Nathan, on the other hand, looked like he’d been put through the wash, hung up to dry, and then a tornado had taken him off the clothesline and tossed him right back into the storm.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised.
He looked at me like he wanted to believe me but couldn’t. “I sure hope that you’re right.”
I sure hoped that I was, too.Chapter 16
There are 27 bones in the human hand. And 28 when you’re feeling lonely.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Nathan
“So you’re married.”
We were at a team bonding exercise at our chief’s house.
The chief of police, Luke Roberts, grinned at me. He knew what his words would do.
The entire freakin’ room around me went silent as everyone realized just who the chief was talking to.
“I am,” I confirmed, not bothering to look around to see whose attention I had. “I’ve been married for a few years now.”
At least, according to the law and the great state of Nevada, I was.
“We didn’t know,” he said, sounding and looking like the Cheshire Cat.
I shrugged. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
Because then I’d have to explain why Reggie wanted nothing to do with me at the time.
“Also heard that you have a kid,” Malachi added in his two cents, leaning back onto the couch and bringing his beer bottle to his lips.
I closed my eyes and groaned.
Everyone that hadn’t really been listening was listening now.
“Well shit,” I heard said. “Now we gotta know the whole story.”
“I don’t really feel like talking about it,” I admitted. “My fuckin’ head hurts.”
In fact, it’d been a steady pound since having to deal with Eerie earlier that morning. One that had only grown after talking to my lawyer mid-afternoon.
The last thing that I’d wanted to do was go to a team-building exercise. But Reggie had agreed to go with me and come up with an excuse to leave, so I felt that in the end I’d be able to handle this day from hell continuing into the night. I’d been wrong.
“How about I do the talking?” Reggie suggested upon walking into the room and hearing what was being discussed.
I opened one eye to see her with her arms crossed standing behind me protectively.
Something inside of my chest felt like it’d lightened at the thought of her being there.
She looked at me as if asking for permission, and I nodded once.
These men really should know what was going on just in case. One, Eerie was a resourceful bitch. If she could, she’d use every single source available to her to make it seem like I was the bad guy. And having my friends hear it from me first would be best. Two, they were my friends. I didn’t want to keep them in the dark.
Reggie went on to explain exactly what was going on, leaving out the part with us getting married and why. But making sure to let everyone know that Eerie was a deceitful, evil bitch. She even told them about what had happened earlier that day, ending with the showdown in the NICU between the charge nurse, Peyton, and Eerie.
Reggie ended with, “And she got kicked out of the NICU because she was causing a stir.”
There was blissful silence for all of a half a second before the first question popped up.
“So how does that work?” Malachi wondered. “You signed a contract that both parents had to be in agreement to use the eggs. So then, how does that work? It’s kind of like stealing, is it not?”
“That’s what we were saying,” Reggie said. “Nathan called and told them he didn’t want them to ever be used. And according to the person that he spoke with, they would be destroyed.”
“Wow,” Luke said, sounding amazed. “I just heard that you were married. I hadn’t heard all of this.”
I smiled weakly, my headache still pounding full force.
“So how will this work? Will you be able to get custody?” Ford, another of the SWAT members, asked. “Is this something that you even want?”
I opened my eyes for that one.
“Yes,” I said, sitting up straight. “I want this kid. What I don’t is this kid’s mother.”
“Amen,” Reggie muttered, her arms crossed in anger as she thought about Eerie. Then, her eyes narrowed. “And we haven’t even gotten to the best part. The baby’s name…”
Then she went on to explain about the baby’s name, its correlation with my biological father’s killer, and Eerie’s smug face when she continued to call the baby that horrid name.
“You’re fucking shitting me,” Bennett, our SWAT team leader, said. “That’s just fucking sick.”
Bennett was a man of few words. With age came wisdom and silence according to Foster, our other team leader. He didn’t offer much to say unless he felt his input was needed. For Bennett to speak up about this meant that Eerie really was as bad as I felt she was.