Page 27 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Twenty-One

If you have baby fever, take a nap. If you enjoyed that nap, don’t have kids.

—Gunner to Jasper

GUNNER

Life went on.

It was three weeks to the day after I’d fired Yates when I got a call from a school district in Austin asking if I would mind coming down to give them a security assessment.

That security assessment would take me two full days to do, and they wanted it done fast.

So, during my morning run—luckily a short one this time—I brought up leaving Lottie behind with Sutton.

“How long would you be gone?”

“For this first initial part? Only two days. You’d get to take her to daycare for one of those days.

But then you’d have to hang out with her after she gets out, and then feed her.

Get her ready for bed. I can get Audric to do one of the days, but him and Creole are flying to Hawaii Friday, so they can’t watch her… ”

“I’ll do it all.” Sutton waved my hand away. “That’s not why I’m asking.” She wiped sweat from her forehead and explained. “I’m asking only because I want to know whether you’ll be running the long run with me like you usually do.”

I smirked. “I wouldn’t miss pushing you past your comfort zone for the world, Sutton.”

Honestly, I kind of liked pushing her past her comfort zones in other ways as well.

Watching her fall apart when she was in over her head was fascinating.

She stuck her tongue out at me. “When do you leave?”

“If you’re sure you’re okay with taking her, then tomorrow morning.”

“I’m okay,” she promised. “And your whole entire club is here. If I need help, they’re here. But I won’t need help.”

I sped up to get around a trash truck that was pulling out of a parking lot and waited until Sutton was back beside me again before I said, “Let’s take this side road right here. If we don’t, we’re going to be stuck behind that disgusting smell for the rest of our run.”

“Lead the way, Gun.”

I did, taking a side road that would bring us up the back way to my subdivision.

Lottie giggled when the uneven pavement jarred her, making both Sutton and I smile.

That sound was one of the best sounds in the world.

There was literally nothing better.

“The first time that I heard Jett laugh.” Sutton hopped over a pothole.

“Was when you were at batting practice. You had him sitting in one of those little bouncer things outside the batting cages, and he had this big ass sunshade over him. I started to run by, but he reached out and patted my calf as I went, and I bent down to peak under it. He had this huge gummy smile on his face, and I tickled his little belly. Picked up the toy that he’d dropped on the ground, and you turned around and smiled at me so wide when you saw me talking to him. ”

“I remember that,” I said. “You were running cross country that day, and the batting coach was pissed as hell that you had a sports bra and short shorts on while you ran.”

“It was balls hot, and our coach was making us run extra because a couple of the girls had skipped morning practice,” she said. “I took my shirt off because it was the middle of freakin’ August, and hot outside. Your coach grumbled every single time I passed.”

“Because he thought it was a distraction.” I flashed her a wicked grin. “He was right. You were one hell of a distraction. You had the body of a model. Still do. Everyone looked.”

That day was burned into my memory because she’d been bent down talking to Jett, and I’d had one hell of a day. Seeing the two of them smile together had been a great way to soothe my anger at the world.

“Sorry.” She shrugged. “But I’m going to be as comfortable as I can be. I…”She trailed off, and I stopped when she said, “What the hell?”

Her “what the hell” had me turning to see where she was looking, and I came to a bone-jarring halt at what I saw.

“Is that…” she breathed.

“Yes.”

“What the fuck?”

What the fuck indeed.

“What is she doing here?” she whispered. “What are they doing here?”

“She” was Aleah. “They” were Aleah and Yates.

They were both sitting in a car just a little down from the gated entrance to my subdivision.

They obviously knew our routine enough to know that we usually took a left out of the subdivision to run along the roads to the left of the entrance.

They hadn’t expected us to come up from the right, because we never did.

But this time, that hadn’t been the case, and we got a good look at the one person that I had never wanted to see again.

I reached for my phone in Lottie’s stroller and had it up to my ear with Apollo’s name cued up seconds later.

“You do realize, right, that it’s only seven in the morning?”

