Without You
– Sammy –
57%
To The Yard; She Took It
I bat my hand at the tickle in my ear and roll away. “Go ’way.”
“Maybe I should kiss the princess to wake her up?”
I scrunch my eyes closed as I begin to surface, and I cuddle into my bed and hug my arms around my legs. “No.”
“You kiss her, and you die.”
I smile in my sleep. He has such a pretty voice.
“But she looks so soft and warm. I bet if I climbed under the blanket, we could set up camp and be comfy for hours.” The tickle at my ear begins again, then he whispers softly, “Wake up, princess. It’s a new day.”
“Sleeping. Not time to get up yet.”
The voice chuckles softly and moves away from me, “Did you know she talks in her sleep?”
“Mmhm. That’s where I learned most of her secrets.”
Luc’s voice perks immediately. “What kinda secrets?”
“Like how she used to sneak around libraries to get my attention. And how she tricked me into letting her tutor me in high school.”
“I coulda told you that,” Angelo’s voice rumbles. “Seems to me you weren’t the one who got tricked.”
Sam chuckles. “I was smarter than I looked.”
I’m too close to the surface now, they won’t shut up, so I stop fighting the inevitable and slowly blink my eyes open. This isn’t my bed, but it’s the dirty couch that the guys carried upstairs. I’m facing into the cushions, but as I fully come to wake, my body breaks out in goosebumps from the chill in the air. I blink slowly and focus on my surroundings, yawning away the fog, then once my brain registers the natural sunlight in the room, I shoot up.
“Aw, she wakes.”
My eyes stop on Luc’s only a foot away from me, then I look at the clock. Nine a.m. “Oh my god.” I jump up in a panic and sprint to my room. “Oh my god!” I cry out when Lily’s not where I left her. I run back to the living room and almost collide head first with Sam. He stands by the kitchen entrance with Lily tucked in his arms and a bottle between her lips. Tears well in my eyes at my negligence. “Oh my god, she must be starving. I slept through two feedings.”
He shakes his head and grins the way I remember from forever ago. “She’s fine. She ate at three and six, and again now.”
“But--”
“Are you rested?” he murmurs softly. “I know it was late, so I hope the big sleep helped.”
“How late did you kids stay up?” Luc bounces his brows obnoxiously. “Was it fun?”
Sam glares at him. “Shut up, Lenaghan.”
“She’s okay?”
Sam’s gaze comes back to mine. “She’s perfect. She slept every single minute all night except eating time.”
“She slept all night?”
He nods. “The band serenaded her à la iPod, and she didn’t make a sound.”
“Except the squeaking,” Angelo adds with a smile. “Does anybody else think that squeak is adorable as shit?”
Luc and Sam both nod at the same time. “Yup.”
My heart continues to pound with worry, but she’s fine, snugged up against his broad chest as she squeaks and eats. I hold my hand to my heart as I come down from my adrenaline-charged panic. “That squeak will go away eventually. The pediatrician said it’ll go away.”
“That’ll be a sad day,” Ang laments. “The noise has grown on me.”
“I didn’t do her iron yet,” Sam says quietly. “I thought I’d leave that to you, so we don’t mess up or double dose.”
“Okay.” I bite my lip and shuffle my feet when I remember I’m still in sleep shorts and surrounded by three large, fully dressed, smiling men. It’s one thing to be wearing pyjamas at eleven at night, and a wholly other thing to be wearing them in the middle of the morning, with Sam dressed in nice jeans, Luc in his work uniform, and Angelo already with grease smudges on his nose. “I’m just gonna get dressed. I’ll be out in two minutes, then you’ll be relieved of babysitting duty.”
“Take your time,” Sam murmurs softly.
We’re standing close, talking softly, attempting a private conversation, but Luc’s nose almost literally touches mine as he leans in with a goofy smirk. “Please, do go on.”
Sam rolls his eyes and pushes Luc’s face away. “Don’t rush. It’s not a big deal.”
“Thank you, for last night. I really needed it.”
Luc chuckles like a dirty pig. I turn on him. “I meant the sleep, dummy.”
He rolls his eyes and steps back. “Well that’s no fun.”
“Alright. I’ll shower and dress, you make her burp, then we’ll be set. I’ll get out of your hair this morning, and I’ll make sure the sheets are cleaned and the bed is remade before we leave.”
Luc’s goofiness is replaced by anger. “You’re leaving?”
“I’m just going to a hotel, then Lil and I will start looking for a short-term apartment.”
