My father.
I nodded, not balking at the reminder of who I was to him.
A task.
A favor.
A temporary issue that would be fixed the moment my father made it home.
I’d fix it tomorrow if I could.
“Okay,” I nodded, as if his words actually were a request.
All I got was: stay out of my way until your dad gets here to clean up your mess.
But the thought of taking Holt out of his arms was making me sick to my stomach.
Something was telling me to stay far, far away.
The doorbell rang, and I glanced at the door.
Holt started to cry.
Dang it.
“Don’t like loud things,” he said. “I wouldn’t either if I had a father that screamed at the drop of a hat and woke me up like that.”
When he put it like that…
“When I was pregnant, and I was sleeping, Joey would scream,” I said. “Right next to me sometimes. I’d jolt awake, and sometimes I’d feel the baby jolt awake, too.”
Sympathy rocketed through me, and that was the first positive emotion I’d felt toward Holt in a while.
Four months old, and that was the first time?
I scrubbed my hand over my face and didn’t bother to look behind me as Copper walked with my screaming kid to the door.
I had to fight the urge to run screaming out of the room.
Six
The term ‘bear with me’ can mean one of two things. One, be patient. Two, the zoo heist was a success.
—Text from Keely to Copper
COPPER
My mind was absolutely reeling.
I wasn’t sure how I’d found myself in this particular position, but I found that I didn’t absolutely hate it.
I opened the door after taking a quick glance through the peephole, and stared at Webber.
Webber had his own baby in his hands, and he was pacing.
Webber’s baby was much smaller than the one that I was holding, and I had to laugh at Webber’s frazzled look.
Webber’s eyes came to me, then directly went down to the kid in my arms, and he said, “What the fuck’s going on?”