“I have to get my run done before it gets too hot.” I defended my actions. “Plus, it’s eight o’clock in DC, which, might I add, you’re in right now.”

“I’m livin’ on Texas time,” he grumbled. “What’s up?”

I gave him a quick rundown on what I’d encountered, and he mumbled something that sounded a whole lot like “yippee.”

“I’ll get on it on my end and get back to you.” He snorted. “What dumbasses.”

I hung up with him and said, “Should we go past them and act like we don’t know they’re there?”

“It’d be almost impossible for them not to see us,” she disagreed. “And they’d know that we saw them because they’re in a Jeep with the top off. Let’s go back the way we came and come at it from the correct direction. That way you still have the element of surprise.”

“I guess,” I grumbled.

Every part of me wanted to confront them.

But things were starting to make a bit more sense when it came to Yates.

He’d always been super interested in my life.

It made sense that he’d ask all that kind of information when he was literally with the woman that had changed my life. The woman that still contacted me every once in a while begging for money.

“I want to throw a brick at her face,” Sutton grumbled as we backtracked a mile to come the way we usually came—catching up to the stinky smelling trash truck as we did.

It was quite nauseating, but we still had a good laugh when Lottie kept repeating, “Ewww, stinky!”

“Just wait until we’re not in quite so public of a place.” I chuckled. “Or do it in a way that you aren’t implicated.”

She grumbled under her breath, and it was making me want to laugh despite the shitty situation.

“I always felt like I was one step behind when it came to Yates,” I admitted. “Like he always knew something that I didn’t.”

“Well, apparently, he did.” She started walking again. “I’m tired. We should go to breakfast.”

I snorted. “You’re not going to eat bad because of this. It’s a pain in the ass, yes, but we’re not going to eat our feelings.”

“Watch me,” she said as she rounded the last road that would get us to the gates of the subdivision. “I want to flip them off. Hey, look, there’s a rock. That would look perfect in their windshield.”

I snorted out a laugh. “We have to be good examples because we have a three-year-old listening and watching.”

She sighed so exaggeratedly that she lost her breath by the end.

“I accidentally looked and Aleah has a set of binoculars pointed right at us,” she murmured.

A car started up farther down the road, and we both looked up in time to watch it do a three-point U-turn in the middle of the street before speeding off.

“Yates isn’t stupid,” I admitted. “He’s former military.

He has quite a few years in law enforcement, too.

It just stuns me that he’d be stupid enough to get with Aleah of all people.

She’s not subtle in her dislike for me, nor her craziness.

She doesn’t hide the fact that she’s broke and desperate.

And to be quite truthful here, he felt like he had a head on his shoulders.

There’s got to be something more going on here. ”

“Agreed…” Her voice trailed off. “There’s another non-descript vehicle parked in front of your place.”

I sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Combs are suing me for custody again.”

Our pace slowed to a slow walk, barely moving one foot in front of the other.

“This is getting ridiculous,” she muttered. “How are they even getting in here?”

“That’s a damn good question, because every other time they’ve served me it’s been at work.”

We walked up the length of the driveway, and I was unsurprised to see the woman get out in her sharp power suit.

“Ms. Sway?”

Sutton’s eyes caught mine, and her laugh was comical as she said, “Oh, it’s my turn!”

Sutton turned as the woman walked across the yard, her red-bottomed heels sinking into the grass as she moved toward us.

“That can’t be good for those shoes,” I muttered as she got closer.

“No,” Sutton agreed. “Why don’t you head inside and…”

“I’ll be fine right here,” I disagreed with her before she could finish.

The woman finally made it to us and handed the papers in her hand to Sutton.

Sutton took them with a serene smile and said, “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

The woman was obviously surprised by Sutton’s cordial tone, because she didn’t know how to react at first. She eventually smiled and hurried away, this time taking the long driveway back to her car that was parked near the curb.

Sutton headed inside with me while she ripped open the manilla legal envelope.

