Chapter 10
Ten
REESE
I make it home in less than seven minutes. The drive from Malaki’s apartment in the uppity part of the city is far enough away from downtown that being back at my place seems like a whole different world. The homeless wander about, and you never want to look at someone for too long in the eye.
I rush out of my car and lock it on the way to the stairs. I skip every other step with my heart in my throat. The long hallway comes into view, and I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Benedict.
Why is he here?
“Nice place you have,” he muses without looking up from his phone. One shoulder is leaning against the wall with one foot crossed over the other.
I slow my steps. “Why are you here, Benedict?”
He shuts his phone off. The quick flick of his gaze causes my breath to falter.
Can he tell?
“The question is, why aren’t you here, Reese?”
I cross my arms defensively. “I was working.”
“Oh, really?” He raises an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
I was working–until Malaki convinced me to stay out with him. Convinced, paid, whatever.
The air in the stuffy hallway is so tense I’m afraid to move.
Benedict opens up his phone again, his movements slow and lazy.
“I wasn’t aware that Ubering had a double meaning, sweetheart.”
I cringe. I hate when he calls me that.
“The court is going to love seeing the footage of you dancing and having a good time while our baby is at home alone with a teenager.”
My nostrils flare. “Zoe is in college. She is perfectly capable of babysitting Charleigh while I work.”
Benedict smirks. “While you work?”
This is a disaster. An utter fucking disaster.
Before I can think, Benedict moves like a lion after its prey. One second, I’m standing with my arms crossed, and the next, my back is against the wall with his presence trapping me.
His hand digs into my hair, and I turn my head away to stare at my apartment door. Fear prickles my skin. He pulls on the strands hard enough to make me wince.
“Your hair is messy,” he hisses.
I push myself into the wall in an attempt to get away from him. He leans in close to rub his nose against my jaw. He sniffs twice and growls. “You smell like him.”
Blinding anger zips to my fingertips. I lift my hands and push against his chest to slip out from under him. Surprisingly, he lets me go with a gruff chuckle following close behind.
“I’m allowed to see other people,” I argue.
It doesn’t matter that I’m not dating Malaki or even considering seeing him again. Benedict needs a reality check.
“You think a court is going to side with you after they learn that you’re out whoring around with some random guy while our daughter is at home?”
The nerve.
Our daughter?
“And you think the court is going to side with you after they learn that you wanted me to end my pregnancy and have only held Charleigh a handful of times?” I scoff. “What happens if the court sides with you, Benedict?”
I’ve struck a chord. His eye twitches, and his jaw clenches.
His plan is to force me back into a relationship with him so we can act like one big happy family, but doesn’t he know that a broken home, filled with fear and hate, is much more damaging to a child than the one Charleigh currently has with me?
She deserves to be surrounded by love and warmth, and that comes in all shapes, forms, and sizes.
Do I struggle to make ends meet? Sure.
But I’d rather work odd hours to pay the electric bill than live in a mansion where I’d have to turn my head every time Benedict came home late from the bar with the scent of perfume on his collar.
Benedict glares at me. “Who is he?”
I inch toward my apartment door. “Have you been having someone follow me around?”
My legs are heavy as I take another step away from him. The knot in my stomach tightens when he clicks his tongue and smirks.
There is no fear as powerful as the thought of someone taking your child from you.
“I asked you who he is. Is he a one-night stand? I sure hope you don’t get pregnant again.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat and open my mouth. “What if I tell you he’s my boyfriend? Would that make you leave me alone?”
Anger brews in his eyes, the blue becoming as dark as a midnight storm. “You think just because you call him your boyfriend that means anything?” He laughs sarcastically. “How long have you known him? An hour? That’s how long you knew me before you were opening up those legs.”
This bastard.
“I’ve known him for years,” I lie right through my teeth. “You’d know that if you actually knew me.”
Benedict’s upper lip rises with obvious irritation.
He takes a step toward me, and I panic, but at the last second, the apartment door swings open, revealing Zoe holding Charleigh.
She’s in her pink footy pjs with her wild dark hair hanging in her eyes.
I smile when our eyes lock, her expression matching mine.
She babbles while bucking against my sister’s hip. “Ma–ma–mama.”
