Page 92 of Freak Show

The doctor, possibly?

Because I knew I’d been sitting here long enough that I might get excited and say that if one actually acknowledged my presence.

I mean, seriously, it’d been at least an hour of me lying there.

Surely a possibly broken neck trumped someone with food poisoning, right?

“She’s in the hallway, sir.”

CHAPTER 19

Ari is equal parts ‘fuck around and find out’ and ‘please don’t yell at me or I’ll cry.’

-Slone to his mother

SLONE

The drive to the circus in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, was endless.

I’d gone over the conversation I was about to have with her about a thousand times on the drive over. I’d rented a truck. I’d flown on a commercial flight for three hours. And now I was here, less than ten minutes away, and nervous as fuck.

Sometimes, I really, really hated the media.

I could see the good it did.

But I also saw all the harm it inflicted.

How many times had I been in the headlines for shit that didn’t have anything to do with football? Hundreds.

Why did people care about anything at all that had to do with my personal life?

My phone rang just as an ambulance passed me, flying its way to the hospital with lights and sirens.

I hadn’t even had time to get more than two tires off the road before it was past.

I pressed answer on my phone and put it back into the cup holder.

“Hello?” I answered distractedly as I continued back on my way.

“Daddy?”

I got my first smile for the first time in a couple of hours.

“Hey, baby. What were you doing today that you didn’t answer?” I asked.

Briley sighed. “There are a lot of kids here. Sometimes, they’re so loud that I can’t hear my phone.”

I grinned. “I think there are six.”

“Six is a lot,” she said. “When you get married to Ari, I want to have a baby brother. And notice I said ‘a’ and not ‘multiple.’”

My heart landed in my throat.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked in a strangled voice.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m sorry she had to go home early. You and I should go to her circus with her during the off season. Then, when you’re traveling, I can stay with her. I’ve already worked it all out. I found a really awesome motorcoach, too.”

I felt my heart swell.

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