Hawk #2
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. I’ve been to bar fights less violent than this morning. Burns, spills, smells… How the fuck does Phantom ever get out of the house with not just these two, but his son Jax and a baby too?
This is exactly why I wouldn’t put a baby in my ex.
Well, if I’m honest, there are a lot of reasons my ex is my ex. Me not wanting a little ankle biter running around is just one entry on a very long list.
The acid in my stomach rolls over at the thought of Sadie. She is everything I’m not—classy, educated. A girl with a career and future. What she saw in a dirtbag like me, I’ll never know. Turns out, she didn’t see much in me for very long.
I shove the memories away, but something is still gnawing at me.
The emails I can’t keep ignoring. Her texts won’t go through because I blocked her, but I have no doubt she’s tried to call, just hoping I’d decide to unblock her.
Sadie and I have been divorced for two years, but the way she’s on my ass, you’d think she still wants a piece of me.
More like she still wants a piece of the easy cash that comes with my line of work.
Nico, you know that attorney you hired was a crook. It’s only fair that you give me partial ownership of the cottage. At least let me use it when you’re not there.
Since we were only married a couple of years and we had no kids or anything anybody with a lick of sense would have called “joint assets,” we shared one lawyer to keep things simple.
A couple of meetings, some paperwork, and a fat legal bill that would have been much bigger if we’d been assholes to each other.
But we weren’t. Shit happened on both her and my end, and eventually, she wanted out.
She called it. Had the balls to leave me, when I would have stayed comfortably numb for probably the rest of my life. I don’t know.
Grief shows its head in weird places, and I’ve always wondered if I really loved Sadie or if I just loved that somebody fucking wanted me. Somebody finally chose me.
Until she chose different.
Financially, we both left the marriage with mostly what we brought into it. At least Sadie left with what she brought in. I parted with a new monthly alimony commitment and at least three emails a month from Sadie wanting even more.
Her latest postdivorce demand? Access to the fishing cottage on the coast I inherited from my grandfather.
Even Sadie—a girl with dollar signs in her eyes—isn’t so heartless as to try to completely take the place from me.
Growing up without parents, shoved off on an aunt on my dad’s side who made it plenty clear she didn’t give a shit about raising the preteen son of a no-good brother, I found out pretty early what it meant not to be wanted.
After my dad died in prison and my mom passed away from a combination of a broken heart and lungs ruined by cigarettes, all I had left were Auntie Jeanette and Grandpa Ken.
Ken was my dad’s father and a man who worked hard every single day of his life and scraped together something from incredibly humble means.
What matters more than any of that…he was the one man on the planet who genuinely cared about me.
Saw me as more than a stain his son should have left on his teenage wife’s sheets.
Grandpa Ken always saw potential in me. And even if I couldn’t appreciate him when he was alive, the fishing cottage he left me is the one thing in this world that’s mine.
The one thing that ties me to the only family I ever really had.
I made sure that place stayed mine in the divorce, but Sadie’s got a long list of regrets, and giving up my cottage is at the top.
I climb behind the wheel of my truck and pull my sunglasses from their case, checking the time again.
I debate calling Holly’s phone to ask what the hell is taking so long, but for all I know, changing her coffee-stained jeans means changing hair, shoes, and makeup to match the new outfit.
Maybe even a shower and a whole morning redo.
I drum my fingers on the wheel and watch the cars drive by the house, noting that maroon SUV hasn’t made another pass.
My shoulders relax slightly, and I close my eyes.
I’ll count to ten and then tap the horn.
That’ll let the kids know we gotta roll because I ain’t about to get my ass pulled over because I’m speeding so they don’t miss the first bell.
Ten…
Nine…
Eight…
My phone buzzes with a text alert. It’s Poppy.
Hi, Hawk. Girls get off to school okay? I hope you didn’t have to yell too many times to get them out the door on time. Thank you again so much for being there. I already texted Stella, but I’ll check back in tonight. We’re getting breakfast at the hotel buffet. Jax and Phantom are in heaven.
I hit the text to “like” it because there’s no way I’m going to reply and admit that the girls aren’t even in the car yet, let alone not at school.
Resuming my countdown, I scroll past a missed call notification from last week.
Not a number in my contacts, but I know it’s Sadie.
Another one from two weeks ago. Sadie again.
She must have a reason she wants Grandpa Ken’s cottage all of a sudden.
A new boyfriend she wants to take on a cheap getaway?
Nothing would shock me about her anymore.
My heart patched over the hole she left the minute she told me we were over.
If you can even call it a hole. Something in me knew her leaving was just inevitability playing itself out.
Seven…
Six…
Ah, fuck. Teenager-sitting and getting my damn arm burned. It’s all making me as emo as a little girl. Speaking of…
I turn on the engine, roll down the windows, and shout into the garage, “Holly. Daisy.”
Fuck the countdown.
I tap my horn once, but it’s as if the girls were already in the foyer. They burst through the door and jump in the car with the energy of an entire clubhouse full of bikers right after a huge score. The truck shimmies on its chassis as they slam the doors and fasten their seat belts.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I adjust my sunglasses and peer into the rearview, looking behind us to the road at the end of the driveway.
“Uncle Hawk, we should go.” Holly looks at me, her voice all serious responsibility. “We really can’t be late to school.”
I white-knuckle the steering wheel and grit my teeth. I finish the silent countdown in my head before saying anything.
Five, four, three, two, one…
“So,” I say, sucking in a chestful of air. “Who’s in the mood for some classic rock?”
The girls groan as I back up out of the garage, close the door with the clicker, and give the kids a shit-eating grin when I crank up the volume.
“You know what they say about payback, ladies?”