Love’s Suicide(85)
Author: Jennifer Foor

I looked down at his arm. “How’s it feeling?”

He shrugged. “It’s manageable, why?”

I put my arms around his neck and jumped. He caught me and with ease my legs wrapped around him. “Because I also have reasons for wanting to piss him off.”

In reality, our lovemaking, or whatever he was calling it, only lasted about forty minutes. We were exhausted and knew B would be up as soon as the sun came up.

We’d proven our point, which was what we’d set out to do. It didn’t matter if we’d finished anyway, because when Brooks went out to use the bathroom, he came back with a very awake little girl.

I didn’t know whether we’d woken her, not that it mattered. Her bottom lip sticking out showed me that she was scared and it was good her daddy had heard her. He brought her in and put her right in the center of the bed. Since he had boxer-briefs on, and I was still in my birthday suit, I got up and put on underwear and a t-shirt.

In the time it took me to do that, she was already cuddled up against her father, sound asleep. Brooks was watching me, but smiling at her at the same time.

Our time apart hadn’t made him bitter. It had made him love harder. We had his eternal devotion.

I cuddled up next to them and closed my eyes, knowing that this was as close to heaven as I’d ever been. It was what I had dreamed of my whole life.

Chapter 49

For some reason being mischievous had paid off. I woke in a better mood about Branch and Melissa. In fact, after meeting her downstairs at the coffee pot, we started cooking breakfast for everyone.

“So, did you ever listen to my messages I left? I know you better than to think you’d actually delete them without listening.”

I laughed. “I didn’t.”

She took a sip of her coffee. “I was thinking that maybe you should listen to them. I spoke from my heart and I feel like if we’re ever going to get back to being friends, and hopefully sisters, that we shouldn’t have anything holding us back.

She handed me the portable landline phone. “Here, just listen to them.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” she insisted.

I sat at the kitchen table and started dialing the number to retrieve my messages. The last thing I wanted to hear, after I’d already made peace with things, was a whole spiel of reasons why I should forgive them.

When I finally figured out how to do it, I was confused when it said that I had no new messages. Bobby would have probably called several times since he’d been served papers.

I hung up and dialed again, thinking it gave me the wrong box, but got the same results. I hung up and looked at Melissa. “That’s funny. Are you sure you dialed the right number?”

“Danica gave it to me. You talked on the voicemail. I’m sure.”

“Well, there’s no messages.”

“Does Brooks have your passcode? Maybe he listened to them.”

Brooks didn’t have my passcode, but Bobby did. My eyes flashed fear and there was no way I could hide it.

“What’s wrong, Katy?”

“Nothing. Can you watch breakfast for a second? I’m just going to go ask Brooks if he listened to my messages. I’ll be right back.”

I hated waking him, but a message from Melissa talking about them coming to see us would tell Bobby where we were. He’d know I wasn’t home and I was petrified that he’d do something to my beautiful new house, knowing that nobody would be there to call the cops.

Brooks was in my old room with B. She was trying to put on her bathing suit. “Hey, you going swimming already?”

Brooks laughed. “She woke me up asking to jump in the pool. You know me, I give her anything she wants.”

“I need to talk to you about something. I’m kind of freaking out, right now.”

He touched my arm. “What is it?”

I explained the situation, that didn’t seem to bother him in the least. Still, I felt like he needed to know for when we went home. Bobby wasn’t just going to be pissed off when he got those protective order papers. He was going to lash out and since my phone was out of commission, he was going to find whatever means possible to cause me physical and emotional duress.

“What are we going to do if we go home and he’s trashed the inside of the house? I won’t be able to prove it’s him. His fingerprints are all over the place.” I started to cry and Brooks put both arms around my back, holding me and offering comfort.

“Kat, he can’t hurt us. He’s there and we’re here. When we leave tomorrow night, we’ll worry about it. If he’s done something, we can figure out what to do when we’re there. Please don’t let him ruin our last day together. Mom and Dad want to see us smiling today, like we don’t have a care in the world. Focus on Branch and Melissa. Talk about their wedding like you’re excited for them. Do whatever it takes to keep your mind off of that ass**le, okay?”

“Asshole.” B giggled, like she knew it was a bad word.

“Daddy’s sorry. Don’t say that. It’s bad!”

“Asshole.”

I covered my face with my hands. “Oh my God. What else?”

“Asshole.” She giggled.

Brooks looked to me for guidance on the situation. Seeing him smiling was making it hard to be serious. “Don’t laugh at her. If we make a big deal about it, she’ll keep saying it. Let’s just go downstairs and ignore her.”

He picked her up. “Let’s go eat breakfast. Are you hungry, bug?”

“Asshole, Daddy.”

Brooks pushed me along, trying his best to ignore our potty mouth daughter. “For what it’s worth, she learned it from you.”

He then laughed as we walked down the stairs. “Yeah. Live and learn.”

Thank God, by the time we made it to the kitchen, she’d lost interest. Melissa snapped a look of worry at me and I smiled at her, as if everything was right with the world. I couldn’t let anyone see that inside I was scared out of my mind.

Our trip to be with the family again was a great reprieve, but as we neared the end I knew it was just a pause on what was to come. Assuming everything would be unicorns and sunshine wouldn’t have been realistic. I had a very angry husband out there that knew wherever I was, I was with Brooks. It didn’t matter to Bobby if I was in love, he was the father of my child, or even that I was happy. All that mattered to Bobby was that I wasn’t with him.

I’d seen and read so many stories regarding abused women. In my opinion, things hadn’t gotten so bad that I feared for my life. I’d been slapped around and threatened, but never beaten to the fear of losing my life, like other women. Still, knowing that he was willing to hurt me was enough to scare me for what might come.