going to put up with her neglecting T like she was. I told her that if shit didn’t change, I was taking her to court to get full custody of him. She became tearful and promised it wouldn’t happen again. I regret now not questioning her further on her recent unknown actions. What the fuck does she have going on that’s so important she forgets to pick up our son? Doesn’t matter now anyway, because I’m done. She obviously doesn’t want the responsibility anymore. That’s absolutely fine with me. I should have taken T away sooner. The only reason I didn’t was because she was a fairly decent mother, and I know kids need their mothers. Her decency at being a mother has gone down the drain lately. I’m looking forward to having T with me on a more permanent basis.

I pull up to the curb of the gym twenty minutes later and see T sitting inside on one of the many chairs. Before I can get out, he spots me and gets up to come outside. I wave to the instructor to let him know I’m picking T up. T climbs inside the truck but doesn’t say anything. Before I put the truck back into gear, I look over at him. His expression shows both anger and worry.

“You alright, T?”

He shrugs and answers without looking at me. “I guess so.”

“Have things been better with your mom?” I don’t want to worry him, but I need to know if things changed once I spokewith her. I’m finding it very strange that not long after I find out from T that his mom is leaving him alone so much she pulls this stunt, especially since she very adamantly told me things would be different. When I talked to T a week ago, he seemed fine. When I asked him about how things were going with his mom, he said she had gotten better. Again, something just doesn’t feel right.

Looking out the window, instead of at me, he says, “Yeah, Mom’s been great.”

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