Page 85 of Slayin Villain
The ghost of Rachel’s laugh haunted that space.
I remembered the way she’d stood beside me when no one else would.The way she looked at me like I was more than a patch, more than a problem.Her green eyes flashing when she’d call me on my shit.The softness of her voice when she first told me about the baby, hoping, maybe, that I’d be happy.
Instead, I’d frozen.
Backpedaled.
Ran.
And then I ran straight into Ember’s bed, looking for something to numb me, distract me, punish me.
God, what kind of man does that?
What kind of father?
My phone dinged.
I hadn’t turned it off, even though I hadn’t expected anything.No missed calls.No texts.
Eve sent you a message
I frowned and opened the app.
There she was.
Rachel.
Standing next to an older woman on a busy sidewalk somewhere, lit by neon and streetlamps.Nashville.She was smiling, kind of.That guarded smile she wore when she didn’t want people to know she’d been crying.
Her hair was pulled back, her belly just barely showing under a fitted dress.
My heart dropped into my gut.
She’s still pregnant.
Still mine.
And not gone-gone…just… hiding.In plain sight.
And suddenly I saw a sliver of light crack through the fog I’d been living in.
She might hate me.
But she was still reachable.
Still real.
Still Rachel.
I scrolled the comments like a bloodhound.
She was tagging someone’s business.
And then, in a reply chain, I saw it.
“Where’s that new nursery shop y’all mentioned?”
Eve: “East side, just past Lebanon Pike.”
