40. Chapter 40
Chapter 40
Ashley stared at him, her face losing color. “What?”
“You heard me. We’re done.”
“Done? You can’t be serious!”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“You can’t do this, baby. Please, we’re so good together—”
“We’re good together in bed,” he clarified. “And that’s not enough, not when everything else is shit.”
“But we’ve been together four-and-a-half years—”
“I know. And what a waste of time that’s been.”
“It hasn’t been a waste of time!”
“With the exception of Jacob, yes it has. But the rest of it? None of that was real.”
“Of course it was real,” she protested, looking like she was on the verge of tears. “How can you even say that?”
“Your definition of ‘real’ is obviously much different than mine, then. Because mine involves honesty and trust.”
“I know I wasn’t honest, and you don’t trust me right now, but I will earn back your trust. I just need a second chance.”
“You’ve already had a second chance. You could’ve come clean about the emails after I confronted you about my phone. That would’ve showed some integrity, and it might’ve made a difference. But you didn’t say anything, so … we’re done.”
Her face crumpled a little and her eyes took on a sheen of pending tears. She blinked rapidly a few times, as if to keep them at bay, but she lost the fight and began crying in earnest, almost surprising him. “You’re really going to throw away four-and-a-half years?”
“Yes, I really am,” he said, barely moved by her waterworks. “The minute I found out you dicked with my phone, we were on life support and the minute I found out you dicked with my emails, the plug was pulled. We can’t come back from this.”
“No, I don’t believe that.” She wiped at her eyes. “I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness, I swear it.”
He regarded her for a long moment, as if giving her pledge serious consideration. “Does ‘whatever it takes’ include earning Paige’s forgiveness?”
Her red, slightly puffy eyes widened almost comically as she registered what he’d said, making it clear that course of action had never occurred to her. It was almost funny, except it wasn’t.
“I wasn’t the only one you fucked over, you know,” he said, aggravated that he had to point out the obvious. “What you did to her was egregious and unlike when you blocked her, this email bullshit was active and ongoing. You might not see what you did as a gross violation, but I can assure you that I do and Paige does. And she deserves the mother of all apologies.”
Seemingly verbally paralyzed, Ashley just looked at him. David looked back, seeing the physically beautiful woman that she was … and feeling absolutely nothing. He didn’t know if she’d been motivated to do what she’d done because she was young (she’d been twenty-three years old when they’d gotten together) but it definitely showed a lack of a moral compass and whatever they’d had together was completely destroyed.
But, as disgusted as he was with her, he was also grateful that it had all come to a head now, and not several years down the road.
“I’ll be gone by the end of the day tomorrow,” he told her.
Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, like a fish gasping for air. “Tomorrow? Are you kidding?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“You can’t pack everything in one day!”
“I know. That’s why Dick’s coming to help. He’ll be here in the morning, around seven, so you probably won’t be able to sleep in—”
“You cocksucker,” she hissed at him. “You told him you were leaving me before you told me?”
“Don’t call me a cocksucker.” His voice was low and deadly. “And no, I didn’t tell him I was leaving you. I texted him and asked him to help me pack my shit tomorrow. That’s it. He’s probably figured out that I’m leaving you on his own, though.”
She saw the animosity he wasn’t even trying to hide and attempted to backtrack. “I’m sorry I called you a cocksucker,” she quickly apologized. “I’m just so upset right now.”
“As am I. But I’m not calling you something shitty, am I?”
He wanted to, though. God, did he want to.
He cleared his throat, ready to keep moving. “Let’s talk about Jacob. And custody.”
“What’s there to talk about?” she asked with a sniffle, wiping at her nose with her fingers. “I assume I’ll have sole custody.”
He raised his eyebrows at that bold claim. Was she on crack? “Why would you assume that?”
“Because I’m his mother.”
“And?”
“And mothers usually get sole custody.”
“So, that’s what you want? Sole custody?”
Ashley nodded. “But don’t worry,” she told him, her voice taking on an unpleasant pitch. “I know how much you like spending time with Jacob, so I’ll let you see him on the weekends.”
David tilted his head. He knew her not-so-thinly-veiled threat had more to do with wanting to screw him over than it had to do with her actually wanting Jacob; not to mention, she was a little confused about the definition of ‘sole custody’. “Do you know what sole custody is?”
“It’s where the child lives with one parent most of the time and sees the other parent on the weekends.”
“Wrong. Sole custody is where the child lives with one parent all the time, and the other parent doesn’t have any visitation rights at all, nor are they involved in making any decisions for the child,” he informed her. “What you’re talking about is full custody, with supervised daytime visits allowed. Not that it really matters, though, since you’re not going to get either one of those.”
