Fire Inside (Chaos, #2)(87)
“Honey—”
“Shut it, woman. You bought this, take it.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
Hop glowered at me a moment before he continued.
“I was stayin’ at the Compound, lookin’ for a place. BeeBee was available. I hadn’t had a lay in nearly a f*ckin’ year so I took advantage. None of Tyra’s business why. Tack’s. Yours. Anyone’s. I got off. It wasn’t good. It didn’t suck. What it was was a onetime gig, a man f*ckin’ available gash with no strings. I was a free agent so why the f*ck not?”
“I don’t think Tyra knows that,” I said carefully.
“I don’t give a f*ck she does or doesn’t,” he returned.
I fell silent.
Hop carried on.
“Not long after that, Mitzi talked me back. I thought she wanted to give it another shot. What she wanted was someone to help her with dirty diapers and a mortgage payment. She pulled the wool and I wanted a family so bad, to wake up knowin’ my kids were under my roof, I let her. Then, one day, I come home and some woman is sittin’ on our porch. Never seen this bitch before. I get off my bike, walk up to her, she looks me straight in the eyes and lays it out. Everything. Everything I worked hard to get and Mitzi never gave to me. Everything I learned from a goddamned stranger.”
When he stopped speaking and didn’t seem like he was going to go on, I prompted, “What did you learn, honey?”
“I learned why Mitzi was such a cunt. A spoiled rotten, worthless piece of shit who I wasted f*ckin’ years with. The piece of shit who was the mother of my children. Or, I found out that day, my daughter. Not my goddamned son.”
I was trying not to hyperventilate and had to concentrate so much on this, I only had it in me to nod.
“She was a cheerleader,” Hop announced and I blinked.
“What?” I forced out.
“This bitch. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Perfectly honed body. Goddamned ponytail in her hair. She was the kind of cheerleader who was gonna hold onto that shit, the glory days, until she f*ckin’ died. Or she thought she would until Mitzi blew her life apart.”
I didn’t get it.
Hop didn’t make me ask for an explanation.
“See, back in the day, Mitzi had a thing for the quarterback of her high school football team. She wanted him. Problem was, he was dating the head cheerleader. But Mitzi, Mitzi wanted what she wanted, so she gave it her all to get it. In high school terms, that means she put out. This f*ckin’ guy took what she gave, kept her on the side and went to homecoming and prom with his good girl. This was the beginning and until that day on the porch, it didn’t have an end. Mitzi fixated on this guy. He was all she wanted and, way that bitch told it, she went all out to get him. The shit she said, she was not f*ckin’ jokin’.”
I kept deep breathing.
Hop kept telling his tale of treachery.
“He went to college, his girl went to the same college, but he still kept Mitzi on the side. And she stayed there, givin’ him what his cheerleader couldn’t or wouldn’t. They graduated, got married, he got a job, kept Mitzi and his wife until his work transferred him to another state. That’s when Mitzi realized it might not ever be her so she had to have a plan B. He took his wife, said good-bye and didn’t look back.”
Hop paused, I nodded again and Hop kept going.
“That’s when I came into the picture. That’s why she never let me in. Pinin’ for that guy. Still in touch with him. Holdin’ a torch, holdin’ onto hope. She led me into a life together knowin’, she got a shot, she’d cut me loose and go for him. He got transferred back to Denver after we had Molly and they started up again. Good news for her, she thought, when she found out his wife couldn’t have kids. She and me, things not good, I wasn’t hankerin’ to make another baby with her until I was sure we were solid and it didn’t look like that would happen, so I was surprised as f*ck she turned up pregnant since she was on the pill. But shit happens. I got my son. I rejoiced even if Mitzi was a bitch. My son’s my son, so who wouldn’t rejoice?”
“No one,” I whispered.
“Damn straight,” he bit off. “But, see, this bitch on my porch, she tells me that Mitzi went to her husband and threatened to tell her their history and the fact that Mitzi had his kid if he didn’t break it off with her. To cut her off at the pass, this guy told his wife the whole f*ckin’ thing. Feelin’ like spreadin’ that joy, the bitch comes and shares it with me. Shit blows sky high, as it f*ckin’ would, tests are performed, Cody isn’t mine.”
My heart clutched so hard, the pain excruciating, all I could force out was, “Hop.”
“But he f*ckin’ is,” Hop snarled. “That motherf*cker didn’t hold Mitzi’s goddamned hand in the delivery room. That motherf*cker wasn’t the first human being to wrap his arms around my boy. That motherf*cker didn’t give him his first bottle, change his first diaper, sit with him in a rocker until he fell asleep. I told all of those *s, they’d see a courtroom before they took my kid. The guy talked his wife around, got another transfer, happily told me he was good with me raisin’ his son and they took off. Mitzi saw that she threw her hail Mary and the guy let it drop. He was done with her, and in her twisted, f*cked up head, she blamed me and laid a pile of shit on me so heavy, it’s been years and it’s a wonder I can breathe after that stench. Then she woke up and saw me with her kids, saw what she had and threw away, tried to sort shit with me. I told her I was so far from interested in that, it wasn’t goddamned funny, and further, she pulled any-f*ckin’-thing with me or my kids, she wouldn’t like my response. And here we are.”