Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
LEO
“Hardin! Knock it off!”
I let out a sigh as I moved out of the closet, buttoning my shirt and tucking it into the waistband of my jeans as I headed toward my dresser. I listened to the pandemonium taking place downstairs as I slipped my belt through the loops on my jeans.
It never failed to blow my mind how just the two of them could create so much noise and chaos.
Our house wasn’t small, I’d made sure of that when I finally set us up somewhere permanent after the divorce had been finalized, wanting to make sure the kids had their own spaces and could grow here, but they still managed to yell the place down every damn morning as they got ready for school.
“You’re hording the Cap’n Crunch! Gimme the box!” Hardin yelled.
“Cap’n Crunch is mine! Get your hands off! You have Frosted Flakes!”
Fucking shit.
“Cereal isn’t gonna up and disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow,” I shouted in return. “I can get more, so you guys stop fighting.”
Blessed silence fell on the house after that as I took a seat on the edge of the bed and pulled on my socks and boots. But by the time I hooked my badge and holster to my belt it started up again.
“Gah! Hardin, stop! Dad, Hardin’s drinking all the milk!”
“I’m a growin’ boy! My bones need it.”
“Enough! Both of you,” I boomed, moving out of my room and down the stairs.
Once I reached the kitchen I stopped and planted my hands on my hips, staring both of them down.
“Macie, there’s another gallon of milk in the fridge, so relax.
Hardin, stop messin’ with your sister.” I stepped up to the coffee maker, thanking the Lord I’d had the foresight to get one with an automatic timer for situations just like this.
There was already a cup waiting for me amidst all the chaos.
Moving there, I grabbed the cup and turned to brace my hips on the counter so I could face off with my kids as I brought it to my lips.
“I’m officially instituting a ban on any and all fighting until I’ve finished this cup. You two get me?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Macie said quietly.
“Yeah, Dad,” Hardin responded.
Then they both got back to eating their breakfast in peace and harmony. At least for the time being. I knew them well enough to know it would be short-lived, but I’d take what I could get.
Fifteen minutes later, their bowls were in the dishwasher, my cup of coffee had been downed, and we were out the door, on the way to drop-off.
Macie was back to her normal, bubbly self by the time we hit the car and had been chattering away up until the moment I came to a stop in front of her school, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning over from the backseat to place a kiss on my cheek. “Bye, Daddy.”
“Later, baby girl. Have a good day.”
“You too,” she returned, then hopped out and skipped into the building.
Without Macie there, the drive to the high school was filled with a tense silence that made the air in the cab of my truck thick and heavy. Danika had been a buffer the evening before, and Macie this morning. Now those were gone, and he was back to doing his best to pretend I didn’t exist.
I turned into the drop-off line for the high school, my gut twisting into knots as I rounded the curve to the front of the building. His hand went to the door handle as soon as I pulled to a stop, but I spoke before he was able to get out of the truck.
“Son.” He hesitated for a beat before turning just his head back to me.
“I know things have been hard for you lately. I wish I could take your anger away, bud. You have no clue how badly I want that. But you need to know, you and your sister are the most important things in my life and you always will be. I love you, and nothin’ is ever gonna change that.
You have that until the day I die. You get me? ”
He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. But his throat bobbed with a thick swallow as he gave me a nod. “Yeah, Dad. I got you.” With that, he climbed out and shut the door.
It wasn’t some grand, emotional breakthrough, but I could read my boy, and what I’d said had at least penetrated that fortress he’d built to keep me out this past year. It was a start.
Feeling a bit lighter, I started for the station. I was halfway there when my cell rang, and the name on the screen took a sledgehammer to that calm I’d been feeling after that last encounter with my boy.
Blowing out a sigh, I hit the button on the steering wheel to activate the Bluetooth. “I’m five minutes from the station, Whitney. What is it?”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Leo?” She clipped through the line.
“What the hell are you goin’ on about?”
“In front of our kids? Really? That’s low, even for you.”
“Not real big on repeating myself. I already asked once what the hell you were talkin’ about. This is the last time I’ll ask. You don’t shine some light on what you’re harpin’ about, I’m hanging up.”
“You had a woman in your house last night!” she screeched so loud it was a wonder my windows didn’t shatter.
My vision began to bleed red. I had to breathe deep and work to calm myself so as not to run off the road, which was a struggle, because the damn woman wouldn’t stop talking.
“Lori saw you walking outside with some bitch last night. Said her car was parked in front of your house for hours!”
