Page 30

CHAPTER 30

RICHARD

It’s been over four weeks since Miriam gutted me at her bus stop. I’ve been worthless at work, unable to keep focused on my cases and making mistakes left and right. Not until my partner sat down and expressed his concern over the future of our practice did I realize I needed to take a few days to get my head straight.

I missed her appointment and probably another. I’ve received updates, but I can’t keep it all straight. It wasn’t on purpose. Dates have been jumbled in my head and with the lack of sleep, my work hours have been scattered, so I was an entire two days off my calendar by the time I realized I missed it.

Even Kevin texting, “Where are you?” didn’t pull me from my dark thoughts and bring me back to reality.

As soon as I understood I dropped the ball, I texted Miriam to explain why I wasn’t there. Her “No worries” text didn’t sit right with me, and I spun even lower. Then I did the craziest thing without a thought.

I downloaded a program to learn Spanish. It came out of nowhere, but it was an automatic reaction to realizing I’ve fucked up again and the only way I knew how to start taking steps to be a better human fucking being.

Between work hours, when I’ve struggled to sleep, I’ve been pouring through slides and recordings, repeating them to myself in the dark of my room at night, practicing pronunciation. One thing I’ve learned since I’ve started is Miriam loves to curse.

A knock on the door startles me and I strike quite a few computer keys when I jerk in my chair. I’ve barely been back a few days and I don’t quite have my feet underneath me yet. “Yeah?” I call out.

What I don’t expect is for my door to swing open and the woman who’s been occupying my thoughts for the last month strides in, pissed and fired up, ready to go to battle. “We need to talk, Dick .”

Dropping into the chair closest to me, the first thing I notice is she’s lost weight. “Miriam,” I murmur, not sure what else to say, completely blindsided that she’s here. How the hell did she get here? That thought swirls until I can’t hold back. “Did you ride a bus all the way here? My God woman, that’s incredibly unsafe in your condition!”

The moment it comes out, I know it was the wrong thing to say. If she were a fictional character, I swear she’d turn into a steaming engine, smoke billowing from her ears. Instead, she presses her lips together and breathes heavily through her nose.

“Would you call your boys and tell them we all need to have a talk? I have about two hours before I need to get back to my family and I have shit to say to all of you.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, ignoring her anger and more focused on the severity of her words.

“ Please ,” she bites out. Nodding, I pick up my cellphone and quickly text Kevin.

Me: Miriam is sitting in my office and not so politely requesting your presence. Would you call Tate and Ez on your way here?

He responds immediately.

Kevin: On my way. What’s going on?

Me: No clue, but she’s furious.

Setting my phone down, I say, “Done. What happened?”

“I think the more important question is, what didn’t happen?” She’s leaning forward with hands clenched tightly in her hands, most likely holding herself back from lashing out. I literally have no clue what she’s talking about.

I wrack my brain for anything I could have done to her. We haven’t spoken in weeks, so I haven’t been rude. I haven’t gone back to her place to confront her again. My father has been helping me put together a plan for the future for the child in the event something happens to me. The only thing that’s fully ready to go is a college fund. We just need the baby’s information, which is impossible until he or she is born.

Miriam is slowly blinking at me, her lip curled up as if she’s ready to attack.

What the hell did I forget?

“The fucking appointment for DNA testing,” she hisses. “I assume that’s what you’re trying to figure out right now. You didn’t show up again for the appointment and now they won’t let me schedule a third time because of not one, but two no shows!”

As she’s scolding me, she slowly stands up and plants her hands on the edge of my desk, her winter jacket parting just enough for my eyes to catch the small swelling of her stomach. It’s only a hint as her shirt stretches across it, but it causes me to suck in a gasp.

She looks down at the sound to see where I’m looking, then whips her head back up to shoot daggers. Her silent warning is daring me to make a comment, so I bite my tongue. Today, because I’ve so obviously fucked up, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.

Sitting back down, she crosses her arms and looks away. “We’ll wait until they get here. Por qué siempre soy yo quien tiene que lidiar con hombres idiotas? ” I tilt my head, and actually fucking smile for the first time in a month. I understood a bit of that, having picked up on why and idiot men . She doesn’t need to give me anymore details. “Feel free to work while I wait.”

I jump, finding myself staring at her mouth, waiting for more Spanish I can pick out. With a cough, I clear my throat and focus back on my screen. We don’t say a word when Kevin lets himself in. He immediately senses the tension in the room, so instead of saying anything, he sits in the chair next to Miriam, analyzing her when she won’t notice him staring.

It’s another thirty minutes before Tatum and Ezra show up, the latter rushing into the room and relaxing the moment his eyes fall on the back of Miriam’s head. “Petal! I’ve?—”

Interrupting him, I try to do damage control because he hasn’t seen her face yet. She’s drained and stressed beyond belief. “Ez, sit down. I’m certain there’s a lot which needs to be discussed.”

She almost gives me a thankful look, but I could just be hopeful. Hell, I’m becoming someone else completely… Since when do I worry about fawning over someone?

Tatum places his hand on the back of her chair and bends down to see her face with a friendly smile, which quickly falls into a worried frown when she doesn’t reciprocate. I’m also surprised by his familiarity and I’ll definitely be asking him about it later.

“So,” she and I both say simultaneously. I hold up my hand but she dips her chin, giving me the floor. “Apparently, we’ve all missed the appointments Miriam has scheduled for a paternity test.”

“One I’ve had to go have my blood drawn twice now for, I’d like to add.” Fuck, she’s rightfully fucking pissed, and knowing she’s taken time out twice for us to not show up doesn’t sit right. I’d be furious if I had clients who repeatedly didn’t show.

