Page 50 of The Spice Play

“No. I’m not taking him to school without him in a car seat,” she snapped.

“You’re right. You’re not taking him to school at all if you’re driving the truck.” I pulled my robe tighter around my body, the last of the uncharacteristically cool spring mornings doing just enough to make me chilly. It was far too early for this shit, and I was aching from the game and slightly hungover — if she thought for one second I was going to let this slide she was sorely mistaken.

She glared at me over the top of the door. “I have driven plenty of kids to school, daycare, doctor appointments, and birthday parties in that truck and never had a single problem.”

I took a sip of my coffee and held her gaze over thelip of my mug, anxious to pull my trump card. “When was the last time you took it to a shop?”

Her brows knit together as streaks of pink burst out across the sky. Matty would be up soon, but we still had another twenty to thirty minutes until we needed to worry about that — probably why she’d come out here so early. “Maybe a year and a half ago for an oil change.”

Jesus.A year and a half was far too long for that hunk of trash. “Did they mention anything about the lifter back then?”

“The what?”

Rolling my eyes, I stepped down off the porch, my bare feet meeting the cold cement of the little pathway between the steps and the driveway. “I took your truck to the shop a few weeks ago,” I said, picking up the hunk of cushion and plastic. “In the simplest terms possible, the thing that makes your engine work atallis rusted to shit, Penelope. You’re lucky it hasn’t broken already. It could give out at any second and blow your entire engine.”

She stood there, mouth hanging open, little lines sprouting at the very top of the bridge of her nose. “You’re lying.”

I pushed myself between her and the open back seat, shoving the car seat back into place on its base until it clicked into position. “I’m not. I’ve got the report inside. Your serpentine belt is fucked, too, if that makes a difference.”

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’ve been driving the Porsche,” I snapped.

“You took my truck all the way to a shop, had it checked up, and then didn’t even get itfixed?”

I shot her a glare as I slammed the door of the Porsche shut. “It would cost more to fix than it’s worth.”

“So, I just don’t have a vehicle now?” she scoffed, her eyesflicking between me and the truck parked on the other side of the driveway.

“You have the Porsche.” I stepped around her and crossed the pathway back to the steps, careful not to spill a drop of my coffee as I climbed them.

“The Porsche isn’t mine, you fucking ass!” she shouted from behind me.

I whipped around too quickly, too angrily, spilling just a tad bit of coffee onto the top of my foot. “First of all, Penelope, do not test me at six in the goddamn morning,” I warned, narrowing my gaze at her from across the twenty-odd feet between us. “Second of all, unless you want the neighbors to complainagain, I suggest not shouting at me outside this early.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off.

“Thirdly, and most fucking importantly, you could saythank youfor the wildly expensive gift.”

Her eyes went wide as saucers in an instant. “What?”

“Close enough,” I grumbled, shoving the front door back open and going back inside. I didn’t have the patience for this, not after last night and herno, not after the game and the chaos with Bryan, not when I had a pounding hangover and my muscles ached, not when my knee was already starting to scream at me again.

I hadn’t wanted to give it to her like that. I’d wanted to make at least a small show of it, offer it as athank youfor her amenability and grace in handling the hiccups and roadblocks that my schedule had been lately, but that seemed pointless now. I was almost tempted to take it back, but I wouldn’t feel right without her having a car that was hers, and I certainly wasn’t about to let her onto the roads even by herself in that goddamn deathtrap she called a truck.

“Sebastian,” she hissed, right on my heels as she shut the door behind her. “You can’t be serious.”

I rolled my eyes and kept moving, heading right toward the stairs. At least I knew with a decent amount of certainty that she wouldn’t follow me up shouting at me — she knew better than to wake Matty. “I already put it in your name.”

“I can’t accept that.”

I didn’t bother to look at her as I started ascending the stairs. “Then don’t,” I snapped. “I’ll take Matty to school and you can walk to wherever you’re going today.”

————

Three days.

Three days of taking Matty to school and picking him up, three days of putting up with her stubborn pity party where she refused to drive the car. She was lucky that I had the time and ability to handle it myself, but I wouldn’t after today, and she knew that. Shehadto know that. If she’d looked at my schedule even once, she’d know that I had an away game tomorrow that meant I’d be out of town from the early afternoon until around two in the morning.

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