“No, you won’t. Get your shit, doll, you can come play house with me. I’ll be her daddy.”
Sam chuckles and shakes his head. “Relax. She’s staying here.”
“Oh, no.” I look back to him. “It’s okay, truly. We tried, it didn’t work. I’d rather make other arrangements instead of sitting here and feeling bad that you’re not comfortable enough to come home.” I turn and collect the still warm blanket I used overnight, and I roll it in my arms. “No hard feelings, I promise. We’re still going ahead with everything else, but now you get your home back.”
“Sammy--”
“I hope I didn’t cause too much trouble with your girlfriend. I knew my turning up here probably would have, but I was desperate enough to have you hear me out, I didn’t care about the repercussions of my actions. I’m sorry.”
Luc’s brows lift. “His girlfriend?”
“Blonde hair, big tits.” I hold my hand a few inches above my head. “Yay tall.” I turn back to Sam. “Pass on my apologies… or don’t. Do whatever smooths things over the easiest for you.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Sammy. Our original agreement stands.”
I wish he’d stop calling me Sammy, because now it feels like old times, like we’re friends again, but when his mood changes and he starts throwing ‘Samantha’ around again, it’s going to hurt more. “No, it doesn’t stand. I don’t feel comfortable here, because you don’t feel comfortable. So, it’s best if I just go--”
“I’m doing my best, Samantha!” Yup, there it is. “I’m still working through a lot of shit, but I’m working on it, okay? But in the meantime, I’m asking you to stay.”
“Why?” I angrily snap back. “You’re not even comfortable here. Why are you putting yourself through the torture?”
“Because you stole a lot of time from me, and I’m trying to reclaim a couple fucking minutes!”
“And we’re done.” Angelo pushes Sam backwards, gently, since Lily is still in his arms, and they move into the kitchen, and Luc takes my arm and pulls me back into the living room. It’s like we’re in a metaphorical boxing ring, and our cornermen have just separated us.
“I’m just trying to make this easier on him.”
Luc nods and pushes me until I slump back onto my temporary bed, then his hands remain on top of mine to stop me from getting up again. “Then I suggest you just stay.”
“You just saw him, Luc. He hates me. It’s like he’s got this tight grip on the reigns of his temper, but then it spews out when he’s done pretending. Why should he work so hard in his own home? Why should he tolerate us here when I could just as easily leave? As long as we stick to the plan, the end result is the same.”
“I think he just told you, Soda. He’s trying to reclaim something. He’s asking you to stay, because he obviously wants to spend time with you and Squeak.”
“Is he a masochist? Why stay under the same roof with someone he hates? Why get to know a baby that he doesn’t get to keep? Why does he want to hurt himself?”
Luc’s restraining hands release mine and run through his short blonde hair. He groans as reality slams down on him. His best friend is hurting again, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. “I dunno, Soda. But he can’t ask any clearer than he already has. He’s asking you to stay, so unless you have a reason not to – other than you feel bad for him – then just stay. Let the dude take back five minutes with the woman he thought was his forever. He clearly needs closure, because, let’s face it, you kinda ditched in the most horrifying fucking way ever. He never even got five minutes to say goodbye. You were just there, at The Shed listening to us play and planning nurseries and discussing pink or blue, then you were gone, and so was the baby and the future you guys had discussed. You fucked him over big time, and he still hasn’t processed that properly. But now maybe he can.”
“I swear I was trying to do the right thing by leaving.”
Luc shrugs as his sad eyes meet mine. “I’m the wrong audience, doll. And though I’m dying to know how you can justify what happened, he needs to hear it first. You left us all, but you took his heart with you, and you have no clue the carnage you left behind.”
“Luc…”
“I suggest you guys talk. Today. Tonight. Whenever. But you need to put it all out on the table. It couldn’t possibly get any worse by this point, and your vague ‘I thought I was doing the right thing’ doesn’t really help anyone except you and your own guilt. If it all goes to shit, well, call me and I’ll take you to my place, or a hotel or wherever you wanna go, but it all needs to be hashed out. Maybe then, he’ll have some kind of closure, and he’ll be able to move on.”
My brows pull in tight. “He’s already moved on. He was practically screwing a chick in his kitchen when I turned up here the other night.”
Luc shakes his head. “While I actually wish that was the truth, even at the expense of your feelings, we both know it’s not. You’re smarter than that, Soda. That’s why you tutored us all. Don’t go fishing now. Don’t be that person.”
