The Lies Between Us (The Devil's Dust #4)(3)

He looks over his shoulder then back to me with a crooked smile. He knows I’m uneasy and is getting off on it. Asshole.

“Just spit it out and get the f*ck off my porch.” His words shoot straight to my heart like cancer. My blood runs toxic and my lips curl. Total prick!

“I’m f*cking pregnant!” I snap.

His eyes go wide, and his friends go quiet. Eric glances over his shoulder with a look of embarrassment, and walks out of the house, slamming the door.

“What the f*ck do you mean? You weren’t on the pill?” He strides up to me, his body way too close.

I hold my hands out and push him away from me.

“No, I wasn’t on the f*cking pill. I was a virgin, you dumbass.” I throw the pee stick at him.

“I don’t want anything to do with it - with you.” He holds his hands up and walks backwards like the baby growing in my belly might jump out at any minute.

“I can get an abortion or something,” I mutter, not really thinking. My brain feels stuffed, like it’s at max capacity and pushing against my skull. All of this is happening at once and I can’t deal. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead trying to ease the pain, the racing thoughts.

“What? Jesus, Lindsay. I guess you can just put me first on a long list of those, huh? They’ll know you by name in a couple years, I bet.” He chuckles, his tone back to that bully in high school. My hands clench, and I want to rip his smug face off his head. I don’t want to give the baby up, I’m just nervous and word vomited before I could really think about what I was saying. This baby has a piece of me, and I would never harm him or her.

“But it’s probably for the best looking at who her mother is,” Eric clips. My heart sinks, knowing he would want to cause harm to our child just because of me though.

“Yeah, know what? I’ll keep it and get your ass for every f*cking dime.” I turn to walk down the stairs and he grabs my arm.

“You wouldn’t dare.” His face holds a deathly promise, but I don’t falter. Eric’s real mother left his dad when Eric was young, after she bled his father dry for years. Everyone around the trailer park heard the fights late at night. I knew saying I would take all of Eric’s money would spark his wick of anger.

“Try me, ass-wipe,” I grit. He digs his hold into my arm, and I whimper.

“You don’t want to mess with me. I know people, Lindsay Cole,” he threatens. I bring my knee up and slam it into his balls. He instantly lets go of my arm and drops to the porch. If I learned anything from my piece-of-shit father, it’s that the balls are your best option when you want to get away.

“You don’t want to mess with me. I don’t need people to do my dirty work, Eric. I’ll just f*cking tear you to shreds myself.” I step over him, a smirk of pride fitting my face.

“I’m not scared of you, freckled-face Lindsay Cole.” His voice is laced with a screech from the amount of pain he’s in.

I walk down the steps and flip him the bird. “Then you’re one stupid motherf*cker!”


10 Months Later

“Judge, Mr. McCormick is an unacceptable guardian for the child. He-”

“I’m going to cut you off right there, counselor. Looking at Ms. Cole’s file here, I would have to beg to differ,” Judge Calhoun interjects. I swallow the dry lump in my throat, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. A nervous sweat breaks out on my forehead. Judge Calhoun is an older man; his hair is curly and mostly white, with a few specks of black sweeping through the back. He’s wearing rimless glasses that sit on the bridge of his nose, and he has that ‘don’t give me shit’ look down pat.

“Judge, i-if I m-may,” my lawyer stammers, and I give him a sideways glance. I couldn’t afford a lawyer, so I was handed this f*cktard, who doesn’t seem to know what the hell he’s doing. I can’t tell if he’s trying to be bad at this, or if he just sucks outright.

“No, you may not,” the judge cuts him off. He holds up a piece of paper, tilting his head back to look through his glasses. “Lindsay Cole, two counts of theft, illegal substances, assault,” Judge Calhoun rambles onward, reading my record of all the unlawful incidents I’ve been pegged for over time. How does he have that shit on me? He sighs and swipes his glasses off his face, narrowing his eyes at me like I’m the Devil. “She has a rap sheet a mile long. As for the father, he’s as clean as a whistle. I think I would be doing this child a favor taking the mother out of the picture.” I gasp with dread and pull on my lawyer’s arm. My ears ring, and I feel like I may faint.

“How does he know about those things? All of it happened when I was underage,” I whisper in disbelief. “You have to do something!” My lawyer has a look of ignorance written on his face, like he’s in above his head, and my mouth pops open. I’m dumbfounded at how stupid he is for a f*cking lawyer.

I avert my eyes from my lawyer and glance at Eric across the way. He’s sitting back in his chair, an arrogant smirk across his face as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. He thinks he’s going to win this, and by the way this is going, he just might. Gah! I just want to slam his face into that table. My fingernails dig into my chair with the unbearable urge to do it. He doesn’t want Piper; he just wants her so I can’t tarnish his name. He wants to prove a point his father couldn’t prove with his mother. He wants to hurt me ‘cause he knows he can. That is who he is, after all; he’s a bully and he won’t change. A little boy with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant that was stupid enough to walk right in his line of sight.