“Lori needs to mind her own goddamn business and worry about her own situation,” I growled into the line. “Especially when that consists of tryin’ to keep it from her husband that she’s been steppin’ out on him for the past two years.”
“She was being a good friend to me,” Whitney shouted.
That was a joke. Not a single one of Whitney’s friends was good in any sense of the word. They were all just like her: lying, scheming, backstabbing, catty bitches. “She was starting shit,” I barked back. “And you need to be very careful with what you say. Danika’s not a bitch.”
“Danika? You mean Danika Parrish?” She let out a cold, callous laugh. “The fat, ugly chick from high school? That’s just great.”
“Watch it,” I snapped. “You don’t talk about her like that. You hear me? Ever.”
“Oh my God. You’re a real piece of work, bringing your latest piece around my kids,” she hissed, but I was done listening.
“You know what? Since your friend is too busy stirrin’ up trouble when she doesn’t have the first fuckin’ clue what she’s talking about, I’ll fill you in on a couple things.
First, if there comes a time when I have a woman in my life I feel like introducing to the kids, it’s not anyone else’s business. Especially yours.”
“If you’re bringing some woman around my kids—”
“This seems to have slipped your mind, so I’ll remind you, they’re my kids too. Second, Danika’s a friend. The only reason she was there last night was because Macie asked her to teach her how to bake. Last night was their first lesson.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic! So you aren’t banging her, but you are letting Danika Dough Girl teach our daughter everything she needs to know to get as fat as she was? How the hell do you consider that good parenting, Leo?”
This fucking woman.
“This conversation’s over, and when I say that, I mean it in a very final way.
I won’t talk to you about Danika, I won’t listen to you call her childish, juvenile names.
Macie likes her. She likes spending time with her, and she was excited to learn somethin’ that gives her joy.
I’m not takin’ that away from her. And I swear to God, Whitney, I better never find out you’ve put the slightest thought in Macie’s head that she’s, in any way, less than the sweet, beautiful girl she is.
Unless it directly affects the wellbeing of one of the kids, you and I have absolutely nothing to say to each other. ”
I disconnected the call just as I turned into the parking lot at the back of the station. By the time I parked, climbed out, and headed inside, I was no less pissed, so when I hit the bullpen my partner read my mood clear as day. “Ah hell. The ex, the kids, or somethin’ altogether different?”
Micah Langford had been my partner since I joined the department when I moved back a few years ago. He’d been there when things in my marriage went so sour there was no fixing them, taking me out for beers once I filed for divorce and listening when the shit with Whitney threatened to blow my top.
“You get three guesses,” I muttered, pulling my chair out and sitting down. “And just a hint, it’s not the last two.”
“So the ex. Not surprised. You know I got all the respect in the world for you man, but watchin’ your shit go down, I’m so damn glad I’m not married.”
“Famous last words,” Hayes Walker, another detective with the HVPD said as he and his partner, Trick Wanderly came walking up, white paper cups from Muffin Top in their hands.
He took a seat at his desk just across the aisle from mine.
“Quickest way to jinx yourself and guarantee you end up married is to actually say you’re glad you aren’t married. ”
“Not a goddamn chance,” Micah chuckled. “Watchin’ my boy here go through that special kind of nightmare turned me off the institution for life. I can promise you that.”
“I thought the same thing,” Trick said, humor laced through his words. “Now I got a woman, the number of teenagers in my household doubled, and there’s an infant screamin’ his head off in my house every night.”
Hayes and Trick were both married, but for Trick this was marriage number two.
His situation with his ex had only been slightly better than mine.
No one expected he’d settle down again, then he hooked up with a gorgeous redhead at Hayes and his wife, Temperance’s, wedding.
He and Nona have been together a while now, and he might bitch about squalling babies, but the man was living in bliss.
“The day I get so hung up on a woman I imagine wedding bells is the day I split my paycheck between the two of you,” Micah declared.
“I’ll take that bet,” Hayes said on a laugh. “Tempie’s been goin’ on about wanting to extend the barn at the farmhouse to add a couple more horses. With your contribution, I’m sure she’ll be by to thank you personally once it’s done.”
The phone on Micah’s desk started ringing before he could reply. I watched him as he answered, listened for a second, and returned the receiver to the cradle.
“We got a case,” he said, rising to his feet and removing his gun and holster from his desk drawer.
And just like that, we were off, which meant, fortunately, I didn’t have any more time to waste on thoughts of Whitney. However, it also meant I didn’t have time to swing into Muffin Top.