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“Explain what? What could you possibly have to say that would justify any of this?” I place my hand on my belly, just as he kicks right where I’m touching.
It’s as if he knows I need a little extra support, and he’s giving it to me. I wrap my hands around my belly and shake my head. I take a deep breath, fortifying myself.
“You need to leave.”
“Megan,” he says, shaking his head. “Please, baby.”
“I’m not your baby. And I can take care of ours just fine by myself.”
He stares, his jaw slack, shoulders defeated. It’s breaking me to look at him, to have him here.
“You need to go.”
He nods. And he stands. He moves to the door, and pauses, squeezing the frame in his hand.
“I won’t leave you—I won’t leave our child wanting.”
“I want nothing from you,” I say. Then I turn around so I don’t have to watch him go.
I wait until I hear the front door shut. And then I let go. I fall apart and I let Ainsley crawl into my bed and hold me together until I’m too tired to keep falling apart.
CHAPTER40
DEREK
I can’t thinkof the last time I was sitting at a dive bar at eleven a.m. on a Monday.
By nine o’clock, we’d all gotten the call that we were on leave until further notice and not to come into the office. Not that I’d made it that far.
I walked out Megan’s front door and only made it to the bus stop at the corner of Hawthorne. I stayed there until Freddy showed up, and together we opened up The Space Room bar with an exhausted-looking waitress.
Maybe we should have left Megan’s neighborhood, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Not yet. Not until my head was screwed on straight. Not that I knew how to do that.
“You should’ve said something,” Freddy says, finishing his second beer. He’s drinking a session ale, which is probably as close to breakfast beer as exists. He’s making a smart choice given the circumstances we’re in.
A belch works its way out of my mouth, and it’s so foul I gag. I have made poor choices today, my “breakfast beer” included.
“Not what I meant,” Freddy says, frowning as I chug the rest of my beer.
“What would you have wanted me to say?” I ask. “‘The escort I used to fuck might be connected to the jackass who is stealing our recruits and threatening to expose me?’ Would that have gone down well?” I flag the waitress and she pulls another pint for me.
“I might’ve used some different words, but it would’ve been a start,” he says. He sighs as the bartender brings us our drinks, and he asks for some peanuts. “This is a mess, brah. Not gonna sugarcoat it.”
“And I was so hoping you would,brah,” I deadpan, taking a long drink of the malty, hoppy goodness.
“Whether you’re together or not, you have to keep trying. She deserves it.”
“I know she does.”
“So then what are you doing getting wasted before noon on a weekday?”
“I don’t know. What are you doing getting wasted in the middle of a workday?”
“I’m hanging out with my boss to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid.”
“Something stupid? Like leave my phone with intimate photos of the mother of my child in a room full of perverts to upload onto the school server? Photos that have found their way onto Buzzfeed of all sites?”
“Shit, man. I told you I was sorry about that. I don’t know who would’ve leaked that. That was a dick move, that’s for sure.”
