He smirks smugly. “Nah, dude. I got you looking pretty shady in a lot of photos.”
He turns his fancy digital camera around and shows me a series of shots that have my jaw fall open. He’s got a picture of me catching Trish when she slipped at the arena. Somehow it looks like we’re about to kiss. Then there’s also pictures of me with Sadie at the beach, and minutes ago on the deck, and there we are kissing. But the combination of them both make me look like a womanizer for sure. And then there are pictures of me out with Charlie, and in every single photo I’m turned away from her or on my phone. I hardly ever touch my phone when I’m with her, but I’ve been breaking that rule a lot since Lauren started this custody thing, because I’ve needed to talk to Hunter a couple times a day. But these photos, out of context, make me look like an uninterested parent.
I reach through the window for the camera, but the guy is quick and yanks it back out of my reach. He looks smug again, and I really want to punch him. If all hope is lost and these photos are going to build Lauren’s case, then I have nothing to lose. He sees my balled-up fists and he inches away from the window. “Dude, relax! You break this camera or my face, and your ex definitely wins.”
“Do you even know what you’re doing? You’re fucking up an innocent little girl’s life with your bullshit photos,” I snarl. His indifferent expression doesn’t even flicker.
“You can make this go away,” he says simply, and I glare at him in confusion. “All I care about is getting paid…by whoever the fuck wants to give me the most money.”
We stare at each other. He’s starting to look at me likeI’ma brainless sleazeball. He inches a little closer and spells it out for me. “She hasn’t seen any of the photos yet. You don’t want her to, then pay me double what she paid me.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen hundred.”
I point at him. “Don’t fucking move.”
I stalk back into my boat and head straight to my room, throwing on a pair of jeans before heading to the small safe in my closet and grabbing my emergency cash supply. I’ve got two grand. I take out $1,500 and grab my cell phone off the night stand. Just before I step back outside, I turn on my audio recorder app, which I use to mutter notes during games.
When I get back to his van, I hold up the roll of cash. “So I pay you and these pictures go away instead of to my ex?”
“I’ll give you the memory card right here and now for fifteen hundred,” he replies, a slimy smile on his face. His beady little eyes are glued to the cash. It’s exactly why I held it up for him. I don’t want him to notice the phone in my other hand.
“And you don’t have any copies, because, buddy, I swear if you give them to her anyway…” I don’t finish that sentence because I’m not about to threaten him on video.
“No other pics. I don’t even back this shit up,” he says and pops the memory card out of the camera. “I wouldn’t fuck you over, dude. You look like you could fuck me up. What are you, like a personal trainer or bodyguard or something?”
I shove the money at him. He grabs it and hands me the memory card. “Get out of here and don’t fucking follow me anymore. If I even see you on the street and you don’t turn and walk the other way you will regret it.”
“Sure thing, buddy.” He gives me a yellow-toothed grin. He starts his van again, and I turn to leave. “But she’s got other shit on you too.”
I turn back to him. “What?”
“Some injury,” he explains. “You took your daughter to the hospital and didn’t tell her or something. I don’t know. My partner covered the files part, and he already gave them to her. I told him he should see if you’d buy them.”
“Go,” I growl, and he has the fucking nerve to look offended for a second before he rolls up his window and drives away.
I head back into the houseboat while dialing Hunter.
20
Sadie
It’s time to start make the final decision about the—”
“I understand.” I cut the doctor off, because if he says the words I will break down. I can’t break down. I have to be strong for my family. So he can’t say the wordsIt’s time to put in a feeding tube.Because I will not hold it together. He’s just finished giving me the devastating results of my dad’s swallowing tests, which in a month have gotten worse, and I think he picks up on the fact I have to absorb that before he continues. After a minute of silence he goes on.
“I know in the past your father has indicated to me that he will not allow a feeding tube,” the doctor says. I nod, my heart aching so badly I can barely breathe. “However, that opinion sometimes changes when the decision becomes imminent and not just a hypothetical.”
“And it is imminent now.” I can’t believe my voice isn’t shaking.
“It is.” Her expression becomes a little softer as she adds, “If he says yes, I would start the process immediately.”
“He won’t change his mind,” I tell her—and there it is. My voice shakes. I swallow and try to calm down. “My father doesn’t make snap decisions. He’s thought this out. He knew we’d end up here. He’s never sugar-coated his illness to us or himself. He won’t change his mind, and he knows what that means.”
There is a small girl inside me, wailing and sobbing over the unfairness of this. The pure, brutal cruelness of this. I want to run into his hospital room and cry and scream like a child throwing a tantrum until my dad agrees to the feeding tube, but I won’t. Instead I’ll keep Dixie and Winnie from doing that, because they’ll try. And I’ll let my mom cry in my arms, and I’ll make sure Jude doesn’t punch anything. Because if he wasn’t my dad, if this man was my patient, I would wholeheartedly get it. This disease has only begun taking away his life. A feeding tube prolongs the inevitable suffering. I understand that. I just don’t want it to be true.
“Sadie?”
