Page 41 of The B!tch List

“Don’t get emotional. I told you, you can still beat Ellie to it if you try hard.”

A little while later after Bronte had left and Mom had shown me how to change a dirty diaper, my maybe daughter was lying contented in the toddler bed that Mom and Dad had in Bronte’s old room which was now set up for Rett.

“What do you think, son?” Dad asked as he turned up the baby monitor. “You think she might be yours?”

“I have no idea, Dad. I mean she could be. If Monique was lying about her due date, then yep in all probability, she’s mine.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face and groaned. Being a dadnowwas not in my life plan but weirdly I felt equal levels of trepidation and excitement, which in and of itself was scary. Maybe it was the fact that having a kid would be a test. I was competitive by nature and having to prove myself was something that I thrived on. College was a prime example. I needed to be better than the best and prove that a guy from a small town with a population of less than ten thousand people could be a great lawyer. One better than all those kids with ‘the third’ as part of their names and whose families vacationed in the Hamptons and owned big city law firms. Theodore Templeton the 3rdbeing a prime example. The kid was a dick who barely scraped through his classes, yet even before law school he had a junior partner job lined up at his dad’s firm once we graduated.

“Okay.” Dad nodded. “It sounds like Tate already has you covered regarding what you need to do next from a legal standpoint. So, me and your mom will help with the practical stuff. Right Darcy?”

Mom smiled. “You know we will. It’s going to be hard for you, honey, what with work and law school.”

“No Mom, you’ve almost raised your kids, although Austen might take longer than Bronte or I.” She blinked at me and shook her head in disapproval. “Seriously though, I thank you, but you don’t have to help out. If she’s mine, then she is my responsibility. I’ll organize some day care for while I’m back home.”

“What happens when you’re back at school though?” Dad asked. “Texas Tech is closer to home, but you still have to work hard and there’ll be nights where you have to study late. You don’t want this to affect your future, so Tia will stay with us and me and Mom will help take care of her when you’re not home.”

Damn it. I never cried but now I felt like contesting Tia for biggest baby in the house. Bronte had been right about Mom being amazing and Dad was too. They should have been enjoying the freedom that having three practically grown kids brought. They should have been organizing vacations and road trips and slowing down at work, yet here they both were offering to start again with my child.

“You have no idea how much I appreciate both of you right now.” I drew in a breath and looked between my parents.

Mom gave me her sweet, loving smile, the one everyone got when she wanted you to know that she was right.

“Don’t sweat it, son,” Dad said. “You’ll pay us back when we’re old and infirm and you have to wipe our asses.”

He pushed up out of his chair and ran a hand down Mom’s hair. “I think we all need a drink.” He walked to the door. “Oh, except for you, Shaw, you’re on night duty so you need to be sober. Me and Mom? Well, we’re going to get wasted.”

Ilooked at the trophy that had been on my shelf for twenty-four hours and sighed. I thought I’d feel amazing at winning the contest, but I felt deflated. I had no idea whether that was because I’d have to share the victory with Shaw or because it was over. It being over meant that I wouldn’t be seeing people every night. I’d be going back to lonely nights in my apartment.

Okay, I knew that deep down the person that I’d miss the most would be Shaw. That was purely because I loved sparring with him—honestly. I also was fully aware that being lonely may well push me toward Minnesota who’d been blowing my phone up with messages. There were begging ones, apology ones and even some dirty ones and I was on the brink of cracking.

There was no disputing the fact that Minnesota Michaels was hot. Even with his crooked bottom teeth he had model good looks and a swagger to go with it and all that made him dangerous. He was dangerous to my heart because I knew if I let him back in, he’d let me down again. I knew deep down he wasn’t the one for me which was why it hadn’t taken long for me to get over him, but he was also good for me too. He made me laugh, he made me feel sexy and good about myself. He told me all the right things; he certainly didn’t tell me my ass looked big in a skirt that I knew for a fact it looked amazing in. Pauly Hansen, Dusty Chalmers and Beatrix Benedict, who was ninety and who in her youth had been a successful pageant queen, had told me how great it looked. Beatrix had even offered to put me in touch with her old pageant trainer, obviously I’d politely declined. The point being, Minnesota certainly didn’t tell me things that might hurt my feelings. He told me that I was beautiful, had perfect lips and gorgeous hair. Shaw on the other hand said I wasn’t so ugly he needed a bag on my head when we had sex, that I had cock sucking lips and my hair was great for wrapping around his fist while he, in his words, ‘fucked me into oblivion’. It was also very clear what he and I were to each other, or rather had been to each other, and that was Fuck Buddies. He didn’t owe me any sweet talking, whereas Minnesota had been my boyfriend. He was supposed to say those things. He wasn’t supposed to dump me just before we went on the trip of a lifetime. He was not supposed to cheat on me with a girl called Annalise, or at the very leastthinkabout cheating on me with a girl called Annalise. Oh, and let’s not forget that he got engaged to someone else while onourtrip of a lifetime.

No, I would not be answering any calls from Minnesota Michaels. I said what I had to say in the parking lot the other night and that was it.

“Nancy, darlin’, open up.”

What the…

The man himself was knocking at my door. Text messages were one thing to ignore but his physical presence with only a door dividing us was another thing exactly.

“Nancy, I know you’re in the there. I still have your phone linked to my phone on that app you insisted we both had.”

“Because we were travelling around the world and I didn’t want either of us to lose the other in a foreign country,” I yelled as I stomped toward the door. “But when you told me I wasn’t welcome on said trip, I kind of thought that you’d remove it.”

I yanked the door open and glared at him as he leaned nonchalantly against the doorjamb and grinned at me.

“Maybe me not removing it was a sign,” he said, looking me up and down.

“Yeah, it was,” I snapped. “That you’re a dick who can’t be trusted.”

“Ah c’mon baby. I told you that I was sorry. I should never have—”

“No, Minnesota, I should never have got involved with you in the first place.” I took a deep breath. “We sat in this apartment, lay in my bed for hours planning that trip. I was the one who researched everywhere that we wanted to go. I was the one who created the itinerary, the one who lost thousands of dollars on plane tickets that I couldn’t get a refund on. I was the one left behind feeling like there was something wrong with me because you had to wait until the cab was here to take us to the airport before you told me you’d rather travel alone halfway around the world than take me with you, on the fucking trip that was my fucking idea.” I took another breath. “Minnesota.”

To his credit he slumped a little, but such was his ego it wasn’t long before he lazily stretched his toned body and smiled his all-American boy smile. The fucking smile that he always, always gave when he knew he was about to entice me into bed. Well not tonight, Romeo.

“Go home, Minnesota.” I tried to push the door closed but he placed his foot against it to stop me. “Move your foot.”

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