Page 106 of The Moment You Know

“What? No. I’ll find a cheaper babysitter.”

“No, you won’t. It’s Casey, or no one. Jacob likes her and I trust her with him.”

They had a bit of a stare-off.

“Are you getting this?” David asked, breaking the silence. “Is that really what you want? Is all that worth it to try and screw me over? Because you’ll actually be screwing yourself over more than you’ll be screwing me over. I guarantee it.”

As Ashley absorbed his words, it was obvious joint custody and all its responsibilities were unappealing to her and he pushed forward. “Let me have full custody.”

He could see her thinking about it, but then saw the moment when she decided against it.

“No. Only getting to see Jacob during supervised daytime visits on the weekends isn’t enough. I need more time with him than that, and I want all visits to be overnight, too.”

Her expression was such that he couldn’t tell if she was being sincere, or if she was simply trying to keep him from from getting everything he wanted, but in the end, he had no option but to negotiate with her. “Fine. How about a modified arrangement, somewhere between joint and full custody? You can have him two full weekends a month and alternate Wednesdays. How does that sound?”

“Every Wednesday,” she countered.

He figured that was thrown in just to mess with him, but he agreed.

“What about child support?” Ashley then asked.

“What about it?”

“I think a thousand dollars a month would be fair.”

She had to be on crack. “You think so?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m not sure where you came up with that figure, but it seems a little high to me.”

“You can afford it, David. You make way more money than I do, which means you have to pay me a percentage of what you make, to supplement what’s lacking in my income. You know, to help me support our son?”

She really was some fucking piece of work. “Thanks, but I do understand the concept of child support and how it works. I’m not sure you do, though, so let me enlighten you. While it’s usually paid by the parent who earns the most—which is me in this case—it’s also usually paid to the parent who will incur the greatest expense by having the child the majority of the time—which is also me. Therefore, it makes no sense that I’ll have Jacob most of the time, incur the most expenses, and then pay you a thousand dollars a month for the short time that you’ll have him.”

He gave her a long look. “Now, before you start accusing me of trying to screw you over, let me just say that all of Jacob’s expenses that I’ve been paying, which includes his medical, dental, preschool, and clothing, will continue to be paid by me. And that shit’s not cheap,” he added. “So, because of that, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for you to cover the cost of his food on the eight days a month that he stays with you.”

When Ashley looked like she was actually going to argue with him about that, he growled in disgust, unable to believe he’d spent four-and-a-half years with her. It literally pained him that she’d been the one to give him a child—the child that she was reluctant to spend even a minimal amount of money on food for. “For fuck’s sake, Ash.”

“Fine,” she said.

She sounded so put out at having to take a little financial responsibility for her child, that if it wouldn’t have been a waste of perfectly good bourbon, David would’ve thrown the remaining contents of his glass in her face. Caught up in thinking how good it would feel, he almost missed what she said next.

“I assume we’ll be splitting all assets?”

He didn’t think it was possible, but he hated her even more than he had a few minutes ago.

“Actually, there isn’t anything to split,” he told her.

“What? Yes, there is.”

“We’re not married and our ‘assets’ aren’t legally bound together, so they don’t need to be split. My car’s in my name and yours is in your name, so I can drive off in mine and you can drive off in yours. We have separate checking and savings accounts, so whatever’s in mine belongs to me and whatever’s in yours belongs to you. Same with credit card debt—” he broke off at the look of near-murderous rage on Ashley’s face.

“I can see this pisses you off, but I don’t give a shit,” he said. “I’ve been paying for everything you eat and drink since we moved in together. I pay for the roof over your head, the gas in your car, the clothes on your back—hell, I even pay for your fake nails. I also pay your credit card bill, so I’m paying for shit I don’t even know about, but that ends today.

“Whatever future debt you rack up will be yours to pay, from here on out, so you might want to take that into consideration the next time you fall in love with a pair of shoes.”

“Fuck you,” she spit out.

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