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When I arrived, I threw the truck into park and bailed out of the truck before I’d barely gotten the damn seatbelt off.
Moments later, I was helping Chocchie pin Mackie to the ground, knowing instinctively that the little shit was responsible for the blood I could see on that white towel over Raleigh’s nose.
“Raleigh, call the cops.”
Raleigh replied with a shaky, “Already did, baby.”
***
“I swear to God, Ezra,” Raleigh said in exasperation. “It’s only a freakin’ nose bleed.”
“A nose bleed caused by a six-foot-two person punching you in the face,” I said, sounding just as angry as I felt. “Please, humor me.”
She sighed and took my hand, wincing slightly when her palm came into contact with mine.
“Hurt?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I think I might have jammed a couple of fingers. Who knew that punching someone in the face would hurt that bad?”
My temper was already stretched to its limit, so I chose not to answer or reply at all as I waited for the doctor to arrive to check Raleigh over.
Lucky for us we had a personal physician that was used to our late-night wake-up calls.
“Do you think they’ll give him bond?” Raleigh asked, leaning her head against my shoulder.
I shook my head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think he wants to go out. Honestly, I think he’s exactly where he wants to be since that’s where Jacklyn Casper is.” I paused. “In a sick sort of way, he knew exactly how to get there to be with her.”
“But they don’t put men and women prisoners together,” she pointed out.
“No,” I agreed. “But I don’t think Mackie was thinking all that clearly.”
Coach Casper had done a fine job on fucking Mackie up, that was for sure.
“Did you hear that he confessed to hitting Morgan?” she whispered. “He said he couldn’t drive his truck anymore because it was ‘fucked up from hitting that cripple.’ That it didn’t ‘drive’ right after they got it fixed so fast. He said that when I got there to pick him up.”
That was news to me.
Then again, a lot had gone on from the moment that I’d arrived.
The cops had arrived within two minutes of Raleigh calling 9-1-1, and Mackie had been spouting off a bunch of bullshit while we’d had him pinned to the ground.
A lot of which centered around me ruining his life.
Which, in some ways, I suppose I had.
At least the one he thought he had with Coach Casper.
But that relationship was fucked-up at its finest. I had zero guilt for turning her into the authorities for taking advantage of a student like that. For Mackie to be that fucked, she’d had to have done a doozy of a number on him.
“You were right,” I admitted. “There was something wrong with Coach Casper.”
She started to laugh, but that laugh quickly turned to a moan.
Then she was running in the direction of the bathroom.
“Maybe you should get the doctor to run a flu test on you as well?” I suggested, watching her heave.
Raleigh moaned into the toilet bowl just as the doctor came into the room. “Please tell me you did not pull me out of bed at four o’clock on a Saturday morning to confirm a pregnancy test.”
I froze as pieces of the puzzle finally started clicking into place.
Raleigh threw up again for good measure.
“Actually,” I paused. “Raleigh was punched in the face, and she punched someone else in the face in retaliation. We need to get her checked over to make sure she doesn’t have a broken face…or possibly a broken hand. The pregnancy thing, though…”
Raleigh threw up again.
“We probably don’t need that confirmed until tomorrow.”
The doctor chuckled. “Oh, Raleigh dear. You always do keep my life exciting.”
I looked over at Raleigh, who was leaning her head against her arm. “She keeps my life exciting, too, that’s for sure.”EpilogueNo matter how bad it gets, I’m always rich at the Dollar Store.
-Bumper Sticker
Raleigh
“I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, baby,” Ezra said in my ear.
It was two in the morning, and Ezra and the team had a long drive ahead of them to where they were playing their next game.
I made a non-committal sound that was somewhere near an ‘okay’ and a ‘narrrhg.’
He laughed quietly and pushed away. “I’ll give you a call when we get there.”
I gave him a thumb up, and went back to sleep until something woke me up a few hours later.
I listened, ears perked, for the sound that had woken me.
Not the baby.
Otherwise she would’ve cried out again by now.
I opened my eyes and tried to see the time on the clock but couldn’t get my eyes to quite focus long enough to read the letters.
Then a movement of some sort caught my eye, and my eyes moved from the clock on the nightstand to the bed. There was a blob…something glowing in the dark…on the foot of the bed.