“Who says I’m not? You?”
It was his turn to nod. “And the law.”
“The law?”
“That’s right. Under the law, you and I have equal parental rights, which means joint custody. That’s where—”
“I know what joint custody is, thank you,” Ashley snapped. “And you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In regard to what?”
“Equal parental rights. We never got married, remember?”
“Of course I remember. I was there when we didn’t get married.”
Her lips thinned in anger at his insult, and its bland delivery. “So, that means we don’t have equal parental rights, which means we’re not talking about joint custody.”
Her inner bitch really could turn on a dime, he mused. And her inner bitch was in for a rude awakening.
“Apparently you’ve never done any research on parental rights,” he said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. “But I have. I started researching my parental rights about thirty minutes after you told me you were pregnant. I have equal rights to my son, with or without marriage to you. And you know why? Because I’m listed as Jacob’s father on his birth certificate and he legally has my last name. I also established paternity with a DNA test right after Jacob was born. You didn’t know that? Well, now you do. So, you see, Ash, that does mean we’re talking joint custody. So next time you try and fire a round, make sure your gun is locked and loaded with something other than bullshit in it.”
Ashley narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine. Let’s talk joint custody.”
“Normally, that means equal time, equal responsibility, and equal decision making, but in this case—”
“It will mean the same thing.”
He gave her a long look. “You sure about that?”
She stared back. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I’d like you to take a minute and think about what having joint custody would mean for you, and not just in the context of dicking me over, okay? The satisfaction you’ll get at hurting me won’t outweigh the inconvenience you’ll experience with joint custody. Because for you, it will be an inconvenience.
“Right now, you think it’s easy taking care of him, because I’m doing all the heavy lifting. I watch him. I bathe him. I feed him. I take him to the park. I take him to preschool. I pick him up from preschool. I watch movies with him. I take him to see the doctor. I take him to the dentist. I put him to bed. I read him bedtime stories. Do you even know what his favorite book is?”
Ashley blinked at him, obviously surprised at the question and didn’t answer.
“What’s his favorite cartoon? His favorite movie? His favorite food? His favorite stuffed animal? His favorite color? Don’t know those, either?” David gave her a flat look and continued. “I do. I know everything about him. I do everything for him. And I pay for everything.”
He leaned back in his chair. “So, if you have joint custody, you’ll have to take over half of everything—and I mean everything. You’ll be completely responsible for him half the time, which means you’ll have to start taking him to preschool, picking him up afterward, feeding him, and bathing him. You’ll have to go grocery shopping with him. You’ll have to schedule your nail appointments around him. If he gets sick when he’s with you, or needs to go to the doctor, you’ll have to take him.” He held up a hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you the name and address of his pediatrician,” he said, not caring if he sounded like a dick; she was the one who’d rung the bell for this fight and he wasn’t going to pull any punches.
“You’ll be watching him by yourself and those times when you get a babysitter for him so you can go out with your friends, will be on your dime, not mine, like it is now. And you probably don’t know this, but babysitters make pretty good bank. I pay Casey $15 dollars an hour, so a night out with your friends will probably run you $60 dollars, not counting what you’ll spend at the bar—”
“What? No. I’ll find a cheaper babysitter.”
“No, you won’t. It’s Casey, or no one. Jacob likes her and I trust her with him.”
They had a bit of a stare-off.
“Are you getting this?” David asked, breaking the silence. “Is that really what you want? Is all that worth it to try and screw me over? Because you’ll actually be screwing yourself over more than you’ll be screwing me over. I guarantee it.”
As Ashley absorbed his words, it was obvious joint custody and all its responsibilities were unappealing to her and he pushed forward. “Let me have full custody.”
He could see her thinking about it, but then saw the moment when she decided against it.
“No. Only getting to see Jacob during supervised daytime visits on the weekends isn’t enough. I need more time with him than that, and I want all visits to be overnight, too.”
Her expression was such that he couldn’t tell if she was being sincere, or if she was simply trying to keep him from from getting everything he wanted, but in the end, he had no option but to negotiate with her. “Fine. How about a modified arrangement, somewhere between joint and full custody? You can have him two full weekends a month and alternate Wednesdays. How does that sound?”
“Every Wednesday,” she countered.
He figured that was thrown in just to mess with him, but he agreed.
“What about child support?” Ashley then asked.
“What about it?”
“I think a thousand dollars a month would be fair.”
