“Ex.”
“Right,” I muttered, leaned forward, grabbed my beer, sat back and took a swig before I looked back at him. “See your kids often?”
“Often as I can.”
“Close?”
His eyes grew sharper on my face before he answered but when he answered, with the words he said, this warning would be lost on me.
“Yeah, with both. Kara’s gettin’ to a stage, doesn’t get along with her Mom so I try to be around and if I can’t, I’m a phone call away. Something she takes advantage of so it’s good for me since I connect with her often though it sucks why she feels the need to do it. Brand’s all me, top to toe to heart to mind, all my boy.”
His casual, yet careful, words pierced through me like spears and I froze in an effort to contain the pain.
Then the pain engulfed me and I couldn’t contain it anymore.
As it swallowed me into its dark, fiery pit, I tossed my plate of ziti on the table. It went skidding across the files and flew over the other side as I drew my other arm back and brought it forward in a sidearm slice, releasing my beer so it sailed past him and shattered against the low wall under the windows at his back, foaming beer spraying in wide spatter all around.
His feet came off the table and I knew by his eyes, he knew.
He knew.
He didn’t forget.
That motherfucker knew.
“Sylvie, let me –” he started.
“You named her kids my names,” I whispered, my breaths coming heavy.
“Sylvie –”
Shit, f**k, shit.
I couldn’t take it.
We’d talked about it. We’d talked. Frequently. Talked. Dreamed. Planned. Frequently.
I told him, we had a girl, she’d be named Kara. We had a boy, we’d name him after his Dad.
Those were my names.
My f**king names!
“You named her kids my names!” I screamed then attacked.
Launching myself over the table, I hit him in the chest. His chair slammed back, taking us and his plate with it, ziti smushed between us but I did not give one, single, solitary f**k.
He named another woman’s children my names!
That f**king motherfucker!
I shot up to straddling him, my knees in the back of the chair, my arm coming back in preparation to land a blow and he shot up with me, arms coming around me, effectively taking away my target. He pulled me to him, rolled the both of us free of the chair then kicked it and I heard it slide and crash against something that stopped it.
I’d learned early and quick that my size was a major detriment to pretty much anything, especially if it was physical. I was in shape, no doubt about it, but I was small, thin and a woman so I had to aim true, be willing not to fight fair and be smart, fast, ballsy and sly.
I was so pissed, I lost sight of all that and Creed immediately gained the advantage. If I didn’t pull my shit together, his weight, height and power would have me defenseless in seconds.
But there was no way in f**k he was winning this.