He was quite vocal about its lack of function.
Luckily, beside me, Katy kept climbing and didn’t look back.
When she got to the top, she said, “Hello, Jonah.”
Jonah grunted a ‘’sup’ at her and walked back to his patrol car
Tasia screeched in annoyance.
“This isn’t over, Logan,” Tasia argued to my back. “I will stay here all night.”
Jonah, upon hearing that, stopped and waited for us to pass.
When Tasia went to follow, he stepped into her path.
“You will not,” he said. “Tomorrow is early enough to take this up with a lawyer if you feel like you’ve been wronged. But, darlin’, just sayin’, Logan doesn’t usually do anything to break the rules. He follows the letter of the law and doesn’t deviate from it. If you find that you have a problem with him, that problem likely has a whole lot more to do with some made up reason in your head than him being the actual problem. Think about that before you go crying to your lawyers.”
I gestured for Katy to go up the stairs and she did, not stopping until both of us were inside with the dogs, and the door was firmly shut.
“Are you sure you should be leaving Jonah out there with her?” Katy asked cautiously.
I snorted. “Jonah can handle her.”
There was a short beat of silence, and then Katy said, “Okay, I can definitely see why you didn’t want to talk about her.”
I grinned wickedly.
“So how about them Rangers?” I asked, hoping beyond hope that she would change the subject.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said at last. “You talk to me about your ex-wife. You tell me all the dirty details. And I’ll hate her with you. Because, honey, I’m not like all the others. I can see very clearly that the woman out there,” she pointed at the door with her middle finger, making me grin. “Is clearly off her rocker. And I honestly feel bad for that little kid. She has an awful mother.”
I agreed wholeheartedly.
So, while getting washed up, I told her about Tasia.
I told her everything, all the way down to her lawyer and her screwing me out of every last penny we’d saved during our marriage.
“Did they do a DNA test?” she asked.
And, despite the fact that it usually made me nauseous to talk about, I told her why I’d done what I did.
“At first? I was trying to play nice for the kid’s sake,” I admitted. “My ex-best friend is gone. The moment that he realized that he would be responsible for the child that he’d created—a kid that I truly believe he thought he was giving me as a favor—he up and left without another word. He went to Alaska. If I see him ever again, it’ll be a miracle.”
“He thought he was doing you a favor?” she asked.
I sighed and nodded my head.
“To understand what I mean, I’ll have to tell you a story about Paydon,” I explained.
She walked to the table and took a seat.
I waited, knowing that she wanted to know more.
And, like the man that I was, I decided to hell with it.
If she wanted to know it all, I’d tell her it all.Chapter 12Marry the person that’s willing to burn down the world for you. Then keep a good eye on his mental state just in case.
-Text from Katy to Rowen
Katy
I watched him walk toward me and tried valiantly not to look down.
Don’t look at the penis.
Don’t look at the penis.
He made it up to the edge of the table before I couldn’t stop myself any longer. I glanced at his penis.
“Tell me about Paydon,” I ordered softly.
Logan took a seat and started to play a fork over his knuckles, allowing it to twist back and forth through his fingers as he stared at me.
Then he told me the most beautiful story that I’d ever heard in my life.
“Paydon Maxwell was born normal,” he began. “But, during our senior year, he was in an accident. Drunk driving. An old man with over four DUIs under his belt hit him, and Paydon smashed his head so hard on the steering wheel that he lost consciousness. When he woke back up in the hospital, he was okay…kind of. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that Paydon had suffered a traumatic brain injury. And that TBI changed Paydon’s life. From that point forward, Paydon, for all intents and purposes, now resembled his twelve-year-old self. Still my best friend…but not.”
“Oh,” I sighed, hating where this was going.
“Yeah,” Logan confirmed. “Paydon understood, mostly, what happened to him. He was more than cognizant of what happened, but he just had a child’s understanding. He didn’t really understand the consequences as an adult.”
“Meaning,” I said softly. “When your ex-wife told him that you wanted a baby, Paydon thought he was doing you a favor. Thought he was giving you what you wanted.”