Page 130 of Reckless
“Rob is contesting her paternity.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He was too big of a coward to deliver the letter himself. But if I had to guess? Just to stir shit up. Just to insert himself where he doesn’t belong.”
I can hear quiet murmuring.
“He did the same thing to Summer. He’d just pop up out of the blue. Call her, show up to see her. It wasn’t until Rhett dropped that bomb on him that he stopped.”
“Is Summer there with you?”
“Yeah. She’s been looking over the papers. We’ve beenhaving a long overdue conversation.”
“What’s going on?” Rhett steps closer at the sound of his wife’s name.
I wave him off. “Report him. Drop your own bomb.”
The line is quiet for a few beats. “You know that’s complicated. I just...I don’t want to drag everyone into this. They set the court date for next week. Summer is going to track me down a good family lawyer.”
“Us, Winter. Trackusdown a good family lawyer.”
“No.”
“I’m coming back—”
“Theo, no. You are staying on the road. You are getting those fucking points. And you are not fixing another messy thing in my life. One of my favorite things about you is that you don’t treat me like I need saving. And I don’t. I’m the one who married him. I’m the one who’s played into his hand at every turn.Iwill fix this. You didn’t ask for any of this.”
“No. I chose it.”
She’s quiet for a beat. And then another. Then a thought I hate with every fiber of my being pops up in my mind. One that I maybe should have had a long time ago. One that got pushed to the wayside while I rolled my sleeves up and got to work righting the wrongs I’d put into motion.
One I never asked straight out.
“I—”
I’m so caught off guard, so angry at Rob, that I snap. I say it. “She’s my daughter, Winter. Right?”
A pin could drop and everyone in a ten-mile radius would hear it. That’s how silent it is now. Even Rhett is motionless, his face drawn in alarm as he stares back at me.
It’s quiet for so long that I pull my phone away from my face to see if the call is still connected. The seconds tick along, like my phone is counting the moments that follow the nuke I just dropped. The devastation worse with every second that passes.
“Well, I guess we’re about to find out,” is what she says back in a hard voice. It doesn’t sound like the woman I know at all.
Then the seconds stop ticking, and the screen fades out to columns of cubes. Colorful squares that mean nothing to me as I stare down at them.
I’m choked. I’m hurt. I’m angry. Weeks of emotions come tumbling down around me. Weeks of emotions that I’ve pushed away in the name of being responsible and grown up. Weeks of taking care of the people around me, but failing to take care of myself.
And I lashed out at the wrong fucking person.
I want to crawl into the phone and pluck out those five words one by one. Undo ever saying them. I just thought the worst of a woman who has spent her life feeling like everyone always thinks the worst of her.
And I spat those words right in her face.
“That wasn’t the right thing to say, Theo.” Rhett’s rough voice meets my ears as I lean back against the cold metal lockers behind me and close my eyes, my stomach flipping with instant nausea.
“I know.”
* * *
