Chapter 81
CHAPTER 81
BETH
I sit in the doorway of the cabin with an industrial mask over my face, making sure I don’t inhale the bleach fumes from Judy sanitizing the birthing tub. Technically, it’s an old kiddie pool, but it’s the right size for what we need.
Ollie looked at me like I was the crazy one when I said I didn’t want to have our son at the hospital, but wanted an at-home water birth. It’s supposed to help with pain management, and I didn’t want to have an epidural anyway. This is the best way, and it’s my body. I’m the one who gets the ultimate choice, but Oliver didn’t argue about the home birth. He said as long as the semen demon is healthy and I don’t lose too much blood, he can’t complain.
I really wish he would use the baby's name instead of his long list of vulgar nicknames. Hell, this is his son, and he behaves half the time like the baby I’m days away from giving birth to isn’t his, except the few times he kisses my stomach and orders Rian to behave before Ollie went to work. That always hits me right in my heart. Who knew the town psychopath had a sweet side? Well, I have since I found out I was expecting, but it had nothing to do with my actual pregnancy.
Judy actually laughed when I put on this damn mask, but that was before I told her about my allergy and what happened the last time I was exposed to bleach fumes. After that, she told me to wait outside. She set up an air purifier to get rid of the fumes as she worked on cleaning the birthing tub.
I press my hand against my stomach as my son kicks my damn bladder for the third time in the last ten minutes. Every day, he picks a different body part to damage. Yesterday it was my fucking spine.
This kid is a pain in the ass, and he isn’t even here yet.
“Would you calm down already?” I grumble.
“He’s not going to listen.” Judy walks around my beach ball body and sits in front of me. She strips off her long-sleeve t-shirt and sweatpants before throwing them into the yard, leaving her in the tank top and shorts she wore under them.
“Thanks for cleaning that. I know it needed to be cleaned, but with my allergy–”
“Don’t even mention it. It’s no problem, and–hello–I’m not about to let my best friend, who has a deadly allergy and is almost full-term, clean it herself. It needed to be done, and I can’t imagine Oliver Doyle scrubbing a kiddie pool.” She snickers from the hilarity of the image.
“He actually does most of the cleaning. He barely lets me do anything around the house,” I admit, and the look on her face is priceless.
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“I mean, Oliver doesn’t come across as domesticated.”
“You talk about him like he’s a wild animal.” I would be pissed about that if I didn’t know that it's kind of true. The man is a beast and not just between the sheets. I witnessed first-hand what happens when he loses himself in the madness. It’s scary, but simply because it shows how truly damaged my Ollie is. We both are and maybe that’s why we work so well.
It’s the same logic that dictates my feelings for Martin. I fell for the abused child deep inside him before I fell for the rest of him. We understood each other just like Ollie and I understand the loose cannon that resides inside our twisted brains.
She gives me an all-knowing glance before she huffs. “That’s the vibe he gives off. There’s a reason he’s the town psychopath back in Grove Hill. I’m not even sure if that man can feel anything besides rage except when you make him laugh.”
The sad part is that’s what everyone sees in him because they don’t see the man I do. He doesn’t let many people in. Even his friends don’t really know him. They don’t see how absolutely feral he goes over strawberry cheesecake, how he dances like a complete idiot when a Whitney Houston song comes on the radio, or the spot-on hilarious impersonations he does of our friends back home.
No, I’m the only one who gets to see that, and I’m glad that I have access to something no one else does, but it hurts that he’s so emotionally isolated.
“Why is he here? I get that he’s got a thing for you and all, but his entire life is back in Grove Hill. It makes no sense that he–”
“Ollie is Rian’s father,” I announce, a bit irritated with her line of questioning. I never told her about the paternity test results, only that it was done. She never asked about the results, either. I figured since I hadn’t told Nigel, and she knew that it was clear that my son belonged to Ollie.However, Martin was also a part of the equation and she knew that.
“He–what?” Her eyes widen, and her jaw drops.
“Our baby,” I say, rubbing my hand across my swollen stomach.
“Wow.” She gasps before her eyes fall to my stomach. “Really?”
“You knew it was a possibility.”
“I know. It’s just…” she trails off with uncertainty on her face. “It’s weird, okay? He’s Oliver. It’s weird that he, of all people, is going to be a father.”
I can understand where she’s coming from. I was shocked when I found out he was Rian’s father. I was so certain that it had to be Nigel who got me pregnant, but I got the paternity test to be sure. Turns out, I was completely wrong in my assumption, but Oliver has shown me that he will be a good dad. I could see it in his eyes when I thought I miscarried. He was distraught even though he tried to hide it. He may call Rian every derogatory term for a baby, but Oliver loves our son. That’s the most important thing.
“He’s going to be a good father, okay? You don’t get to see the real Oliver Doyle. No one does except Martin and me. He isn’t just the town psychopath. He’s funny and kind and understanding and so fucking sweet. Before he leaves for work every day, he kisses my stomach and tells our son to behave.” If there was a chance that his bedroom skills would persuade her to think differently of him, I would tell her how much of a beast he is in bed.
Judy’s eyes widen, and she looks emotional. “You’re in love with him,” she states as a certainty.
“Yeah, I am. I thought that was obvious by now. You’ve seen us kiss and be affectionate with each other since we came here.”
She huffs. “That doesn’t necessarily equal love. You and Ollie were having sex when you and Nigel were together.”
That seems like a lifetime ago. Considering the amount of time since I first met Nigel and Ollie versus how long I’ve been pregnant, it was half of my life. Well, almost.
The way Judy watches me is like a child hearing their parent’s love story for the first time on a snowy Christmas morning. I doubt mine and Ollie’s kids would ever have that experience. It is probably pure disgust and maybe a dash of morbid curiosity.
