I groan, “Remind me to make sure he has much thicker walls in the new house.”
He chuckles and kisses me again, “Does that mean you’ll be moving into that house with us?”
“Wait, I thought this was all temporary. You and Cole are here until you settle into your new jobs and find your own place. Have either of you been looking?”
“I can’t answer for him, but I haven’t. Why mess with a good thing? Are you looking for a new place?”
I sip my coffee and think. Financially, I’m in a better place than when I moved here months ago. The bills are all caught up. Expenses are minimal, just the small rent that Mrs. Thorne charges Mom plus whatever she needs for food and necessities. I need to have a conversation with my mom.
Foster stands before me and soothes a finger down my forehead, “Stop thinking so hard. I know that Talon is not going to kick you to the curb. Quite the opposite. He’ll probably cuff you to the bed and never let you leave. I hope you have a great day. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I grab my coffee and walk outside, then stop in my tracks. I left my Jeep in front of the house last night, too lazy to park it in the garage. It’s there, but it’s been completely demolished. Walking in a circle around the car, I gawk at the damage. All the doors are scratched and dented, the two driver’s side windows are shattered, and the windshield is busted. Spray painted, in neon pink, across the hood is “Whore”.
How original.
I open the driver’s side door and find the interior has been trashed as well. The seats have been slashed. The glove box door is hanging open, and its contents are scattered all over. A bottle of my coconut-scented body lotion has been poured all over and the smell is so thick I almost vomit. I’m grateful I didn’t leave any of my equipment in the car because there’s no doubt it would have been destroyed.
My hands are shaking so badly that I can’t hold onto the tumbler of coffee. It falls and smashes on the ground, splashing on me, but I barely feel it. I collect myself enough to turn around and run back into the house. Foster intercepts me in the foyer.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, noticing the mess on my clothes.
“We need to call the police. Someone’s vandalized my car,” I tell him, my voice breathy. My vision starts to black out. Foster moves me to the staircase and gets me to sit down.
“Sit here a minute. Let me go see.”
I rest until I don’t feel so fuzzy-brained anymore. I meet Foster outside, where he’s staring at the wreckage of my Jeep.
Foster’s face is red with fury, “Shit, this bad. We need to wake Talon up. There are security cameras all around this place. He’ll have a video of whoever this is. Did you touch anything?”
“Just the door handle. I left it open.”
He nods, “That’s good.”
We go back inside and rouse Talon out of my bed. He checks his phone for the camera feed. We see Cole’s ex, Hannah, and another woman using a bat, a screwdriver, and a can of spray paint on my vehicle. The scene lasts about fifteen minutes before they take off down the driveway.
“Fuck, we better let Cole know before we talk to the police,” Talon says after we finish watching the footage.
Both Foster and Talon look at me with apprehension, knowing I didn’t miss the most significant revelation on that video.
Hannah’s prominent baby bump.
I’m furious when I bang on Cole’s door. The damage to my car is almost forgotten at this point.
Is the baby Cole’s?
Why else would he keep this from me?
“Come in,” he calls, and the three of us walk in. Foster and Talon have been silent, following me as I stormed up the stairs.
Cole’s standing in his room wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that stretches over his chest. There’s an empty suitcase on his bed, and he’s putting the rest of his clothes away after coming home from a weekend road trip.
He pauses when we all come in, “What’s up?”
With the video pulled up, Talon hands him his phone.
No words are spoken while Cole watches intently, his expression increasingly angrier. His hand is white-knuckling Talon’s phone, which reaches over and takes it away from him before he can damage it when the video is over.
