Right With Me - Stacey Lewis Page 0,27

her ex is the one who made her see herself that way. I just don’t know how, and that’s a conversation we need to have.

“This is probably the last conversation you want or expected to have tonight, but I think it’s time you tell me about your ex. You know all about Tabitha, it’s only fair I know about him.” I should probably feel bad for putting her on the spot this way, but until she tells me, I won’t know what damage he did to her while they were together. Based on the fact that she doesn’t think she’s worth any effort, he did a fucking lot. That asshole deserves every kind of pain I can dream up.

Hailey looks everywhere but at me. “I don’t think we need to talk about him. He doesn’t even factor into this discussion.”

“I beg to differ.” She’s not getting off that easy. If I didn’t think he mattered, I wouldn’t have brought him up. “Like I said, you know about Tabitha and all the shit she pulled with me. I need to know about your ex too. We won’t have the chance to build any kind of relationship if we don’t put it all out there from the beginning.”

Her head is shaking back and forth, making me think she’s not about to tell me what I’m asking, but then she lets out a loud sigh that sends her bangs straight out above her eyes. “Fine. What do you want to know?” Her voice is petulant, and it makes me smile.

“Whatever you want to tell me.” She scoffs, unable to believe I don’t have some type of question. “Okay, fine. What happened with him? Why did you split? You said a little bit, but you haven’t really told me.”

Now she shrugs, but a sad frown pulls at one side of her delectable mouth. “Same thing that happens in a lot of relationships probably. He was all happy when he found out I was pregnant with Connor, but it wasn’t because he was excited to have a baby.”

“What was he excited about then?” Her words are confusing.

Hailey pushes the hair falling in her face behind her ear self-consciously. “He was just happy he’d have an excuse to leave me at home when he went out with his friends. None of his friends had kids, so it was always him saying I should just stay home with the baby so I wouldn’t be bored. If it wasn’t that, it was that his friends' houses weren’t baby-proofed or they were having an adult’s only party. He always had an excuse for why I couldn’t come with him.” She looks right into my eyes when she continues, her chin coming up defiantly. “I finally decided that if I was going to have to do it all myself, I’d do it by myself too.”

“I get that.”

Her frown turns into a small smile and she looks down again. “The final straw was him refusing to come home when Connor was sick. He was running a high fever and coughing so much he was having trouble breathing. I was so scared, and he was too busy golfing with his buddies to come be with me. Thankfully, my mom came and sat with me at the hospital so I wasn’t alone. I packed my stuff that weekend and was just about to leave when he got home.” The tiny smile turns into a full-fledged grin. “He really wasn’t happy about that. It was one thing for him to ignore me, but having to explain to his friends and business associates that I left him? That was unacceptable.”

My hands turn into fists. “Did he hurt you?” I can barely get the words out around the anger crawling up my throat. Visions of beating the unknown dickhead fill my head and they don’t stop until her soft hand covers my fist.

“No, not like that.”

Hailey’s shaking her head when I look at her, eyes wide as they watch me. I force myself to take deep breaths and try to calm down because I was a second away from going looking for him. “Good.”

The way she’s looking up at me like I’m some kind of hero for being worried about her ex hurting her has me going between two emotions. First, I want to beat the shit out of any man who treated her as anything other than the sweet, beautiful woman she is, and second, I want to pull her on top of me and