wanted the friends with benefits, no emotions getting involved arrangement, remember?”
“She?” he scoffs. “Are you telling me things have changed for you?”
“Are you telling me that you wouldn’t consider trying to work on a relationship with her if the paternity test comes back that you’re the dad?” I challenge.
“Listen,” he rolls his head to look away, “I already told her I’m not going to enter into a relationship with her just because we’re having a baby together.”
“Could possibly be having a baby together,” I correct.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m actually confused on the point you’re trying to make. You are trying to make a point, right?”
“Are you considering dating her if the baby is yours?”
I wonder how he’d feel if I told him I’m ecstatic that he isn’t planning to date her if the baby is his. Something in me shifted when we had that first conversation in the hospital about the baby. When the doctor said the baby was fine and the heartbeat was strong, I was already thinking of the things I wanted to teach him or her.
A phone ringing interrupts the moment, thankfully, keeping me from having to explain my intentions to him.
“Yours?” Jinx asks, but he’s reaching to the pile of Simone’s things on the coffee table.
“Hers,” I answer, but by the time he digs it out of the mess on the table it grows silent.
“It’s a Vermont number,” he says, looking down at the screen.
We both wait, staring down at the phone as the screen goes to black. Just as he’s about to shove it back in her purse, the screen beeps with a voicemail alert.
“Don’t,” I tell him when he lifts the phone closer to him. “You think she’s upset now about the apartment? She’ll be livid if she finds you going through her phone.”
“Didn’t you say Detective Matthews was looking for this thing?”
I nod. “It was in her belongings when she was admitted to the hospital.”
“Shouldn’t we check to make sure there isn’t anything incriminating in here?”
I’m torn. One, because I don’t know what I’ll do if we find something that would hurt her case because I completely believe her when she tells me she was protecting herself, and two, if she was lying, I wouldn’t feel right about keeping that shit from the police. Fuck, what sticky webs we weave.
“How about I just listen to this voicemail? It may be important. A family member checking on her.”
It doesn’t take another word before I’m nodding my head in agreement. “Put it on speaker but turn the volume down low so she doesn’t hear.”
The sound of the shower going can still be heard from her en suite.
“You stupid fucking cunt!” We both snap back at the gruff, angry sound of the man leaving the message. “If you think you’re going to get away with this, you have another thing coming! My only son! He was my only fucking son and you think you have the right to kill him! You’ll pay for this! You’re dead, bitch!”
The message ends, and we’re both in shock staring down at the phone as if the devil himself will come crawling out.
“What the fuck?” Jinx mutters. “Murphy’s dad?”
“That’s my guess. Can you get his contact information to Shadow? I’m going to go check on her.”
Jinx doesn’t move from the couch except to lift his hip and pull his phone from his back pocket.
“Are you staying?” He cocks an eyebrow at me.
“Why would I leave? Technology is amazing. I don’t have to get off this couch to get Shadow the information so we can figure out how big of a threat that mother fucker is. Besides, I’m going to stay to make sure she doesn’t need anything.”
“I’m capable of helping her if she needs anything,” I grind out before walking away.
Jinx’s voice on the phone with Shadow follows me down the hall.
The shower is still going in the bathroom, but that doesn’t give me pause. It’s the nearly silent sobs escaping under the bathroom door that has me creeping closer.
“Simone?” I wrap on the door with two knuckles. “Are you okay?”
She sniffles. “I’m fine.”
“We talked about those two words not long ago,” I tell her as I open the door and step inside.
The room is filled with steam, and I find Simone sitting on the closed toilet lid with red eyes and puffy cheeks.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t get my shirt off.” It isn’t until she says something that I pull my eyes away from her bare, slender thighs to notice her