Chapter 12

I don’t give a sip.

-Coffee Cup

Steel

“But, Mom!”

Winnie’s eyes narrowed, and I knew that she was about to blow.

“I told you what I wanted,” she snapped. “I realize that you think you’re an adult at sixteen years old, but you’re not. You’re a minor. I am responsible for you until you turn eighteen, or you emancipate yourself from my care. I don’t want you to do that, but that threat isn’t going to work anymore on me. They’re fucking pants. If you don’t want to wear them, oh goddamn well. I had to deal with this crap when I was in high school, and never once did I complain. Why? Because I knew the rules. If I didn’t like the rules, that was just too goddamn bad. I knew better than to think the rules were going to change just because I didn’t like them.”

Winnie’s daughter’s eyes went electric.

“You compare yourself to me all the time. Let me tell you something, Mom. Things have changed.”

“No, the only thing that has changed is that kids feel entitled to things that they have no right to feel entitled to. What’s changed is parents allowing their children to act like assholes by letting them get away with it.”

“It’s a pair of shorts, Mom.”

“NO,” she snapped. “It is not. It’s a pair of shorts that violates the dress code. The dress code that you violated last week and got sent home for. I don’t have time to take off of work to come get you. I especially won’t have the desire to come get you when you knew going in that you were violating the dress code. So, here’s your choice. You wear jeans, or you wear shorts. Just know that if you’re sent home, and I have to come get you, you will be grounded for the next two weeks. In that time, I will throw every single pair of shorts you own in the trash so you have no choice but to wear pants anymore. Also, you can kiss your phone goodbye.”

I listened to the two of them argue from my driveway and wondered if I should wade in.

However, with Conleigh not being my daughter—because if she had she would’ve known better than to try to get away with wearing those shorts outside of the house—I had no say so in what was said or done.

Instead, I chilled, waiting for the fight to sputter out.

“Mother, boys sexualize everything. Why should I have to wear pants because they can’t control their urges?”

See, here’s where I realized that Winnie didn’t actually know that I was there, otherwise she wouldn’t have said what she said next.

“Are you dense?” Winnie snarled.

“No.”

“I think you are.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“Well you are,” she said. “Why? Because it has nothing to do with boys not controlling themselves, and everything to do with the fact that it’s something that both sexes do equally.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because I can’t help but look when things are blatant either, and I’m an adult,” Winnie snapped. “Just yesterday, Steel walked out of his house without a shirt on, wearing a pair of thin workout shorts. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t wearing any underwear because I could see every single piece of his junk. Even though I knew I shouldn’t look, I did anyway. Why? Because it was there. I couldn’t help it.”

Her daughter didn’t know what to say.

“So let me ask you this. If Steel had gone into your school wearing that, would you look?”

“First of all,” I said from my side of the driveway. “I wouldn’t be wearing that to work. And second, I was, in fact, wearing underwear, but thanks for being concerned.”

Winnie’s mouth dropped open, and her entire face flamed as she looked over at me.

Conleigh started to laugh.

“But she’s right,” I continued, causing Conleigh’s laughter to cut off abruptly. “You wear stuff like that to school, then all the boys are going to look. You’re cheapening your worth by wearing it. And, unfortunately, boys will be boys. Just like, if a guy wore what I did the other day—while working out I might add—then the girl would be looking, too.”

Conleigh sneered.

“You don’t know how it is.”

“I know that your mother told you that you couldn’t wear that to school,” I explained gently. “And I know, had I said the same thing to my mother when I was growing up, my father would’ve put me down on the ground.”

“Well, you’re not me,” she said. “And parents aren’t allowed to hit their children. It’s against the law.”

Conleigh’s eyes moved to me for confirmation.

I suppressed the grin that wanted to break free.

“Actually,” I said. “That’s up to the parent’s discretion. There is a fine line between beating your children just for the hell of it, and using corporal punishment as a form of discipline.”

She hissed at me, causing my smile to widen.

“Fine.”

Then Conleigh stormed off, leaving us to stare at each other across the street.

“That was fun,” I teased.

Winnie flipped me off.

I burst out laughing.

She turned her back on me, then whipped back around and started marching my way.

It’d been exactly a week since we’d been home. A week and a day since I’d had her tight, willing body wrapped around my stiff cock.

She came to a stop directly in front of me, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Are you still married?”

My grin quickly fell.

I knew what she was asking.

Hell, I knew what she was thinking.

I’d been thinking it, too. A lot.

