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“Would you guys stop being so fucking grabby,” Ivy groused.
Jinx shoved the paper at her. Sure enough, it looked like Nick’s handwriting. She was used to it. He sent her a check every damn month, even when she asked him to stop helping them.
Even though she needed every damn penny to keep her head above water. She hated taking it. Hated cashing the check every month. She only used the money for things for Axl and socked away the extra for the future. For her not-such-a-baby’s future.
She was determined to make a good life for him. A life like she’d never had as a child. The daughter of a crackwhore mother and an alcoholic father had not been an ideal start in life.
Her father may have come around to begin the process of father of the year, but her mother never had. She’d split long ago, no forwarding address, no letters of remorse.
Another person who had just up and disappeared in her life. Her mother could be dead for all she knew.
Fuck.
She so couldn’t drink. It always made her sad. At least if she stopped drinking. Right now all she had was a headache and a whole lot of confusion.
Jinx pushed her toward the bathroom. “Get cleaned up. We’re finding our way down to the spa on…” She raced around to the bed she’d left the pamphlets on. “If we’re going all out, then we’re going to floor thirty-six. The Golden Dragon.” She grinned. “I’m getting everything waxed. This chick is getting laid.”
Chloe escaped to the bathroom. “Holy crap.” The room was all marble and shine, with a tub, a separate shower, and a sink big enough to give her kid a bath in.
Even the toilet was locked away from the perfection of the room.
“Unbelievable.” She dropped onto the edge of the tub and pulled out her phone. She flicked her phone awake and shot off a text to Nick.
CA: Are you sure? Were you delusional when you wrote that note? It’s too much.
The little bubbles on her screen came up right away.
NC: I’ve been waiting for this text. Yes. Have fun. Pretend you’re Princess Chloe for three days. Don’t fucking argue with me. Now buzz off, I’m busy.
Chloe laughed. Only Nick could say something so sweet and so rude in the same breath. She was about to switch her phone off when she tapped on the top of her sparkly red case. “Just one call,” she said quietly.
She thumbed over the FaceTime icon and her father’s number. It rang three times before he answered, a harried look on his face.
“Hey, Dad. How’s my kid?”
“He’s currently covered in peanut butter.” He panned the phone away to show her son with his russet hair sticking to the side of his face along with a smear of his snack. His cheeks were covered, and his two teeth gleamed from his bow lips.
“Pee butter, momma!” He slapped his hand on the tray of his high chair, peanut butter and jelly spraying the front of his bib.
“Wow. I see.”
“Miss you!”
Chloe’s belly flipped and her heart shuddered to a stop. “I miss you too, pal.”
He covered his mouth and made a sucking kiss sound and blew her a kiss. “Pee butter!”
Chloe laughed and blew his kisses back.
I will not cry.
I will not cry.
“You are not using FaceTime in there, woman! You’re peeing so we can go!” Jinx called through the door.
Chloe scrunched up her shoulders. “Everything okay there, Dad?”
“I’m going to go dump him and his peanut butter-scented self into the tub. Then we’re going to read books.”
