Page 111 of Reckless
Winter:Please don’t do something that will land you in prison.
Theo:Can’t make any promises.
Winter:Please? I’d still bail you out, but I’d be mad at you.
Theo:You being mad at me gets me hard. Angry sex is fun. This is not a deterrent.
Winter:Maybe I wouldn’t bail you out at all.
Theo:Nah. You’d miss my dick too much.
Winter:No. I’d miss *you*.
* * *
“Phone?” I place my hand on the conference room table where Kip and Geoff sit across from me. Kip is stone-faced and his employee is nervous—as he should be—when he places the phone in my palm.
“What did I tell you to do with my phone, Geoff?” I ask, voice clipped as I swipe into the phone and pull up the text messages without even glancing in his direction.
I search “T” and there they are.Tink. I glance through them, but they’re hard to look at. They gut me. Knowing Winter like I do now, I can’t help but think about how badly this must have hurt her.
Yesterday we spent the day in bed and really dug into those early days. We talked about her parents and her childhood. I cooked. We laughed. She and Vivi napped, and I lay next to them, watching them sleep.
For one day, we lived in the most perfect bubble.
And now I’m out for blood.
“To, uh, respond to your messages? Post some pictures on your socials?”
“And what about any important or personal messages that came through?”
“Forward them to you.” He gives me eager nods, like he’s proud of his work.
I slide the phone across the table to the two men and lean back in the chair, knitting my hands behind my head and crossing a booted foot over my knee as I wait for them to read.
It’s fascinating to watch. As they scroll, it’s like all the color that drains out of Geoff’s face is transferred into Kip’s by osmosis.
One turns white while the other turns red.
“That seems like a pretty important set of messages to pass along, wouldn’t you say, Geoff?”
“I thought—”
“You thought you’d respond as me? To a woman telling me she’s pregnant withmybaby? Andthat’show you responded?”
“I thought—”
“Nah.” I sit forward abruptly, my elbows hitting the table loudly enough to startle him. “You didn’t think at all.”
“I did you a favor! You wanted to clean up your image. You get all sorts of crass messages on that thing. Women asking you for stuff, sending you things I’d rather not see. This was no different.”
“This wasmy daughter,” I hiss, swiping the phone back from his incapable hands. “And I missed her birth along with the first nine months of her life because you’re a judgmental piece of shit who overstepped his boundaries.”
Geoff swallows and drops my gaze.
“You didn’tknow?” Kip’s voice sounds hollow, his jaw popping as he looks between Geoff and me.
“Of course I didn’t know. What kind of asshole do you take me for?”