“Nigel knew about my feelings for Oliver. He asked me about them, completely straightforward, and when I told him the truth–that I was falling for his best friend–he looked like I stabbed him right in the penis and the absolute tantrum he threw was ridiculous. Martin and Ollie’s reaction to knowing I was in love with both of them was completely different. They were understanding and didn’t care if they had to share me. That shows their maturity.”
My gaze drifts to the trimmed lawn and manicured bushes in front of us. When I arrived here, this place was so desolate that I wasn’t even sure someone lived here, but Ollie and I have worked together to keep up with the lawn around the cabins and leading out to the driveway as a bare minimum. Vera hasn't said it, but I’m sure she’s grateful for the help. She is unable to do very much outside of cooking and cleaning since she broke her hip last year and her ankle the year before that.
Even with those things, she has lived a thousand lives. She’s told me so many stories of her travels before and after her marriage to Vlad, the terrible late husband.
She even told me the tale of him and his untimely demise. He put her through hell. Beat her, raped her, degraded her, and nearly killed her on several occasions until she had enough. She killed him before he could finish the job. She even detailed to me and Ollie how she did it while we hung out in her living room, cuddled under a blanket near the fire on one of the colder nights.
“As soon as Vlad fell asleep, I went out to the shed and grabbed the sledgehammer before I made my way back to the house where my son slept peacefully in his room. I felt guilty knowing what I was about to do, but my son knew how horrible his father was. Vlad never hid his true nature within our home, only when someone outside of me or my son was present. Appearances were everything to him.
“I walked straight to our room, closed the door, turned on the television set to cancel out the noise, and used all my strength to swing my weapon. I started on his feet. It landed as intended, and I still remember the sound of his bones breaking and the way he screamed, being woken up in such a vicious way. He screamed profanities at me, clawed at my nightgown, and punched me right in the stomach, even though I was six months pregnant with our second child. It hurt so bad, but I knew if I didn’t finish the job, I’d be dead anyway.
“Even as he grabbed at me, I slammed the hammer down on the knee on his other leg. He was immobile. He and I both knew it, and he was completely at my mercy. The look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. The narcissist knew he was going to die, and nothing he did would change that.
“I made my way up his body. I moved from his knees to his pelvis, his ribs, his hands, his wrists…His elbows and his shoulder before I finally reached my true target, marking the end of his torture–his lying, manipulative, heartless face. So much rage ran through my body that I screamed like a banshee as I brought the sledgehammer down on his face again and again. I lost myself in a cloud of blood, death, and destruction, running through that maze in my head of every single thing he put me through. When I was able to bring myself back to the land of the living, Vlad lacked his entire head. Somehow, within the chaos, I had also taken the hammer to his genitals. My job wasn’t over, but at least my tormentor was dead, and my son and I could live in peace without him.”
Vera lost her unborn child, a little girl she named Natalya. She was absolutely devastated, but she knew it was a risk she had to take. If she had died, her son would’ve been left to be raised by Vlad, and that’s a fate worse than death, her words.
Vera never remarried. Her mistrust of men ran too deep after what her husband did to her. That’s completely understandable and tragic. She barely trusted her son, so I knew it was a huge deal that she let Oliver hear her story. I appreciated it, and so did Ollie. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that her hatred for Ollie directly stems from Vlad. It makes sense. Vera’s dead husband sounds like a psychotic prick, but Ollie would never put me through what Vlad did to her. Vera Gusev is by far the strongest woman I have ever met, even if she is oddly particular. I don’t think I’d survive what she has, yet I know I will be living something similar really soon.
“Beth? You zoned out for a minute,” Judy says cautiously.
“Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about Vera and what Vlad did to her. She is truly an inspiration. Her strength is something to admire.”
“Yeah, she is. Can you believe she’s the black sheep of the family? And all because she refused to remarry after he died,” Judy scoffs.
Yeah, he died . No one knows that it was Vera instead of a disappearance during a hunting excursion. Only me and Ollie.
“Yeah.”
Judy diverts the subject back to a previous topic with practically no segway, like always. “Are you happy though…with Oliver?”
I smirk from her question as I lean my head against the railing of the steps. “So deliriously happy. I could be happy spending the rest of my life with Oliver Doyle.”
“Is it safe to say that you’re completely over Nigel, then?” she asks, her voice hesitant.
Her words steal my breath as I stare up into the trees. I can be inexplicably happy with Oliver and still love Nigel. I’m happy, but Nigel is a part of my past.
“No, of course not. I think I’ll always love Nigel, but that doesn’t change how great things are between me and Oliver. He’s perfect. Batshit crazy, but he’s perfect for me. Nigel and I were so toxic together. I don’t see a way either of us could ever go back there.” I shrug, knowing I sound absolutely insane.
She’s been acting so strange today, and I don’t know what to make of it. Why was she asking about Nigel?
Suddenly, my phone rings, and I lift it up before seeing my psychopath’s name flashing across the screen. Pressing the green button, I put it to my ear with a big smile across my face.
“Hey, crazy man. Are you headed home already? Your shift isn’t supposed to be over for another three hours.”
Oliver got a job in town to help pay our way out here, and obviously, he wasn’t going to let me get a job. I told him it was quite sexist for him to go out and get a job while I stayed in our cabin, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. It wasn’t sexist and we both know it. He’s looking out for our baby, and if Nolan finds out about me getting a job in Montana, the jig will be up. I bet he has an alert set up for my social security number or some shit. I bet he didn’t think to keep Oliver under watch or has even noticed his absence.
“Baby,” Ollie starts, sounding completely out of breath and panicked. I’m immediately on high alert. “Whatever you do, don’t go on social media or talk to anyone from Grove Hill. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”