Page 144 of Hot Shot

“Am I on speaker phone?” Paul asks.

“No.”

“Did he hit you?”

Shock snaps my back straight, and I recoil from the phone for a second. “No! Oh, my God. No, nothing like that, Paul.”

Again, he says nothing. And then, “I’d like to talk to Cricket.”

“Of course,” I say too sweetly, suddenly shaken. My hands tremble as I lower the phone. “Cricket?” I call, and she pops up on the couch so I can see her. “Pops wants to talk to you.”

“Okay!” She bounds over despite her obvious exhaustion and takes the phone from me. “Hi, Pops.” Her smile fades at the same rate that her brows draw together. She glances at us. “In my room?” A pause. “Okay. Cassie can I take your phone to my room to talk to Pops?”

“You sure can.”

“Thanks!” Off she goes to her room, closing the door behind her.

Wilder and I stand dead still in the kitchen.

“He thinks you hit me.”

The shock is a lightning bolt to his spine, and I wonder if that’s what I looked like when he said it to me. “What?”

“He wants to know why she was so upset, and I guess he doesn’t believe me.” A realization slips over me. “Do you…do you think Trent ever hit Ashley? Why wasthathis first thought?”

Wilder takes a heavy breath and lets out an even heavier sigh. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine they’d be so dead set on bringing him around Cricket if he did. Can you?”

“Maybe they’re scared of him too.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “Paul seems more like the shotgun sort of defense than the keep your enemies close kind. I can’t imagine he’d?—”

Cricket’s door opens, and she skips back in, the phone still pressed to her ear. It’s comical, the size of it in her hand. It nearly comes to her collarbone. “Okay! Yeah, okay. Okay, love you too. Here’s Daddy.” She sticks out the phone when she reaches him. “Here you go, it’s Pops.”

“Thanks, bug.”

“You’re welcome!” she calls over her shoulder, already running toward her room.

Wilder’s face hardens the second the phone hits his ear, and I watch his body tighten second by second. “Okay, but… Yes, sir, but I… No. This is a misunderstanding. If you’d just let me explain…Paul! Can you give me a…” Wilder’s jaw sets, and he glances up at the ceiling. Then he closes his eyes through what must be a hell of a monologue. “Yes, sir.” Two firm, resigned words, and fear slinks through me. “Yes. Okay. No, we’ll bring her to you. I understand. Yessir. Mhmm. Okay. Bye.”

Wilder lays my phone on the island, his eyes cast down as he grips the edges with spread hands, his head hanging.

“What happened?” I breathe.

“Cricket told him we pretended to be married so we could keep her.”

My hand moves to my mouth.

“And he’s fucking pissed. He said they’re…that they’re going to…” his head drops a touch lower, sagging between his shoulders. “They want her for now. Maybe longer.”

I drop into a seat at the island, trembling. “No. No, they can’t take her.”

“I lied to them, took her under false pretenses, betrayed their trust. If they decide to, I…I don’t…they could…” He shakes his head, eyes pinched shut. “They want her back in their possession, right now.Until we can sort it out, he said. They wanted to come get her, but I told them I’d bring her to them.”

“No! No. We are not taking her anywhere.”

“Taking me somewhere?” Cricket says from the living room. “Where are we going?”

Wilder’s smile is watery, his face pale. “To Nana and Pops.”

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