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“Why am I doing this to myself?” he mumbled as he pulled a stack of papers from the envelope. “What are you?” He laid the stack on his lap and smoothed it flat. “Lithia Women’s Care,” he read aloud from the top of the first page. “What the hell.”
Within seconds, it became apparent that the paperwork was a medical procedure report. “This patient is a twenty-eight-year-old female who presents with—”
His mouth soured.
“No fucking way.”
Ty sat straighter, reading with greater speed. His grip on the papers tightened, crinkling them in his fist.
When he finished reading, he sagged in the chair, staring at the dancing flames before him. The papers read like a horror novel, describing the story of his twenty-eight-year-old wife’s betrayal. The wife who’d spoken about wanting a baby more than she wanted anything in her life. The woman who’d dreamed and planned with him of starting a family and buying a little bungalow near the beach. The woman who’d cried with him when each year went by, and she never conceived. The woman who’d lied their whole goddamned marriage and had secretly taken oral contraceptives since before they’d wed.
Why?
And according to these papers, she’d gotten pregnant once, despite being on the pill. And at eleven weeks, she’d terminated the pregnancy.
The pregnancy with his baby.
She’d never told him. Never even tried. Not one whisper or breath with a hint of what was happening.
Why?
Why the lies? When they’d married, he’d been the one uncertain if he wanted children. Trina’s obvious excitement over becoming a mother eventually became contagious, and he got on board. By the time they were actively trying, he’d been equally eager to start a family. His shock and intense feelings of betrayal weren’t even about the abortion but the lies. He fully supported a woman’s right to govern her own body. But the years of lies and deceit? Pretending one thing when actively working against it? That cut deep.
Why?
The papers slipped through his fingers, scattering on the ground. The wind caught a few and whisked them toward the fire, where they burned up in seconds.
Good riddance.
Even as his stomach threatened to upend, he grabbed the bottle of tequila and chugged. It burned like the fires of hell, but he didn’t give a single fuck. It could burn a hole through his esophagus for all he cared.
One hour later, he sat in the same place, sprawled in the chair, staring at the fire. He’d only gotten up once when he stumbled inside for another bottle of tequila. He was a lot drunker than he had been when he read the medical documents, and now he had his phone in his hand and his ex’s number called up from his contact list.
Calling her would be about as stupid as it got, but clear thinking left the party ages ago.
He pushed send and lifted the phone to his ear. After the third ring, a rougher version of a voice he used to love greeted him. A pack of cigarettes a day would do that to a person. “Hello, lover, you must have some damn good instincts. I was thinking about you today and planning to call in the morning.”
“Oh yeah?” he said with a grunt. “Lucky me.”
“Yes.” Either she ignored the droll tone, or it sailed over her head.
“What for?” Usually, she contacted him for one reason and one reason only.
He could practically see the manipulative smirk transform her face as she hummed an amused little sound.
“Just to say hello.”
Rolling his eyes, he mouthed, “Bullshit,” without a sound. She always had an agenda.
“My birthday is coming up in a few days.”
There it was. She wanted a gift. Cash, no doubt.
“Right,” he responded, biting back all the insulting words he’d love to sling her way. “October twenty-third.”
“You remembered.”
For fuck’s sake, they’d been together nearly fifteen years. He wasn’t an idiot.