“Hi, sweet pea,” I coo.
“You need to leave.” Zoe pops her hip out with an edge of anger to her tone, and I take Charleigh from her.
I glance over my shoulder at Benedict. He’s glaring at Zoe, and surprise, surprise, he completely ignores Charleigh.
“You going to make me?” he asks.
A challenge flashes over my sister’s face. Oh no.
Benedict knows that Zoe and I come from a different background.
When he was opening presents on Christmas morning from Santa, Zoe and I were cleaning up our father’s vomit on our living room floor from his drunken rage the night prior.
When someone knocked on our front door, it wasn’t a delivery man with a package of goodies; it was someone demanding money—or worse, CPS.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him or me when Zoe disappears for a moment and pops back up with a baseball bat in her hands.
“I can definitely make you leave.” She twirls the baseball bat in her hands, and all I can think is, where the hell did she get a baseball bat?
“You’re fucking crazy,” he mumbles.
Zoe hauls the bat up higher with Charleigh eagerly reaching for it.
Benedict slowly backs away, shifting his gaze in between us. “A baseball bat when I’m just trying to see my daughter…” He acts appalled, his head shaking back and forth.
“You are not here to see your daughter,” Zoe argues. “You know it, I know it, Reese knows it, and it won’t take Char long to figure it out too.”
“Zoe.” My heart pounds with the realization that Benedict is cataloging every last interaction between us so he can compile it all into a nice and tidy folder if he ever decides to follow through on his threat. “Stop.”
My sister’s steps falter, the bun on top of her head bouncing from the sudden movement. “Please tell me you’re not siding with him.”
Of course I’m not.
She knows me better than that.
I give her a look, stressing my quiet thoughts. She eventually rolls her eyes before putting the bat back where she found it and disappearing into our small living room.
I move Charleigh to my other hip and glance at Benedict once more before quickly shutting the door and fumbling with the lock.
Zoe flops onto the couch and puts her long legs on the Goodwill coffee table we snagged weeks prior. An empty baby bottle, binky, and three toys are scattered on top. “Is it bad to wish death on someone?”
I sigh. “Yes.”
Zoe unravels her bun, and the dark strands of her hair fling off the back of the couch as she slumps down farther. “Why did you tell me to stop?” she asks. “I remember you taking a baseball bat to Scary Larry, and in my opinion, Benedict is worse.”
Scary Larry—a name Zoe and I came up with one night when we were tucked away in the same bed because we were afraid that our dad’s creepy friend would try to sneak into our room at night like the boogie man—was worse than Benedict.
She was just too young to remember. That’s why I took a bat to his knees.
“There’s more at risk with Benedict,” I explain.
“Like?”
I begin cleaning up the living room, gathering everything in my free hand. Charleigh reaches for her pink binky and plops it into her mouth. Her eyes droop, and she lays her head on my shoulder.
“Like the fact that he keeps threatening to take me to court for custody.”
Zoe is on her feet in seconds. “What?!”
I put my back to her to hide how terrified I am. I’m the strong one of our sister duo. I can’t show her that I’m worried.
“Yeah,” I say over my shoulder from the kitchen. “So it’s time to be on our best behavior."
Silence fills our small apartment for so long I’m able to wash Charleigh’s bottle with one hand and put it on the drying rack without any interruptions.
When I walk back into the living room to snag her pink blanket, Zoe is nibbling on her lip. With Charleigh’s head resting against my shoulder, well past asleep, she lowers her voice. “Is that why you told him whoever you were with was your boyfriend and that you’ve known him for years?”
My lips flatten. “You never did grow out of eavesdropping, did you?”
Her classic cheeky grin appears, and she shrugs. She’s almost to her room before she turns around with an even bigger smile on her face. “I sure hope that boyfriend of yours gave you an orgasm tonight. Might as well make it worthwhile, right?”
I snatch one of Charleigh’s toys and chuck it at her head. Knowing me almost as well as she knows herself, she quickly shuts her bedroom door to avoid being hit. The toy hits the wood before falling to the floor with a quiet thud.
“He did give me an orgasm, thank you very much!” I whisper.
Little does he know, I just told my overbearing ex that Malaki and I are much more than what we really are, especially after tonight.