Every single time I saw her get out of her car and walk inside her house…every single time I watched her come outside for something.

It was fucking torture.

I wanted her back in my arms, even though it was the last place in the world she should be.

Little did I know, in twelve short hours, that my entire stance on having her in my arms would change in a single heartbeat.

“Any status updates at least?” Winnie pushed.

I grinned and leaned forward, tucking a stray hair that’d escaped from her slouchy, messy bun on the top of her head behind her ear.

“Lizzibeth is being…difficult,” I finally hesitated. “She’s decided that she wants half of my estate, one car, and half of my money—including half of my retirement. Oh, and she also wants alimony.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re shitting me.”

I shook my head, the rush of anger surging inside of me. “’Fraid not.”

Winnie’s hands fisted and she stared. “I don’t even know what to say to that. Why was it okay before for her to not have any of those things, but now it’s suddenly something she wants?”

I shook my head. “We were married for like a week. I brought all of my shit into the relationship. She moved into my house. She had her job, I had mine. We kept our own accounts, always had and would. I had two cars when we married, and she had her one. Hell, I don’t even think I’ve ridden in her car before.”

Winnie’s face turned calculating.

“Well…” Winnie said. “If she can play that game, so can you.”

“What do you mean?”

“She has a house, doesn’t she?”

I nodded. “We never sold it. She lives a couple of towns over in a cute little bungalow house with about two acres on it. Horses. Stuff like that.”

“Well, I think you should lay claim to those horses, and the house.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want horses. I wouldn’t know what to do with fucking horses.”

“Does she know that you don’t like horses?”

“Well,” I hesitated. “No. The one and only time that she asked me to ride with her, I was called in to work and got out of explaining to her that I was kinda halfway scared to get on one. She hadn’t asked again, and I’d taken it as a blessing.”

“She likes her horses?” Winnie guessed.

“I can only assume so. She went home every single day to check on them despite having moved in with me and having a neighbor watch after them for her. When I asked her to sell them, she had a mini panic attack.”

“She likes them,” Winnie confirmed. “Tell her that if she gets half of your stuff, you get half of hers. Make sure to specifically mention horses. Oh, and maybe mention to her that it takes a lot of money to have horses. They require a lot of upkeep. Meaning that she’s not hurting for money. What does she do for a living?”

“She’s a nurse anesthetist,” I answered.

Winnie’s eyes went wide. “They make at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, Steel.”

My brows went up. “Yeah?”

Winnie nodded. “Oh yeah, if not more. She has to be smart, too, if she got a job like that. She probably has a pretty good pension going herself. Maybe lay claim to half of that, too. You might also bring up the fact that alimony works both ways. You could actually wind up being the one who gets it since you make less money than her.”

I stared at Winnie in surprise. “You’re devious. How do you know all of this?”

Winnie’s lips thinned. “Just went through it, remember?”

Understanding dawned. “I…”

The front door slammed and Cody ran out, his backpack on his back but the zipper hanging wide open. Each step he took he lost something out of it.

First his folder. Then a library book. A sweatshirt. Papers.

I started to laugh and nodded my head toward him. “Check out your boy.”

Winnie turned, saw what was happening, and shook her head.

“Hey, boyo!”

Cody stopped and looked up. “Yeah?”

“You’re losing your stuff.”

Cody looked behind him where Winnie had gestured, and he threw his hands up in the air. “Awww, man!”

Chuckling under my breath, I waited for Winnie to turn back around before I said, “I’ll call her now.”

The front door slammed again, and Conleigh’s stomping feet could be heard on the porch.

I looked up to see that she was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that said “Buck” on it. I shook my head and returned my eyes to her mother.

Winnie sighed and fished her keys out of her front pocket. “You do that. I gotta get these kids to school.”

“Have fun at work.”

She held her thumb up. “Will do. You, too.”

My lips twitched as I watched her walk away. Then I pulled my phone out and placed a call to Lizzibeth.

“I’m not budging on the alimony or the car,” she greeted me.

I watched Winnie start her car and then Cody and Conleigh pile in before she backed out and accelerated down the street.

Then I went about explaining what was going to happen now.

“Is that what you want me to do?”

“Those horses are mine. They were mine before we married, and you don’t like horses. You even said so multiple times when we were married.”

“I don’t remember saying that,” I agreed. “But I’m finding a sudden fondness for them now.”

“Fuck you,” Lizzibeth snarled.

“Sign the fucking papers.”

Then I hung up and got into my cruiser and drove to work with a huge fucking smile on my face.