Off the Cuff - K.I. Lynn Page 0,1
was staying.
“I don’t give a crap. It’s not our problem! Let someone else deal with it.”
I lifted my chin and shook my head. “She’s family. I’m not going to give her to strangers.”
His gaze narrowed. “It’s not staying.”
“Pete, please,” I said in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the full-blown explosion it was about to become.
Over the years we’d had it out only a few times, but as we went back and forth now, I noticed how this was the most worked up either of us had become in months.
He shook his head. “No, Roe.”
“We can’t even talk about it?” I asked.
“What is there to talk about? I don’t want a kid right now, especially not your crackhead sister’s!”
“What are you saying?” I asked. The crack forming in my heart knew the answer.
Surely the man I’d lived with since college, the first man I’d ever loved, wasn’t about to make me decide, make me choose between him and a completely helpless little girl.
“What I’m saying is that it’s that thing or me.”
And there it was—the ultimatum. The one I knew was coming. Somehow I’d still convinced myself that Pete wasn’t going to disappoint me. I needed clarification.
“You’re asking me to abandon my two-week-old niece?”
He crossed his arms in front of me and sneered at the baby. “I’m telling you that if you don’t give it back, I’m out.”
I couldn’t believe it. My stomach dropped as I looked at him. Really looked at him. His brown hair was an unkempt as always, brown eyes narrowed, and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up, exposing a string of tattoos. To me he was tall, but he was more than a couple inches shorter than six feet. However, in this stance he seemed larger and more imposing.
Trust didn’t come naturally to me. I had reasons, shaped from my life experiences, and I often held a part of myself back. I had one foot out the door at all times. And yet, after years with Pete, I’d silently given him the benefit of the doubt. Believed that our relationship was solid in ways I hadn’t before.
A large part of me, deep down, knew the minute the social worker explained my options that somehow this exact situation was coming. Pete’s response further hardened my heart.
Internally, I could almost feel our connection severing and the one with the baby in my arms growing stronger. I wasn’t letting her go. Not for him or anyone.
“You can’t mean that,” I said.
“I’m dead serious, Roe. I don’t want your sister’s problem. She’s caused us enough issues over the years, or do you not remember giving her our fucking rent money for rehab, only for her to leave three days later?” He leaned in, his eyes slits. “Besides, you’re just not worth all of this.”
There it was, the real reason he wasn’t okay helping me to care for my sister’s child. The words were a punch to the gut, then a deep scrape in my chest as they burned into my heart.
My shoulders dropped, and I unknowingly curled tighter around the innocent child I held.
“Excuse me, what? I’m not worth it?” I asked, seething. I was always the good little girlfriend. Went along with just about anything he wanted to do. That was partially due to my desire to be wanted and also because I was normally a pretty easygoing person.
Most of the time.
But he’d just pushed me past acquiescing.
My whole body shook, but when I spoke, it was with a vicious-edged calm. “So if I told you I was pregnant, what then? Would you tell me to get rid of it?”
“That’s different, and you fucking know it,” he growled.
“Then, if I took her back, I could go off birth control and we could have a baby?” I asked, forcing him to answer honestly.
He froze, his jaw twitching. “I’m not ready for that.”
“And I’m not ready for this,” I hissed. “But guess what? Life doesn’t always make you ready for things.”
“I love you, baby, but this—” he waved his hand at the baby in my arms “—isn’t happening. Not with me. I’m not staying.”
A harsh laugh left me. “You fucking selfish bastard. You love me?” I scoffed and rolled my eyes. We were finally at the pinnacle of what had been building under the surface for a long time. “I’m sure you haven’t even kept it in your pants the last four months.”
We hadn’t had sex in longer than that, which made me wonder—if he wasn’t