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“Gee, I don’t know. Am I mistaken in thinking this is my house too? Hell, don’t I need to be consulted before decisions are made about who will or won’t be sleeping here?”
“Callie.”
“You even admitted that you think she drugged you! And here you are just moving her into our apartment. Are you mental?!?!”
“I’m trying to do what I can to protect my child right now, Callie. That’s all I have on my mind. If I could think of any other way…”
“Okay, what about low-income housing? There are apartments in town—”
“Most of those places have a year to two year waiting list, Callie. I drove there before coming home.
“Then, what about the Crisis Center? They’ll take her in and start her on the fast track to getting an apartment. Remember Tina Louise from school? When her parents died, she went there, and they gave her shelter and food and got her on her feet so that she could go to college and have housing. She’s going to be a dental hygienist now. There are other avenues, Reed.”
“You want me to put the woman who is having my child in a shelter, knowing that I’ve been told she’s extremely high risk and could lose the baby if she’s not cared for properly.”
“I don’t understand how I got to be the bad guy here, but it’s clear that you’re going to paint me to be the villain no matter what.”
“I’m the villain, Callie. This is all on me. Don’t you know I’d rather cut off my arm instead of hurting you?”
“I’m not sure I can handle being under the same roof with her Reed. You can’t expect that of me.”
“I don’t.”
“So, you want to break up with me.”
“No, not really, but I’m giving you that option,” I mutter, rubbing my hands through my hair, feeling hopeless.
“Where am I supposed to go while that bitch is in our apartment, Reed? You’ve thought of everything else, so why don’t you tell me that?”
“I wouldn’t kick you out. Jake said I could crash with her at his place.”
“Where will Jake be? That’s a one-room apartment and a pull-out sofa. If you sleep with that bitch—”
“Jesus. I’m not going to sleep with her. Jake won’t be there.”
“Is he moving in with Katie? I know they talked about it, but I didn’t know—”
“He had a friend call from Cheyenne. He’s going to get a second shot at his dream. He’s leaving town.”
I see her flinch and I know she’s worrying about Katie, but then the reality of what I’ve just said seems to hit her. I knew it would, but I didn’t imagine the extent of the pain I’ve caused her or what it would look like on her beautiful face.
“You expect me to just wait here in our apartment while you share a place with that slut?”
“I was hoping you would, but I wasn’t going to ask, Callie.”
“Tell you what, Reed. Don’t worry about going to Jake’s. Bring her here.”
“You think you can—”
“I’ll be with Katie,” she says, as she walks away.
I let her go. I knew how it was going to go from the moment Chasity told me she was homeless.
I just prayed I was wrong.
40 Callie
“Men suck,” I mutter around my spoon of caramel sea salt ice cream.
“Amen,” Katie joins in around her own spoon of double chocolate fudge. “At least yours loves you enough to ask you to wait for him. Mine left me for a damn horse.”
“Horse, whore, it’s all the same,” I mumble. “They’re both ridden hard and by more than one rider.” It’s a lame joke, but apparently Katie finds it really funny, because she laughs and laughs—until she starts crying.
“You could have gone with him to Cheyenne,” I reason, handing her a napkin that she quickly uses to dry the worst of her tears.
“We both know why I couldn’t do that, Callie,” she sighs.
“Then, you could have told him that you are pregnant. I don’t know how you’ve kept it from him anyway. You’re getting pudgy.”
“Fuck you,” she gasps, but she ends up laughing. I give her a weak smile. She lets out a sigh that my heart completely echoes. “We should just become gay,” she mutters. “Men aren’t worth this shit.”
“There’s just one problem with that,” I mutter.
“What’s that?” she asks, her brow crinkling and a trail of chocolate ice cream dripping down her chin.
“We both like dick too much.”
She lets out an annoyed breath. “You haven’t even had good dick. The least Reed could have done was fork over the goods before fucking up so royally.
“I don’t want to talk about him. In fact, we can no longer say his name within these walls,” I declare.
“Fine. Same thing with baby daddy,” she mumbles.
“Deal,” I agree.
“What are we going to do, Callie?” she asks, looking hopeless, wiping the ice cream from her face.
