“Bollocks. You were horrific when I was single. It’s not about my sexuality, it’s about control, and you’re not fucking having it anymore. I’m picking Ivy up from school and I’m gonna get a damn restraining order until you sort your fucking life out.”
I shouted so infrequently that the words burned my throat. But I meant them so much I felt like my soul spilled out of my body with them. Until I saw Jeanette, I didn’t know if any of the shit I’d just spouted was possible, but even if it wasn’t, something had to give. I’d take Ivy to the damn moon if I had to.
Maybe Lauren saw that in me now—the change, the broken thing that had found heart in loving a man like Folk and become something better.
Her facade crumbled, any pretence of being reasonable eviscerating as venom flashed in her gaze.
She barged me, smacking her fists against my chest. “You’re not taking my daughter. I’ll tell the school you’re a fucking pedo before I let you have her.”
I took the blows, letting them glance off me. “What good is that lie going to do you? If I’m that guy, you’ll have to explain why you’ve let me have Ivy at all.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” Lauren shouted. “And I don’t care what lies I have to tell, you’re not having her. She’smine.”
As the words hit me, I caught sight of a neighbour in their hallway window, brandishing their phone. At me. As if I was the one throwing hands.
I ignored them. They could do what they wanted. I didn’t give a fuck. “Ivy isn’t yours. We don’t own her, and we owe her a childhood that doesn’t give her PTSD. That’s why you need to just fucking stop. Before this does her so much damage she spends the rest of her life trying to fix it.”
“I’m not doing anything!” Lauren punched me again, in the face this time, splitting my lip with the chunky ring on her finger. “You’re the one who cut her hair. The one who threatens me on a daily basis. Takes my bank cards and bleeds me dry.”
“That never happened. The only reason you didn’t get done for wasting police time was because I didn’t want you to get nicked in front of Ivy. And for the last fucking time, I didn’t cut her hair.Youdid.”
“Oh yeah?” Lauren stopped flailing around, though her temper still burned bright and deadly. She closed the distance between us and smeared the blood oozing from my lip on her hands and then her face. “Who’s going to believe you when I run away from this house with a black eye and all this blood? Who’s going to believe that tiny little me did that to you first? You’re a pussy, Seth, and you always have been.”
For a drawn-out second, I really did want to hit her. But shame caught up with my anger before it took hold, and I backed off, even as she chased me down, keeping her back to the neighbour’s window, trusting they’d see exactly what she wanted them to see, because that’s how things worked in Lauren’s world. For better or worse, she always got her fucking way.
Always.
Terror descended on me as fast as my fury had. Her neighbours had talked shit about me before, especially the grimy old man who was too taken by Lauren’s tits to know truth from whatever she wanted him to say.
If I get nicked for domestic violence, it’s over.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I retreated even further, to the end of the drive, and Lauren slipped by me, making a break for her car. “See? You can’t even argue with me. And you know what? You’ve really pissed me off this time, threatening to take my daughter from me. You see if I don’t go to the police, tell them all about you. Call social services then, I dare you.”
She got in her car and slammed the door.
I stared at her through the windshield.
She laughed.
Fuckinghell. This was why I didn’t do this. Why I didn’t engage her in open ground or fucking anywhere. Because I always lost. Ialwayswoke up at the bottom of a bigger goddamn mountain to climb.
Lauren revved her engine, smirking.
No.
I walked in front of her car.
She rolled her window down. “What are you trying to do, Seth? Everyone can see you holding me hostage. That’s not going to look good in court either, is it?”
I glanced left and right, noting the twitching curtains and half-open front doors.
Lauren saw them too, just like she’d counted on, but there was one thing she hadn’t planned for. The flash of blue lights in my peripheral. The approaching panda car that, for whatever god-sent reason, didn’t have its siren on.
“I’m not holding you hostage, Lauren.”