My heart painfully knocks around in my chest. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying that both of you made promises when we were kids, but only one of you kept them.”
Our gazes snap up when Angelo walks into the living room with Lily in his arms. “He said to tell you he’s gone out for a bit. He’s got a standing appointment with one of the kids in town, so he has to work, but he said he’ll be home later, and he hopes that you’ll still be here.”
I look to Luc in an ‘I told you so’ way, but he shakes his head. “He asked you to stay.”
“He also said to remind you about the iron, because he didn’t do it yet.”
I nod my head sadly as Angelo takes a seat in the single recliner, then he starts rocking Lily as her eyes drift close. “Go take a shower, Sammy, then I have to go back to work.”
I stand up slowly and step toward him with my arms out. “I’ll take her.”
He looks up at me with a smirk. “You really don’t listen very well, huh? I can see why he’s frustrated. I said go take a shower. I’m holding her because I wanna. If I didn’t, then I’d just put her down. It’s not like she’s gonna run away, and it’s not like he owns a giant, baby eating dog.”
Luc stands up with a light chuckle. “My shift starts soon, so I better go too.” He leans down in front of Angelo and drops a soft kiss on Lily’s cheek. “Be good. Don’t run away.” Then to Ang, “I’ll be at the club later. Bet my ball sack and a bag of cooties we have new shit to learn tonight.”
***
An hour after finishing up in the shower and letting Angelo out of Sam’s apartment, Lily and I wander toward Main street in the winter sun with our fluffy hats and thick coats on. The sun is just barely warm enough that it touches my skin, but the breeze takes away most reason to stay outside.
I’m on the way to see Juliette, and I wanted to get out of the apartment for a few hours to make room in case Sam wanted to drop in. He’s asking me to stay, but I can at least provide him with a little space as often as possible.
Lily eyes me curiously in the stroller and sucks on her giant pacifier, and I walk slowly as my boots slosh in the melting snow.
The deep thump, thump, thump of a basketball on concrete ground echoes along the street, and I smile as I remember the basketball courts from when I was younger. I guess they’re still in the same spot in town.
I don’t walk closer to get a look. Instead, I walk by the hotel I was staying in, then turn onto Main and nearly collide with a group of women. We all smile and murmur our apologies, then they noisily continue on as a giant black dog follows closely behind.
I don’t think about Meg more than a couple times a year, but seeing groups of girlfriends hanging out and laughing makes me miss her more than I ever expected I would. We were friends for a short time, but what we had was special.
My folks and I moved here and forced me to leave behind all the girls I went to middle school with, then starting at a new school in ninth grade with the hottest boy staring at me more often than not, I found myself caught up in thinking about him rather than finding a new group of female friends.
I was so out of practice and suspicious of anything my parents suggested was good for me, that when Meg was forced into my life, I wanted nothing to do with her. I’m so thankful for the friendship she gave me, even if, similarly to Sam, it was short lived and ended because of me.
I should text her and ask how she’s doing.
“Hey, you!”
I turn at the shout coming from behind me, and I peer into the sun as that same group of women from earlier stop and stare back at me. The big dog stands in front of them, guarding a stroller similar to mine. I look around, checking behind me to see if they’re talking to someone else, but it’s just me here.
I point at myself hesitantly. “Me?”
The women whisper between themselves, and my brows furrow, then the one closest to the stroller breaks formation and moves forward slowly.
She’s small. She has long legs encased in jeans that fit like a second skin, and boots similar to mine that stretch to her knees. Her hair is long, jet black and straight as it hangs well past her elbows.
She stops about twenty feet away, then cups her hands around her mouth. “Yeah, you. What’s your name? You look familiar.”
A tall, blonde woman steps forward and grabs the brunette’s arm to pull her back, but the brunette shakes her head and takes a few steps forward. “Are you from around here?”
She steps forward an additional half a dozen steps until she’s close enough not to shout anymore, and I study her features. Big blue eyes, dramatic mascara, a nose ring that reminds me of Sam’s. She’s stunning, and it takes me another minute before I see it.
My eyes grow wide as butterflies swarm in my belly. She’s all grown up, and so beautiful. I smile and step forward. “Brittany?”
A large man steps up behind the group of women, then a second man, and in my distraction, I miss the moment Brittany’s face transforms from curious to angry. “Samantha Ricardo?” She steps forward again. “You’re Samantha Ricardo, right?”
