Chapter 15
Fifteen
I’ve started investing in stocks. Beef, chicken and vegetable. One day, I hope to be a bouillonaire.
—Text from Weaver to Eddy
Weaver
I woke up to a loud ass purring on my chest.
“Hello, Hyde,” I drawled, wondering if I should chance pushing him off.
He’d probably get pissed AF and claw me.
That’d been what he did last time.
“Your mother is being moved today,” I said. “Maybe we can sneak you in for a little cuddle.”
The cat, a black and gray smoky cat with the eyes of a panther, stared at me with his soulless eyes.
He took offense to my shift in position and left, but not before giving my bedpost a claw.
The devil.
He really was the devil.
The bad thing was, when I’d gotten the cat from Eddy’s house, her furniture hadn’t looked like this.
Maybe he was upset?
I didn’t know, but I did pack him in a black duffel and carry him into the hospital with me an hour later.
He didn’t make much noise until I got him on the same floor as Eddy.
He meowed loudly, and a woman coming onto the elevator frowned and looked around.
Choosing to play dumb, I hurried toward the room that was supposedly now Eddy’s.
When I got inside, it was to find her propped up in the hospital bed with a pillow in her lap, staring at the remote that was at the end of the bed.
She was trying to scooch her toes toward it, and she had a distinctive look of concentration on her face that was honestly quite cute.
The motion of the door opening had her glancing up, and her face lit up. “Weaver!”
“Hey,” I said. “I can’t stay for long. I have to be at work in an hour. But I brought you a little pick-me-up.”
She looked all but ecstatic when she saw the duffel. “Please, please tell me that it’s something food related. The food here tastes like dog food.”
“How do you know what dog food tastes like?” I teased.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a saying. You know I don’t know what it tastes like.”
I placed the bag on the bed and the cat inside gave a hiss.
“Oh, my god,” she breathed. “Please tell me that’s Jekyll.”
“Hyde, yeah,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s not that bad.”
I held out my hand, which was covered in claw marks. “Not that bad?”
She bit her lip. “He’s kind of crazy with new people. He’ll get better.”
I snorted and opened the top of the duffel bag.
The cat jumped out and went carefully to Eddy, who was holding her hands out for her kitty to walk into.
Hyde/Jekyll got to her and started purring up a storm, curling himself in on his owner.
“Awww,” Eddy said. “You’re way better than a hamburger.”
I made a mental note to bring her dinner later when I came back.
Just as I was picking up the remote to hand it to her, my phone rang, and I groaned.
“Call out?” She laughed. “How’s this gonna work? You can’t leave Jekyll here.”
I frowned when I saw who was calling.
“I don’t…” I trailed off and answered the call, but didn’t say hello.
“It’s us,” my mom said carefully. “Honey, Bossy is missing.”
My entire body locked. “What do you mean she’s missing?”
“Pippa came over yesterday and said some stuff about you like she always does,” Mom said. “And when Boston took offense, Pippa laid into her.”
I cursed under my breath. “Mother, we’ve talked about this. She can’t keep doing this to Boston.”
“That’s what we said,” Mom said quietly.
“And then Pippa put out an ultimatum. Either she gets to say what she wants, or she stops speaking to us, too.” She hesitated.
“But it was her next words that really got to Boston. She said that she would fight us for custody since we’re treating our son like he isn’t a murderer.
According to her, it’s clear that we aren’t fit to be raising a teenager when our loyalties lie with a murderer. ”
I was so angry at those words that it took me a second to realize that the room beyond me had gone quiet.
When I looked up it was to find Eddy’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
She’d heard.
My mom was practically vibrating with energy, and to be honest, I had some hearing loss from when I was in the SEALs—hence the reason I’d gotten out when I had—and I always had the volume turned up on my phone so I could hear.
I now realized my huge mistake.
Fuck.
“We tracked her as far as the bus station,” Mom continued, unaware that I’d just fucked up. Huge. “She didn’t get a ticket straight to you. She got it to St. Louis, Missouri.” She hesitated. “Do you want us to go after her?”
There was a long moment of silence as I digested her words.
The meaning.
She wanted to know if they should go after her or let Bossy make her way to me.
“I…”
“Let her come here.” Eddy poked me in the chest.
I opened my mouth to deny that, to explain why, but in my hesitation she used it against me and reached for my phone that I’d let fall from my ear.
“I have someone that’ll come pick her up,” she said into my phone.
