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I scoffed. “You’re full of shit.”
“I’m not full of shit!” she countered. “Your mother has superpowers!”
I sighed.
“When did she find out?” I asked. “And what all did you tell them?”
Aurora looked sheepish for a moment before she said, “A week ago… and everything?”
“Everything,” I said quietly. “You mean, everything everything?”
“She knows that you one-night-standed him. She knows that you left because you’re a nut. She knows that you got pregnant. She knows that the book you sent her last night is all about him. She also knows that you love him.” She paused and looked to Sammy, who was busy talking to my father. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t control myself.”
I sighed.
“And you learned about Patman?” I asked, sounding resigned.
“Yes.” She scrunched up her nose. “It certainly explains his assholeness to you weeks ago.”
I agreed.
It certainly explained a lot of things.
“Daddy loves Sammy,” she whispered to me. “He’s so fucking happy that your boyfriend hit him that he wants to adopt him.”
I made a face.
“That would be weird since I plan on marrying him,” I pointed out.
She turned to me sharply. “He asked you to marry him?”
I grinned. “No. But if he ever did, I’d most certainly say yes.”
And I would.
Even if he asked me right now.
It didn’t matter that we’d only known each other for a short amount of time.
I wanted him. Forever if he’d have me.
She poked me in the shoulder and hooked her arm around mine.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. You’re going to love hearing about Patman. He’s a dick.”
Turns out, she was right.
Fifteen minutes later, my mom, dad, Aurora, Sammy and I sat around the table as my parents told us about Patman and his wife.
And Aurora was right.
The more that I knew, the more that I hated him.
“So you two dated in high school,” I said. “But Patman wanted you,” I directed my eyes to my mother, then moved to my father. “And Taryn wanted you.”
Dad nodded.
“So they started dating each other to make you jealous,” I continued.
Dad snorted. “Yep.”
“But it didn’t work,” Aurora pointed out. “And when Mom and Dad got married when they both turned eighteen and were still in high school, it really, really pissed the two of them off. So they decided to marry each other.”
I couldn’t even fathom that.
“That’s insane,” I found myself saying. “What would be the point in that?”
“Again, they thought we cared about them.” Dad shrugged. “It worked out for the best. We moved away for two years. Went to college in Louisiana as you know. Came back to Kilgore, but kept to ourselves. But then we had y’all. The first time we ran into them again was when their son was in your grade.” He gestured at me. “And you would’ve thought that the kid was God or something. They did not want you near this kid. And now that I know what a fuckin’ creep he was, I’m kind of glad they went to such measures every year to make sure that you weren’t near him. Then he was moved up a grade and put into Aurora’s class.”
My mother chuckled at that.
“They thought that they were being so cool, helping him learn all the shit with his private tutors. That poor kid.” My mother shook her head. “That’s when she started accusing us of being whores every freakin’ day. Apparently she had no clue about Aurora. And we’d miraculously produced her out of thin air just to make their lives hell.”
“The Patmans sound like real gems,” Sammy mused.
My dad looked at him.
“I’ve never wanted to kill someone more in my life. I’ve had to endure years and years of them. He’s also the reason I moved over to Longview PD. My dad was on KPD. My dad’s dad. But there was no fucking way I was going to join KPD knowing that man was on the force.” He shook his head. “When I heard that you punched him in front of the entire police station? I didn’t even care that you knocked my daughter up.”
I choked on the water that I was currently taking a sip of.
“I’ve wanted to do that for years. But giving that man an inch is like giving him a mile. He would’ve claimed that I broke his back. Then to make my life hell, he would’ve done it himself just to dig my hole deeper.” Dad shook his head. “That man is a fucking lunatic. And his wife isn’t much better.”
“I heard you were best friends in high school,” Aurora said, gesturing toward my mother.
“We were.” Mom shook her head. “That’s what’s so weird. We were best friends. Inseparable. It’s like neither one of them could believe that we wanted each other, though. What’s worse, they were the ones to set us up.”
“That’s really weird,” I finally admitted. “But I’ll try really hard to stay away from them. I honestly never intended for all of that in the supermarket to happen.”