I step back and tuck Lily’s stroller behind me safely. “Um--”
“Oh shit.” The first man jumps quickly, rushing forward and grabbing Brittany around the waist just as she steps toward me. He lifts her up and spins her around, and in the momentum, I literally feel the breeze from her kicking feet brush along my chin. “Get the fuck out of my town!” She’s like a wild dog frothing at the mouth. “Get out and don’t come back again.”
“Brittany, quit it.”
She fights her captor’s hold, and she kicks out and around him in an attempt to get to me. The women she was with all stand back and watch, and the second guy steps toward me slowly. I back away, because he’s big and he came from her side of the playing field, but then his icy blue eyes lock onto mine, and I find myself face to face with Alex Turner. Tears well in my eyes at the unexpected meeting. It’s like I’m seeing ghosts, and neither of them are happy to see me.
“Well, fuck.”
“Alex…”
“It’s been a long time, Sammy. I didn’t know you were in town.” He looks over my shoulder easily, then lifts his brow, “With a baby.”
“Get her away from here, X. He doesn’t need to see her, and he definitely doesn’t need to see that baby!”
“I’m sorry,” I choke past the lump in my throat. People all up and down the street step out of their warmed shops and offices to watch the commotion, and I take another step back, ensuring my hand stays firmly on the handle of Lily’s stroller and backing her away first.
Alex turns back to his still shouting sister. “Britt, shut the hell up before I have to arrest you!”
“Don’t you dare defend her, X! Kick her bitch ass out of this town before she sets him back. Suddenly I fucking love Nancy the whore.”
“Brittany!” His hand reaches out and grabs my wrist just half a second before I turn and make a run for it, though he turns around to face his sister. “You’re attacking someone who hasn’t touched you. I don’t wanna have to explain to mom why I had to arrest you, dumbass. Jack, get her out of here.”
The man holding Brittany turns and carries her away, even as she shouts and kicks out in my direction. The women split ranks and allow him to walk through, then they close around them and tuck the stroller in close.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Alex agrees, blocking my view of his little sister, but we both look again when she cries out as though she were gravely injured. My head snaps up in search of the threat, then I turn at the thundering footsteps as Sam sprints down the street toward our group.
I know it’s ridiculous of me to expect differently, and even more ridiculous to feel jealousy creep up through my belly and take root in my heart. But when Sam runs past me and into the group of women, taking his baby sister in his arms as she shouts at him to leave, my face burns red with humiliation. Ridiculous or not, a part of me hoped he’d hug me instead.
I step away in Alex’s distraction, but stop again when the stroller refuses to budge. I turn to find a teenaged boy with a basketball tucked under one arm and his head in the stroller while he makes kissy noises. I cry out in shock and his gaze snaps up curiously. He doesn’t remove his feet from the front wheels of my stroller, nor does he take his hand away as he rubs his thumb over the top of Lily’s hand, but he smiles charmingly. “Heya, ma’am.”
“Back it up, Mac.”
My neck aches as I turn to look at Alex, but he’s looking at the boy who looks like he might be fourteen or so, with cute dimples below his lips, and the strangest haircut I might have ever seen. “I’m just lookin’ at the cute doll baby.”
“You can’t touch someone’s baby without their permission. Step back. And get your dirty hands off her anyway. She’s tiny, and you’ve been screwing around at the courts with Scotch.”
“I wasn’t gonna steal her,” Mac pouts, but he pulls his hands back and steps away.
“You need to cool it,” Sam says to Britt as she struggles in his arms. “Just stop.”
“She needs to go! She’s a horrible person, and you don’t need to go back there.”
“You don’t understand. You’re talking about something you don’t know about.”
“You’re defending her?”
“No, I’m just saying that circumstances change, and you attacking her in the street isn’t cool.”
“Oh my god, you knew she was here?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “I did. She’s been here for a few days, and she came right to me to talk. She’s not sneaking around town.”
My stomach flips as Juliette Jones walks out into the street. She stops in shock and eyes our group, then she walks past Sam and the women and comes toward me. “Shit, Sammy. What did you do?”
Alex steps forward. “Jules?”
I look between them. “Jules?”
Juliette looks at Alex, then me, then Alex again. “I have a legal responsibility. An obligation of confidentiality that if breached, I could be disbarred. You know that, Alex.”
His face pales. “Jules--”
“Come on, Sammy. Come to my office and we’ll sit down.”
It’s literally painful to swallow over the lump in my throat. “You know each other?”
“Alex, meet Sammy, my sort of client. Sammy, meet my fiancé, Alex Turner, chief of police around here.”