She had to be on crack. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not sure where you came up with that figure, but it seems a little high to me.”
“You can afford it, David. You make way more money than I do, which means you have to pay me a percentage of what you make, to supplement what’s lacking in my income. You know, to help me support our son?”
She really was some fucking piece of work. “Thanks, but I do understand the concept of child support and how it works. I’m not sure you do, though, so let me enlighten you. While it’s usually paid by the parent who earns the most—which is me in this case—it’s also usually paid to the parent who will incur the greatest expense by having the child the majority of the time—which is also me. Therefore, it makes no sense that I’ll have Jacob most of the time, incur the most expenses, and then pay you a thousand dollars a month for the short time that you’ll have him.”
He gave her a long look. “Now, before you start accusing me of trying to screw you over, let me just say that all of Jacob’s expenses that I’ve been paying, which includes his medical, dental, preschool, and clothing, will continue to be paid by me. And that shit’s not cheap,” he added. “So, because of that, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for you to cover the cost of his food on the eight days a month that he stays with you.”
When Ashley looked like she was actually going to argue with him about that, he growled in disgust, unable to believe he’d spent four-and-a-half years with her. It literally pained him that she’d been the one to give him a child—the child that she was reluctant to spend even a minimal amount of money on food for. “For fuck’s sake, Ash.”
“Fine,” she said.
She sounded so put out at having to take a little financial responsibility for her child, that if it wouldn’t have been a waste of perfectly good bourbon, David would’ve thrown the remaining contents of his glass in her face. Caught up in thinking how good it would feel, he almost missed what she said next.
“I assume we’ll be splitting all assets?”
He didn’t think it was possible, but he hated her even more than he had a few minutes ago.
“Actually, there isn’t anything to split,” he told her.
“What? Yes, there is.”
“We’re not married and our ‘assets’ aren’t legally bound together, so they don’t need to be split. My car’s in my name and yours is in your name, so I can drive off in mine and you can drive off in yours. We have separate checking and savings accounts, so whatever’s in mine belongs to me and whatever’s in yours belongs to you. Same with credit card debt—” he broke off at the look of near-murderous rage on Ashley’s face.
“I can see this pisses you off, but I don’t give a shit,” he said. “I’ve been paying for everything you eat and drink since we moved in together. I pay for the roof over your head, the gas in your car, the clothes on your back—hell, I even pay for your fake nails. I also pay your credit card bill, so I’m paying for shit I don’t even know about, but that ends today.
“Whatever future debt you rack up will be yours to pay, from here on out, so you might want to take that into consideration the next time you fall in love with a pair of shoes.”
“Fuck you,” she spit out.
Ignoring her words and hate-filled expression, David forged ahead. “I’ll cover the rent and all the utilities here for another month, which will give you time to find a new place,” he told her. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she could pay the rent on their house going forward, nor would maintaining one be something she’d be willing, or able, to do. “You can take any furniture you want, including Jacob’s bedroom set, so you don’t have to buy anything. You can also have anything from the kitchen—pots, pans, plates, whatever.
“I’ll be moving into the loft above the studio, and Jacob will stay with me until you find a new place. His visits can start after you get settled.”
He waited for her to acknowledge all that, before continuing. “One last thing. You’ll also have to find a new job, because as of today, you’re not working with me anymore.”
She looked like she wanted to throw a chair at him. “I have to find a new place and a new job? Thanks, asshole.”
“Did you really think we were going to keep working together after everything that’s happened?”
She gave him a dirty look and then said, “I hadn’t gotten that far, to be honest. I did just get told that I have to find a new place to live, after all.”
She sounded like a petulant child and he’d never wanted to get away from anyone so badly in his life. “I think Dick’s brother, Everett, is still a licensed lawyer, so I’ll see if he can draw up our modified custody agreement. And just so you know, part of the agreement is going to be that you can’t have a babysitter watch Jacob when he stays with you. The entire conversation we had about babysitters only applied to true joint custody, when you’d have Jacob half the time. It won’t apply with you only having him eight days a month. You said you needed more time with him and I expect you to spend that time with him. If I find out you’re not, we’re going to have a problem. That being said, if something legitimately comes up that interferes with his visit, then I’ll watch him. Understand? He doesn’t get watched by a babysitter when he’s staying with you.”
Curtly, she nodded.
“Then I guess we’re done here,” David said, getting to his feet. He went to grab a beer and a glass, then, because he was suddenly feeling rather hungry, the pizza box. Hands full, he left the kitchen without a backward glance.
He had a long night ahead of him. And he was actually looking forward to it.