Looking around at my friends, I see Tatum and Ezra looking at each other and Kevin looking at my desk with a frown, thinking hard. He turns to Miriam.

“I only knew of the one and let you know why I wasn’t able to come, which I’d apologized for. Why didn’t you let me know about the second one?”

“I did,” she snaps. “I texted you all the date and time in that group chat Tate set up.”

He pulls out his cell, asking, “When did you text?”

“Last week,” Tatum supplies. He clearly knew when it was, and he looks sheepishly at Miriam, then kicks Ezra with his foot and asks him, “Want to share why we didn’t go, or should I?”

Miriam is doing her best to rein in her temper, but she’s breathing hard, her chest rising and falling quickly. “Does it matter at this point? Courtesy would have been to let me know before the appointment so I could cancel. Now they aren’t letting me make another one because you all didn’t freaking show up!” She looks at all of us. “I thought we all decided that this needed to be found out so none of you would be sitting in limbo for the next five months!”

Kevin is still scrolling through his phone, then turns it to her. “I don’t have anything here from you. If Tate’s date is right, that’s when we were wrapping up a case and I was called in for a press conference by the district attorney.” Tatum hands over his phone and shows him the text. As Kevin reads, his brows lower further over his eyes. “I’m sorry, Miriam. I never read this. If I had, I would have been there.”

Snorting in annoyance, she’s less snippy with him, but still annoyed. “You should probably ask Sandra if she’s been sneaking around on your phone.”

I’m not entirely sure what that means, but Kevin certainly does because he tightens his hand around his cellphone before shoving it angrily into his pocket. “I plan on it,” he says dangerously, but Miriam doesn’t react.

Instead, she points at me. “What about you? Why didn’t you show up?”

“Honestly? I have no excuse. I simply got my days mixed up.” Picking up my planner that goes everywhere with me, I show her where I had written it down. I always cross of the days as they pass by and I’m two days behind. “I thought it was the day after tomorrow.”

“On a Sunday…” she drawls.

“Well, I thought today was Wednesday, not Friday. I’m sorry,” I say back. It’s not a good excuse, but here we are and I can’t go back in time.

Her jaw works against her desire to lay into me, but what can she say? I wasn’t there and I’m not going to throw my mistake back at her. Taking accountability is something I am capable of doing. Whether she believes me or not, that’s up to her.

Jerking her eyes away from me, she zeros in on the last two. “I’d ask why you two didn’t show up, but at this point, it doesn’t matter. It’s been missed. So, what are we going to do about it now?”

“I don’t want to know,” Ezra blurts out, then glances at Tatum for reassurance.

The rest of what he says shocks me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Ezra speak this seriously before over all the years I’ve known him.

“I don’t want to know because I’m worried that whatever my dad fucked up in here”—he taps the side of his head—“will pass to my kid. I’m afraid I won’t be a good dad because the only one I’ve had was a monster. I don’t know how to do it.”

It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop in the room. Ezra seems ashamed as he drops his head to look at the floor, unable to meet Miriam’s gaze.

Tatum clears his throat. “I knew he was spiraling. If I got tested, and the baby wasn’t mine, I knew he’d spin out with the higher likelihood he is . I should have told you. I dropped the ball, since I was unsure how to explain without breaking Ez’s confidence.”

Miriam watches Ezra with a hard, considering look, then leans forward and uses her fingers to rub at her temples. “Okay,” she whispers. Looking at no one, she adds, “This is becoming really overwhelming for me. Trying to coordinate while everyone isn’t fully communicating is turning this whole thing into an even bigger shitshow that it already was.”

Stepping up, I quietly lay out an idea that just popped into my head. “Let’s not worry about testing until after the baby is born. If everyone agrees, we could continue as if we’re all a part of this equally. This can’t be good for you, the stress I mean.”

“It’s not,” she says, totally drained.

“I will agree to that,” Kevin adds while setting his palm on her back and leans down to see her face. “If you’re comfortable, too.” Tatum and Ezra agree as well and we wait on her answer.

She sucks in a broken gasp of air, fighting off her emotions. “Alright. We’ll wait. I need to get going.” Grabbing her bag, she leaves my office without another word.

Jumping up, I leave all my things behind, but grab my coat. “Get out of my office. I have to lock up.”

The three of them exit, and I don’t pay attention to what they’re doing. I need to catch up to Miriam. Outside, I see her already halfway to the corner, so I run to catch up and walk alongside her in silence.

When a snowflake hits my cheek, I look up and notice darkening clouds in the distance. It’s going to snow again, which spurs my memory of a weather notification that has been alarming on my phone. Another storm is supposed to hit, growing in strength by this evening.

“Are you sure you need to get back tonight?” I ask, then point at the sky when she glances at me. “This shit is supposed to take a turn, and I don’t want you to get stranded somewhere between here and your home.”

Brushing the flakes from her face, she doesn’t meet my eye. “I’m not going all the way home. I’m going to my dad’s place to see him and my brothers. That’s where I’ll be staying until the storm passes.”

I debate, but say fuck it and ask anyway. “Would you let me drive you?”

“Sure,” she says, and I’m ready to argue when she declines, so I have to look at her twice. It’s the first time she’s acquiesced.

Placing my hand on her lower back, I guide her around my building to where I’m parked. “This way, then, and thank you.”

“For what? Giving me a ride? I’m thankful. Honestly, the ride here was hell on my back and I was dreading finding another plastic seat to sit on for the next hour or so.”

Smiling to myself, I grab the door and hold it while she slips in, then get us on the road. She gives me quick directions and thankfully it’s easy enough to find our way, even in the decreasing visibility as the snow starts picking up and blowing around.

Hopefully, the roads will stay clear enough for me to make my way back home.