The blood rushes to my toes. “Your fiancé.” I step back as though Alex’s glare is that of a hungry wolf. “I swear, I didn’t know.” I look at Juliette. “You tricked me?”
“I did not!”
“You knew who Sam was. You said you didn’t even know him.”
“I told you I didn’t know who Sam Turner was, which was true. I knew him as Scotch. And I told you to tie up your loose ends, and to do it gently.”
“And you mentioned your fiancé with the nice eyes. They’re the same damn eyes!”
“And they’re beautiful, no?”
Alex glares at his fiancé. “Juliette!”
Sam steps away from a still restrained Brittany and walks toward me, then nodding at Alex, he murmurs, “I’ll call you later.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
Sam sidesteps his brother. “Like I said. I’ll call you later.” He takes my arm gently and turns us back to the stroller. “You need a ride home, Mac?”
“You’re ditching on me early?”
“I gotta take care of business, sorry.”
Mac looks me up and down the way a man would. “Seems about right. You got a kid and you forgot to tell me? I woulda got you a rattle or somethin’.”
“Beat it, Mac. Stay out of trouble. Hang with X for a couple hours if you want, but I have to go.”
“I’ll see you on Saturday?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
Mac smiles. “I’ll bring a rattle.”
Sam chuckles softly. “Don’t steal it.”
“I’m a reformed man! I don’t steal. And I especially don’t admit to stealing with the deputy standing right there giving me the hairy eyeball.”
Sam laughs louder this time, but Alex sounds like he’s growling. “One more fucking person ‘round here calls me the deputy, and I’m gonna shoot some people.”
“Come on.” Sam leads us forward, away from his pissed off siblings and the dog who hasn’t stopped glaring at me since we all stopped, and he leads me around the corner until we’re near my former hotel. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry Britt was so mean. She’s an amazing woman, a great sister, a wonderful mother. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see that.”
“Looks to me I saw the great sister part. She was ready to rip my face off for you.”
He chuckles humorlessly. “She can get a little hot under the collar sometimes. Especially when it comes to family.”
I get that I left him, but the heat under her collar about a teenage breakup is out of this world.
“Come on, lets go home.”
I nod and turn my face away discreetly, because my eyes are stinging and I don’t want him to see. I hate that people hate me so much. I hate that the actions of a teenage girl who was being bullied by her parents can still evoke so much emotion such a long time after the fact. I simply hate being hated. I was one of them once upon a time, but now I’m the leper on the outside, and the irony is that my heart was ripped out too. I was hurt and scared and sad and alone too. I was trying to protect Sam and his family, but I’m the villain in this story.
I want to insist on getting my own apartment again. Before, I was worried about Sam’s comfort in his own home. I was willing to endure just about anything to keep my foot in his door and force him into helping me. But one single emotional morning, especially after the night we had where we didn’t fight and I slept a full nine hours, has me wanting to give up. It’s not about his comfort now. It’s about me wanting out. I don’t want the hate and anger anymore. I just want the people who once treated me with such undying love to stop treating me so horribly. I want to cry alone for a few hours. But I can’t, because if I suggest leaving, Sam will get mad again, which will only make me feel worse.
We walk the couple blocks toward his apartment in silence, and as though she’s truly rested after such a big sleep, Lily just watches us from the stroller. Her pacifier takes up half her face, but her eyes continue to flick between the two of us as she squeaks and fights a bout of hiccups.
We walk to the base of his outside stairs, then Sam unclips the carseat from the stroller base and carries her up without another word to me. With a sigh, I take the diaper bag and follow him up.
He tosses his keys onto the kitchen counter and sits the carseat on the table, then unlatching the straps, he pulls her out and cuddles her against his chest. He starts humming to her in the way he did a million times in the past for me, and swaying as he moves, he walks out of the kitchen without a second glance at me. Like I don’t exist. Like my feelings don’t matter. Like I’m not even here.
I want to go to my room and cry.
I want to go into the living room and hit him for hurting me so much. My mom was the first person I ever hit, and she damn well deserved it. Sam might be the second, because I don’t know how else to channel my pain and energy.
He’s protecting me from psycho sisters, but he still hates me.
Well that’s fine, because his blasé dismissal has my anger skyrocketing. He can hate me all he wants, because I kind of hate him too.
