Slut - Woodruff Jettie - Страница 54

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Jonnie stopped on the bottom step and turned to us. “I love the way you two are so in love. That’s important in a family.”

I smiled and leaned into Paxton. “Yeah, that’s fake. I don’t really like him that much,” I teased.

Jonnie snickered. “Sure, was that mud for us, or did your husband hug you when he came rushing in late?”

I looked down my cream colored blouse to the streak of mud down my left side and smiled. “Something like that.” He hugged me because I was freaking out. He also didn’t tell me about my muddy shirt for two hours. Idiot.

Fourteen

Paxton took us all out again that night, ice cream and putt-putt golf, too. I’m pretty sure it was for me, to get my mind off of what came next. It worked. The girls talked nonstop about their day with Mi. She gave them both incense, telling them some story about our family stones, and burning the lavender for a sense of calm.

“I think it’s for to make our rocks be powerful more,” Ophelia decided from the backseat.

“What would you girls think about getting another stone? Make our family a little bigger?”

“Paxton,” I protested, stopping him before he promised something that may not happen.

“What? We should tell them.”

“Stop, not yet.”

“Are you going to have a baby?” Rowan asked in a squeal. “You are, aren’t you Mom? Yay, Georgina got a baby brother.”

“I don’t want a girl,” Ophelia announced while helping out her sister.

“I’m not going to have a baby. We’re not getting a baby.”

“He’s five,” Paxton said, totally overruling me. “His name is Vander.”

“Hey, I’m five,” Phi said with more excitement than needed.

“Where’s his mommy?” Rowan questioned.

I turned to Paxton and told him how I felt about him. “I hate you.”

“Talk them. Tell them what’s going on.”

I didn’t say a word at first. I only stared at Paxton, pondering what to say while he drove us home. Home from a great night that he was about to ruin.

“Remember when Mommy had her wreck?” I began.

“Yes, we missed you,” Phi said while twisting in her seat, pulling her seatbelt, in and out.

“I missed you, too, baby. Stop doing that. What if Daddy slams on his breaks? You won’t be safe. I wasn’t alone. My sister was with me, too.”

“Where is she?”

“Did she die?”

“We don’t know where she is. We haven’t found her yet, but we’re looking. Vander is her little boy, and he needs a family until we can find her.”

“Maybe she went to the mall,” Ophelia said while offering her silly opinion.

I frowned, and looked to Paxton’s smiling face. “She’s not at the mall. I don’t know where she is. Maybe she’s hurt and she doesn’t remember who she is.”

“Like you, right?” Row questioned.

“Maybe, but I bet her little boy is as cool as she was. She was my best friend.”

“They were twins. Your mom had a twin sister that looked just like her.”

“Has, I have a twin sister that looks just like me. She’s just lost, but we’re going to keep looking.”

Although it felt good to talk about her, to finally express my love for her, it was hard. I didn’t know a lot about her, a handful of things I had thought to be true, but really wasn’t sure. I didn’t remember her, and it bothered me. A lot.

That night when I laid down with my family to recharge our stones and read Ophelia’s book choice, I focused really hard on it. On having Vander right there with us, Spiderman pajamas and his own little stone stuck to ours, connected by Paxton’s larger stone.

I looked over the girls, sitting cross-legged while Rowan read the book, ‘The Day the Crayons Quit.’ Phi loved that silly little book. Paxton’s hand laid over Ophelia’s, holding her hand while she held the charging stones, bringing more power to our family. His eyes were already on mine when I looked over, feeling a lot. Too much. I wanted Vander more than I wanted anything in life, and I would have done anything to get him. I thought about where Izzy was, and how I was supposed to explain it to Vander. If I got him. How the hell do you tell a five-year-old that his mommy was lost?

I love you, Paxton mouthed with no words.

I winked at him, placing my hand in his. Phi held my finger, never taking her eyes from her big sister’s finger, following the words as she read.

As soon as Rowan said the end, Paxton was on his feet. “Night lady bugs. I’ve got to go get the trash ready.”

Ophelia wasn’t ready to sleep yet, she’s the one that started the wrestling match. Paxton tossed her over his shoulder and spanked her butt while Rowan went after him. I jumped up before they all fell to the bed on top of me.

“Phi, come on. You’re going in your bed tonight,” I said in a loud tone as I walked to the door. I hit the wall with my hand and said it again when she continued to scream, attacking her dad. I quit and walked to the kitchen where I heated water for tea, started the dishwasher, and wiped something sticky from the island.

I sat on the barstool and opened the folder left for us by the social workers, an instant smile taking over my lips as soon as I saw his little face.

Paxton slid to the stool behind me, kissing the back of my neck. “Can I buy you drink?” He teased.

I smiled and walked to the whistling pot. “No, do you want tea?”

“What the fuck is this? Are you collecting lemons?”

I looked to the vase full of lemons and back to my cup. “Mi brought them. She knew the social workers were coming. They absorb all the negative energy put off by people coming into your house.”

Paxton shook his head and shifted his attention to the paperwork. He wasn’t about to touch that one. Or maybe he was.

“She’s fucking nuts, just so you know.”

I laughed and joined him as he scanned the mountain of information the state wanted. Everything but our grocery list.

“Oh, my God. Look at this, Gabriella,” Paxton said with a straight finger on one of the pages.

We met half way and he showed me his birth certificate. “That’s Ophelia’s birthday. You had them on the exact same day, the exact same year. That’s fucking insane, like creepy insane.”

“Dad said the F word again, Mom.”

“Yeah, I heard him. What are you doing? You’re supposed to be in bed,” I said as I stepped around Paxton.

“I need a drink.”

“You have a cup in your bathroom. Move it.”

“Dad said I can sleep in Rowan’s bed.”

“He lied. Go.”

I tucked both girls into bed and went back to the kitchen with Paxton, busy filling out paperwork to get Vander.

“I’ll get this stuff faxed over before I go to bed. That way it will be there waiting on them when they get there in the morning.”

I sipped the tea Paxton finished for me and leaned in to read what the pen left on paper. “How long do you think it will be before Lyndsey and Jonnie get the home study to them?”

“I made Jonnie promise to do tomorrow when I showed her to the bathroom. She has a crack in her pool,” Paxton said with a crooked smile.

“You’re evil.”

He shrugged one shoulder and kissed my cheek. “It worked, and I am so glad you take charge like that now. We would have been playing this game for hours before.”

“Yeah, well someone has to do it. You suck at the word no.”

“I can’t help it. I love them so much. I never want them to feel anything but happy, ya know?”

“Yeah, but you’re not the one home with them all day long. They’re listening to me,” I assured him.

Both our eyes shifted to my phone, and Mi’s name.

Paxton’s eyes stayed on my phone as he asked the loaded question. “Do you want to stop?”

“Is this for me or both of us?”

“Both.”

“Do you?”

Paxton pulled me to stand between his legs, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I mean, I feel like it’s helped me a lot. I’m hearing things straight from your mouth, and I can feel how you feel by your words. It makes me feel compassion for you. I’ve never had that for you. Not really.”

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