Slut - Woodruff Jettie - Страница 45

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Paxton didn’t say another word. The veins in his neck didn’t pop out like they normally did, but I did see his fingers twitching. I wasn’t scared though. I’d felt them around my throat enough to know it was only a threat. He wouldn’t hurt me. He didn’t even speak. He grumbled some sort of incoherent language under his breath and walked away.

“Hey,” I called after him.

Paxton turned to me without a word. I think that was one of those times where the rule about not saying anything if you didn’t have anything nice to say was applied.

“I didn’t sit on your face last night.”

“You do listen,” he admitted, winked at me, and walked away.

I scratched my head, staring after him, and then groaned. My first stop had to be coffee. Just looking at the mess Paxton made gave me anxiety.

The first part of my morning was spent in Paxton’s room. Our room. I moved his things from both walk-ins to one. What else was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like any of it was mine if we quit anyway. Paxton wouldn’t give me a pair of shoes, let alone an entire wardrobe.

Sliding the last box from the shelf of my new closet, I dropped it when Paxton spoke.

“Wow, just move right on in,” he teased in playful voice, Rowan and Phi right behind him.

I started to scold him for scaring the hell out of me when I knelt to pick up the box, but stopped, frozen in my tracks. I shifted my gaze back to his somber face and to the girls. Both of them held onto the middle bar in the closet and did backflips.

“You went after it?” I questioned while sliding the golden envelope from the box. I knew it was the one from the cottage without a doubt.

“I didn’t open it yet,” he assured me.

“What is it?” Phi wanted to know.

I turned to them and frowned, pulling their dirty little hands from the empty bar. “What are you doing? Stop that. You’re filthy. Look at the handprints all over the wall. Go wash-up.”

“What is it though, Mom?” Phi questioned again.

I swatted her butt and told her it was adult stuff, and she walked away, following Rowan out with her dislike of adult stuff.

“When did you get this, Pax?”

“The same day you told me about it.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I swear I didn’t look. I had all intentions of it, but I stopped myself. We’ll look together.”

“Now?”

“No, I have to get through this thing with Van first. You hid it there, not me.”

“What does that mean? You’re afraid if you look now, you’ll stop. You won’t want Vander?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“You’re afraid you won’t want me?”

“Gabriella, this is a lot of shit. You’re not the only victim here.”

“Now I’m a victim?” I questioned while calling him out on his own words. He’d just insisted that I stop playing the victim the night before.

“Give it to me. I’ll put it in the office until we’re ready for that.”

I stood with the copper colored envelope, crisp and new. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there long. “I want to see what’s in it.”

Paxton crossed his arms and leaned into the doorjamb. “I’m not going to tell you no, if that’s what you’re waiting on, Gabriella.”

My eyes shifted from his back to the hidden secret as a soft sigh echoed throughout the empty closest. Our eyes locked when I stepped toward him and shoved it into his chest. “You have no idea how hard this is. I know all the things I am learning are the truth, but I can’t remember them. I hid that there. I know I did, but I have no clue what’s in it. With the way things are, it could be anything.”

Paxton held my hand over his chest and spoke in a calm collective tone. “That’s why we’re not going to open another can right now. We have enough open. Vander. That’s it today. Getting ready for him. That’s all we’re focusing on. Let’s take the girls out for pizza and tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“About Van. Let’s tell them why Daddy demolished your room today.”

“No, let’s not. What if it doesn’t happen, Pax? What if you’re doing all of this for nothing? They don’t just hand kids over to people they don’t know. I’m sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“It’s going to happen, Gabriella. Stop looking for things to fight against. There is absolutely no reason why they wouldn’t take a little boy out of the system to be with his family. You’re looking for problems.”

“I’m afraid to believe that, Paxton.”

“Believe it, baby. He’s going to be living here sooner rather than later.”

“How soon?”

Paxton shrugged both his shoulders and kissed my nose. “We’ll find out Monday. Come on. I want your opinion on the window seat.”

“Since when do you want my opinion?”

“Since I’m trying to make you happy.”

I smiled a little on that note. It was kind of hard not to. He was sort of cute in an asshole kind of way. “You hear all that laughter and water going on in your bathroom? That’s your mess.”

“Okay, I’ll go grab my two little messes and you clean up their mess. Love that idea. Come see what I’ve done.”

I stood on the tips of my toes, bringing my lips closer to his. “You’re a sneaky bastard, you know that? Very manipulative.”

“My specialty,” Paxton admitted with a grin. His tongue traced my bottom lip and slipped inside, once again, causing that sparkly feeling, right in the middle of my chest.

I kissed him back, leaning into his chest, expecting his body to hold me. It did, and I was hooked—again. I bit into his poisonous bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.

Giggling little girls separated our lips, and I pulled away, keeping my lips on his. “Stupid little fish.”

Paxton looked down at me with an instant frown when I stepped around him. “What? Why am I a stupid little fish? I don’t get it.”

I ushered the girls out of our bedroom, smiling at him over my shoulder. “I’m the stupid little fish.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Forget it, Pax.”

“I have a fish. I got it from the animal bus,” Ophelia reminded us. That look over my shoulder was meant to be nasty. I missed that because I went to jail.

All in all the day turned out to be pretty okay. Other than Paxton’s quick window demolition, things went pretty smooth. The place he had used for the past five years didn’t have the window he wanted in the size that he wanted in stock. It wouldn’t be there until Tuesday. It wasn’t really a big deal though. At least the state people could see it was in the process. He just had to nail plywood in its place, and to my surprise, he wasn’t even a jerk about it. He was happy and playful the entire night.

Even after we had finished for the day, cleaned up, and were on our way to dinner, Paxton was playful, happy and in a good mood. He made it hard to be anything but that with him.

“I think we should get mommy a mini-Van,” he joked.

I frowned toward him, laughing at the hidden joke, and the girls, agreeing with the minivan.

“I’m not driving a minivan,” I assured him with warm fuzzy feeling. I was sort of in love with the moment, yet cautious. Trusting Paxton was hard for me. The man who drove his family out for pizza wasn’t the same man I’d left the hospital with. But…he was still there, and I knew this.

“I like to have a blue one, Mom. Hey, look, there’s a horse in there,” Ophelia called when we passed a truck pulling a trailer with a black horse, and just like that, the minivan was forgotten. Crazy kid.

Of course Rowan couldn’t just let it go with that. “That’s not a horse, it’s a pony, right, Dad?”

“It was a horse.”

“No it wasn’t. Horses are bigger.”

“Nuh-uh, Rowan. It just didn’t grow all the way up yet. It’s little like you.”

“I’m older than you.”

“But you’re not bigger.”

Paxton and I exchanged a glance right before he stopped the silly argument.

“Let’s go eat chicken,” he said through the rearview mirror.

I laughed when they simultaneously, yelled no.

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