I stomp past him and into the spare room, and the fact it still smells of him sends my temper another notch higher. I throw my bag down on the bed, accidentally slamming it against the headboard noisily and busting the zipper open. Diapers and pacifiers fall out, tubes of creams and gels and a million other different baby things that help soothe rashes and pains spill out across my covers. A small tub of pre-measured formula pops open and the powder spills in the gap between the covers and pillows, essentially digging its way between the sheets just to be a royal pain in the ass. I let out a cry of frustration as I pick my shit up, shoving them in the bag without ordering them. I scrunch tiny little diapers and shove them in, then bibs and the creams. I pick up the formula tub and throw it against the wall for good measure, because shit can’t get any worse for me.
I rip the sheets off the bed and toss the pillows to the floor in anger. My arms shake with a newfound rage that I haven’t felt until this day. Brittany Turner broke me, because of all the people in the world I worried would hold a grudge against me for leaving, it wasn’t his nine-year-old little sister.
Britt and I spent a lot of time together when we were younger. I sat around braiding her hair a million times as we watched the guys practice. Britt and I played with her new temporary tattoo stencil maker for hours while we giggled and chatted. She was just a kid, but she was cool, and she was sweet. She thought I was the coolest girl around, because I was a high school senior and because her big brother adored me.
Even at her age, she attempted to teach me how to skate, and she was good at it. She was nimble where I was not, and she was fast, where I was slow. She giggled when I fell, and she teased me when I wobbled. But above it all, she was kind and sweet, and she loved me like I was her sister too.
Fuck that bitch.
I roll up the sheets and storm out of the room. I stomp past a curious Sam as he watches me with a lifted brow and dirty smirk. I hide my face so he doesn’t see the angry tears in my eyes because his sister was a big meanie to me, and I rush through the kitchen and out the back door. I slam the heavy wooden door closed, then dropping the pile at my feet, I yank at the sheets until one separates itself from the other. I snap the fabric out in front of me so the powdered formula shakes free, but the wind blows it back in my face. I scream silently and clench my teeth in anger.
I want to go home.
I hate this town.
I pick up the next sheet and shake it out, then balling them in my arms, I rip the door open and swing it wide. The handle on the inside slams against the wall, but I’m not sorry. Sam Turner’s door can go fuck itself.
I race back through the living room, slowing when I find him rocking in the recliner with a bottle between Lily’s lips. He doesn’t speak, he simply watches my mini-breakdown with a mildly bored expression on his face.
Fuck him! And his door. And his sister.
I grunt in anger and walk away. I slam the bedroom door closed and toss the sheets to the floor. Again, snapping one sheet to separate it from the other, I find the fitted sheet and start making the bed that he slept in last night. Stupid asshole, making my sheets smell so good I want to burn them and roll in them at the same time.
I make the bed so meticulously, no one would ever dare lay on it for fear of messing up the perfect corners. I pull the covers up and fold the ends perfectly. Rage simmers under my skin, and I call Sam and his little sister all sorts of horrible names under my breath, because if I stop being angry, I’m going to lose my shit.
I’m done here. And if Lily wasn’t at stake, I’d have already left.
My eyes snap up when a shadow moves across the crack below the bedroom door, then the handle slowly turns and he walks in with a sleeping Lily tucked against his chest. I hate that he looks so good with her there. I hate that he looks so good in general. I hate everything.
I walk toward them. “Here, I got her.”
He frowns and twists his body away from my grabbing hands. “I’ve got her. I’m just putting her to bed.”
“I can do it,” I snap quietly.
He walks by me without a worry in the world, then stopping at an iPod and speaker, he turns it on low. A long time ago, this would have had me smiling and stepping into him so he could sing to me while we danced, but today, the day he does this for Lily, the day the whole world decides to be a dick, it pisses me off.
“Whatever.” I storm past him and stomp out of the room. He can fucking do it. I don’t care anymore. Asshole thinks he can just come in and take over. He thinks that my months of little sleep are made up, because it’s all so damn easy for him. He thinks he knows everything.
I stomp into the kitchen and pull the cupboard door open. I take out a cast iron frying pan and slam it down on the stove. I’m half tempted to throw it at his head.
I go to the fridge and help myself to his shit, because he so insists I do. I ignore the bag of mm’s and take out the bacon and Nutella, because he’s a damn weirdo and keeps the spread in the fridge, then turning, I grab a spoon from the drawer and start eating from the jar. I lean against the counter and spoon glutenous amounts into my mouth, and I sneer at the empty doorway that minutes later, is filled by Sam as he smirks and looks me up and down. “You need your bitch pills or something?”
“No, but your bitchy sister might.”