Page 97 of Chasing Blue
My brother’s eyes shine with tears, but just the tone of his voice, the anguish in it is enough to let me know how sorry he is.
“He left his phone . . . and what?” I ask.
“The hospital called. They left a message saying you’d been transferred from the maternity department to medical.” We get another one of her shrugs which again has me trying to step out of Jack’s arms just so my fist is closer to the bitch’s face, but again, Jack pulls me back. This time, he pins my arms to my sides.
“I listened, then deleted the missed call and the message so Ash wouldn’t know I listened. He called the bar later that night to say he’d lost his phone. I told him he’d left it in the car when I dropped him at the airport. I waited for him to tell me you’d had a baby, all he’d said was that you’d been in an accident, but I knew it was a baby because why else were you in maternity? I waited, when Ash came back, I waited, I asked how you were, gave him plenty of chances to tell me the truth, but he didn’t. He didn’t trust me enough with your secret . . .”
“Is it any fucking wonder, you lying, deceitful cunt,” my brother spits out.
“I was your girlfriend, we lived together. You shouldn’t have kept secrets from me,” Sloan turns back to my brother and shouts.
“It wasn’t my fucking secret to tell. If she didn’t want Jack to know, then why the fuck would I be tellingyou?”
“How did you know it was Jack’s? The baby, how’d you know she was Jack’s?” I ask.
“She? You had a little girl?” That’s what she says, what she asks. I look up at Jack.
“Are you hearing this? Did she actually ignore my question and ask that?” Jack shakes his head; I turn mine back to Sloan. “How did you know she was Jack’s?” I grind out through clenched teeth.
“I heard Ash on the phone. He was saying you should tell him, that he felt he had a right to know.”
“And where did the story about me having her adopted come from?”
“What?” Sloan’s face screws up in confusion. “What do you mean, the story? You had no baby. Ash never mentioned a baby and you have no baby now.”
“My baby,ourbaby,” I wrench my arm free from Jack’s hold and smack my hand across my chest as I speak. Choking on tears and rage, I continue in a whisper, “Died.Shefucking died.Inearly died. That’s why they needed Ash at the hospital, they thought I was going to die. Our little girl died,” I sob. “Andyou, you spiteful bitch, just spread lies about the whole thing.”
“I wanted a baby,” Sloan pokes her finger into her chest and screams at me. “Iwanted a baby with Ash, but he wouldn’t even entertain the idea. And you, I thought you’d just given your baby away. Years, fucking years we were together, but he always, always wore a fucking condom.”
“Good fucking job I did,” my brother shakes his head, staring at Sloan like he has no idea who this person is.
“You haven’t even acknowledged what I’ve just told you. Our baby died, you told Eden we had her adopted, but you’ve turned this whole thing around to be about you wanting something you didn’t get, you not getting your own way.” I look past her to my brother. “What the fuck did you ever see in her?” I ask him.
“I have no fucking idea,” he says with a head shake.
“Get out,” I tell her. “Get the fuck out of here before I punch your teeth to the back of your throat and you choke on them,” I gesture towards the door with my chin. Sloan turns towards my brother, but he continues to shake his head at her. “Fuck off,” he says quietly. She turns and leaves, and I slump back against Jack feeling totally and utterly exhausted.
CHAPTER22
Jack.
Scarlett spends mostof the rest of the day in bed. She doesn’t cry, she just sleeps. I think she’s hit a wall, mentally exhausted from everything that’s gone on over the past few days. Waking up to Sloan’s revelations, her attitude and complete lack of accountability, was the last straw. She’s done, and I totally understood her need to check out for the day.
I’d laid beside her for a couple of hours, but when she kept sleeping, I decided to go home, take a shower, make some calls, and set some things in motion that I really hoped she’d be okay with.
The first call I needed to make was to my son. I’d much rather have had this conversation face to face, but after what Sloan had admitted to doing, I wouldn’t put it past Eden to do some shit stirring of her own, so a FaceTime call was going to have to do.
“Hey,” I say to my kid when his face appears on the screen.
“What’s happening, old man? You finally catch the girl?”
“I caught her,” I tell him with a grin.
“Thank fuck for that. When you coming home?”
“Yeah, that’s something we need to have a conversation about.”
“Please tell me you’re not moving permanently to Palmers.”
