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It made my skin crawl knowing I couldn’t do that for her, but finances were tight, especially since we’d left earlier than planned and I had a baby to prepare for.
“We ready to head out?” Ezra quietly asked me.
I nodded and eased off the couch, placing a pillow where my thigh had just been. Lillian made a small noise in the back of her throat but never woke up. I looked at Solomon. “Stay inside and keep all the doors locked. Do not open that door for anyone, you hear me? And donotlet her leave this fucking apartment.”
He nodded. I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter and headed for the door with Ezra on my heels.
“How did today go?” he asked me as we got in the car.
“She’s my wife now,” I said, glancing at the sterling silver ring on my left hand. It was a simple, thin band, but it tied me to her, which made it more valuable than the thirty dollars I’d spent on it.
“She take it okay?” Ezra asked me. “Saying she’s ready to marry you and actually marrying you are two very different things.”
I nodded. “She did well and seemed pretty content to be marrying me.”
He waggled his brows at me, and I braced myself for whatever shit might come out my best friend’s mouth next. “Did you two consummate the marriage yet?” he asked me.
I snorted as I rolled out onto the highway. “Nope. She came home, threw up, and then fell asleep on the couch. She said she wasn’t feeling good while we were at the courthouse, so I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before she got sick. Just glad she made it home where she can safely rest before she did.”
Ezra nodded. “Any feelings on being a dad yet?”
I shook my head, and he dropped it, leaving it at that, which I was thankful for. I wasn’t ready to talk about my impending fatherhood. Because I hadn’t even come to terms with it yet. It still didn’t feel real. I still didn’t feelanythingabout it.
It was a bit scary. I’d never been detached from my emotions like this before.
“Need to do something about the church,” Ezra told me. “Your father is making a big stink about us taking Solomon.”
I grunted. “One thing at a time.” It was all I could handle.
Ezra nodded.
* * *
I knocked on the front door. Ezra was flattened on the other side of the door, out of sight of Lillian’s parents. I didn’t want to chance them not answering the door if they spotted Ezra, too. I had a key, but I wanted the key to be my last resort. They were home after being MIA fordays, and walking into their house was dangerous when I didn’t know what might be waiting for me on the other side of the front door.
I had no idea what weapons they had. And I hadn’t mentioned coming here to Lillian because she would only make herself sicker with worry. So, asking her what I could expect had been off the table. Essentially, Ezra and I were both going in blind.
The front door swung open, and her father glared out at me. He was still wearing his uniform from work. “What?” he barked at me. I almost shook my head in disgust. The military just let any fuckers in, didn’t they?
“I’m here to get Lillian’s things,” I told him.
“You aren’t taking a fucking thing of hers,” he sneered at me. “She’ll come home one way or another.”
I smirked and held up my hand to show him my ring. His face colored to a blistering red. If it were possible, I was pretty sure his head would have exploded like a squished tomato. “Not when she’s mine now in the eyes of the law. Not a goddamn thing you can do.” I barged past him, and when he reached forward to shove me, Ezra was there, forcing him back from me.
“Go,” Ezra told me, easily stepping into the role of my muscle. “I’ve got this.”
I walked off down the hall to her room and grabbed two duffel bags out of her closet, throwing all of her clothes in them. I grabbed any toiletries from her bathroom—hair dryer and curling iron, too—and slipped back out, nodding once at Ezra to let him know I was done, who was standing guard at the end of the hall to protect me so I could get her shit as quickly as possible.
“You’re not taking anything!” her father bellowed.
I dropped her bags when he shoved me and swung my fist, knocking him out cold. He crashed back against the wall before sliding down it. Lillian’s mother was silently crying off to the side, too afraid to come near us.
“If the cops come after us,” I told her, my voice cold and filled with a darkness that made her shiver, “I’ll make sureeverythingyou two have done to her is brought to the light.”
With that, I snatched up the duffel bags again and stormed out of the house, leaving the front door open behind me.
Good fucking riddance.
