Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
I stepped back into the room and waited for him to turn around to do the obvious next step, and when he did, he gasped and fell backward into the computer.
His monitor rocked and teetered before ultimately falling on the floor.
Joey got pissed as hell, but he didn’t say anything.
“I want you to sign these papers.” I held them out. “They relinquish your rights to Holt. I’m going to adopt him, and you won’t have to pay child support anymore.”
Joey sneered. “What makes you think that I’ll do that?”
“The alternative is we go to court and get child support done officially,” I said. “And trust me when I say, you’ll be paying at least half your paycheck. With the way you treated her, and the way you’ve had nothing to do with the kid, they’ll grant the max allowed.”
He sneered. “I think not.”
“I think so,” I disagreed. “But you won’t have to deal with that if you sign the papers.”
He held his hand out and I gave him the sheet of papers.
He went to rip them up, but I stopped him with a single word. “Don’t.”
He started to anyway, but then I said, “Do you like this house?”
He frowned. “Couldn’t care less about this house.”
“Bet you’d care if it was burning down around your ears.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it.
Then, wisely, he turned to the desk and grabbed a pen before bravely saying, “Don’t want anything to do with that fucking kid anyway.”
I took the papers he threw at me, catching them before he could scatter them all over the floor, then said, “Nice doing business with you.”
“Fuck you!” he called out from behind me.
“Your ex-fiancé certainly does that well,” I told him. “Not sure how you gave such a sweet pussy up, but I’m glad you did. She’s the best thing to ever happen to my cock.”
I shut the door on his enraged howl.
Getting on my bike, I rode the rest of the way to the courthouse with the papers tucked into my cut.
I was unsurprised to find all the bikes parked in the parking lot.
I was even less surprised to find everyone already there waiting on me.
“I was beginning to think you were standing me up!” my future wife snapped.
I pulled out the papers and said, “I figured since we were already here, I’d get this filed in court and make it official, since the judge decided to give us the day.”
I wasn’t sure how Apollo had gotten the judge to do it, but he’d been more than happy to give us his entire morning.
I hadn’t been sure when we’d be able to get there—planning a wedding on the fly was hard—and I’d wanted to give Baker all the time that she needed.
It just so happened that she’d called me a half hour ago and said that she was ready to go, hence my quick stop at the loser’s house before I went.
“Oh, Copper,” Baker breathed. “Is this for real?”
“Real as fuck,” I confirmed, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Holt’s gonna be mine.”
Speaking of Holt, he let out a screech, and we all turned to see him holding his hands out for me.
Cutter, who had our kid, grinned and held him out to me with one hand covering his entire chest.
I reached for him and said, “Let’s go inside and get this done.”
“Actually,”—the judge arrived with a flourish—“let’s do it out here. I’m not sure you’ll all fit in my chambers.”
“Sounds perfect to me.” Baker beamed.
BAKER
The words ‘I do’ rang from my lips, and I felt like I literally heard bells start to ring.
Though, it took me a few moments to realize that I was hearing bells ring, seeing as all of my dreams had just come true.
It was officially noon, and I was a married woman.
The judge had to raise his voice to be heard over the loud clanging of the bells.
“With the power vested in me by the state…” Dong. “Of Texas.” Dong. “I now pronounce you husband.” Dong. “And wife. You may.” Dong. “Kiss the bride!”
I pressed my lips against Copper’s, and fireworks exploded all around me.
My kiss with Copper lasted half a second, max.
I was so lost in the way his mouth tasted—how my husband’s mouth tasted—that I hadn’t been aware that I wasn’t actually floating on cloud nine.
In fact, I was pressed against something hard, by something equally as hard.
The pain of my back meeting the concrete made itself known seconds later.
Disorientation and confusion warred for supremacy in my psyche, and I blinked my eyes open to find myself eye level with the patch over Copper’s heart.
Bird.
It was in hot pink stitching.
There was a small part in the pink stitching that had a gap, and the black of the patch underneath shone through.
I swallowed hard and said, “What’s going on?”