I couldn’t hear my mother’s response, because again, hearing issues, but Eddy started to explain.
“I’m Weaver’s good friend,” she must’ve answered my mother’s question. “I can have my sister pick her up from the bus station. She’s actually flying into the same airport to play soccer today. I can get her picked up and brought back to Weaver.”
They spoke a little bit more, but my mother must’ve calmed down, because she was no longer raising her voice.
“Okay, okay. Yes, it’s good to meet you, Shirley. I’ll take care of them both.”
Before I could ask her what she was thinking, she placed my phone down on the bed, careful not to wake Jekyll, and picked her own phone up.
She placed it on speaker so that I could hear every word that was said.
When Nettie answered she sounded distracted.
“Hey, Eddy,” Nettie said. “I’m in the middle of warm-ups, what’s up?”
“Weaver’s daughter ran away from home, and she got a bus ticket to St. Louis. Which is where you’re at. Do you think after your game you can go pick her up before you fly back home?” Eddy asked without preamble.
“Um, sure.” She paused. “But I don’t have a ticket for her.”
“I’ll handle that,” Eddy said. “We’ll make sure that we get Boston’s ticket sent to your phone. She’s underage, so she won’t need an ID or anything.”
“Okay, sounds good.” Nettie snickered. “You remember when we ran away at sixteen and our mom met us two bus stops away and lectured us all the way home?”
“Yeah.” Eddy snickered too. “I think it’s a rite of passage.”
“Damn straight.” She paused. “Why is it so hot to think about Weaver having a daughter?”
Eddy’s eyes met mine when she said, “I know, right?”
They hung up, and only when we stayed staring at each other in uncomfortable silence for a little bit too long did Eddy say, “A dad, huh? Nettie’s right. That is kind of hot.”
I snorted.
“Do you know someone that can get her a ticket without notifying the government and the National Guard?”
“Technically, both of those are one and the same. Both government,” I pointed out. “Why aren’t you freaking out?”
“I’m assuming that I only know half of the story, and I’m reserving judgment until I know the whole thing.” She paused. “If you want to share that with me.”
I studied her face, and her broken arm, and the gauze bandages that were poking out of her tank top.
I thought about all that she’d gone through in the last few days, and the strength she had inside of her. I thought about what it would be like to have a woman that strong, that never gave up. A woman that had asked for me when she barely knew me during the worst moments of her life.
I thought about what I wanted out of a future, and whether or not I wanted to be alone for the rest of my life, or spend it with someone that I could truly share everything with.
And I made a decision.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But first, I need to get a hold of a friend who can get me an untraceable airline ticket.”
“It needs to be untraceable?” she asked softly.
I nodded.
“Then maybe she doesn’t need to be seen getting onto a domestic flight at all. Maybe she needs to fly private,” Eddy suggested.
I nodded and got on the phone.
“What’s up?” Apollo asked.
I gave him the rundown.
“Your sister is a mess, but according to all of her search history and everything that I could find, getting custody of your daughter isn’t even on her radar.” He paused. “She’s pretty involved in an online gaming group, though. She’s racking up the debt.”
“That should be impossible seeing as Stanton left her his entire estate,” I pointed out.
“One would think,” he said. “But I haven’t done a deep dive into her finances. I will now, though.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’ll get the flight information to you as soon as possible,” he said. “And we’ll get Eddy’s sister on it, too.”
Apollo hung up, but just as I started to explain, the door was pushed open and Eddy’s parents arrived, killing any and all possibility of a discussion.
“Oh, my baby,” Minnie Wheeler, Eddy’s mother, said. “We came as soon as we heard.”
Fat fuckin’ lies.
They both damn well knew.
Everyone and their brother knew.
You didn’t have a bear attack in your town and not hear about it immediately.
You especially didn’t have a woman survive a bear attack and it not make even bigger news.
I’d been dodging news people all week wanting to talk to the ‘miracle woman that survived a bear attack.’
Hell, even a few social media influencers had shown up.
It’d made getting to and from the hospital damn near impossible to do and not get seen.
Luckily, it was still cold as fuck outside and you had to bundle up or freeze to death.
The only thing they ever saw of me was some of my eyes as I left and arrived.
And since they weren’t all that interested in seeing me, they usually paid me no attention.
That didn’t mean that I hadn’t gone out of my way to ensure that they didn’t follow me home or to work.
“It’s okay,” Eddy lied, wincing slightly when she moved. “You’re only allowed one visitor at a time, and Weaver is usually always with me.”