“Ahh, just as I suspected. Trash.” She handed the papers to me.

“Guess they weren’t kidding,” I said as I read the paperwork. “I feel like for this to have been filed so fast, they were planning on taking this route anyway. So why visit you where you work? Not to mention, how did she know where you were?”

“That’s a good question, because it’s not like I’ve shared where I’m working on any given day.

I make up my schedule the night before. Not even the funeral homes really know when I’m coming.

” She pushed through the front door of my house, and the smell of pancake syrup and waffles greeted us.

“And how did she know that we were here? And why does it smell like…”

“Paka!”

“Hey there, Beanie Weenie,” my Uncle Parker cooed as he walked toward us.

The biggest, gruffest, scariest man I knew was a goner for my little girl.

Then again, he was a sucker for his own kids as well.

“Ahhh, if it isn’t little Sutton,” he said as he saw who I was with. “I’d heard you’d moved in.”

“Among other things,” Sutton scrunched up her nose. “It’s nice to see you again.”

He took the hand she was holding out and shook it once before he said, “Was in town, so I thought I’d run by. Passed y’all on the road running, so I figured I’d come back and cook waffles. Hungry?”

“Starving,” Sutton admitted. “It’s been a long day.”

“It’s only seven in the morning.”

“Yeah, but a lot of shit has happened since I woke up two hours ago,” she admitted. “I’m gonna go get changed out of these clothes. I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared without another word, tossing the papers onto the counter as she moved past it to her room.

I watched her go, and when I finally returned my gaze to my uncle, he was staring at me with a knowing smile.

“Knew you’d always had a thing for that girl.”

I shrugged.

There was no use denying it.

I had.

“Why the long morning already?” he asked as he moved to my kitchen and started dishing out waffles.

I took the plate for Lottie and set it on the counter where she had a stool that was designed to hang onto the counter securely.

Once I had the food in place, Parker placed her into it then handed her the syrup.

She drowned her waffle in the syrup and Parker had to pull the bottle away or she would’ve kept going.

“Thanks!” she chirped.

Parker winked at her.

“Morning went pretty good until we decided to take a different route this morning and encountered the man I fired yesterday.”

“Which one?”

“Yates.”

“Huh, why’d you have to fire him? He was pretty solid. Rafe even recommended him.” He narrowed his eyes at me.

I explained everything that happened with him over the last couple of months, and ended with who I found him in the car with this morning.

“Son of a bitch,” Parker shook his head. “That’s…”

“Sucky?” I joked.

“That’s one word.” He jerked his chin at the paperwork that was on the corner of the counter. “And that?”

“That,” I grumbled, “is Sutton’s ex causing trouble.”

“Needless trouble,” Sutton breezed in with a wave of her hand, dressed in black leggings, a slouchy black t-shirt, and socks. “Because a few days after moving here, I gave them the go ahead to destroy them. The fertilized eggs are no longer.”

“Do you think that you’ll get in trouble for doing that?” I wondered.

“I don’t see why I would. I mean, they were mine to do with as I pleased.” She paused.

“Send all that information to Gunner’s junkyard dog of a lawyer. Let her sort it out,” Parker suggested. “Now, for the reason I’m here. I want to take Lottie home with me for a few days. We’re headed to the lake to go camping, and Kayla’s jonesin’ for a hit.”

That warmed my heart.

“Well, actually, I was about to go out of town for a few days anyway. I’d asked Sutton to watch her, but if you don’t mind, that’ll free her up to get some work done.

” I raised a brow at Sutton, who looked sort of crestfallen.

I reached out and caught her hand. “You can have her anytime you want her.”

She squeezed it back before heading to the pile of waffles and taking one for herself. “It’s okay. I’ll figure out some other way to occupy my time while y’all are away. Maybe I’ll pick up a few more dead people.”

Parker paused. “I have no idea what that means.”

Sutton sat down and started to eat while I explained what her job was.

In the end, Parker was super interested in how she got into this, and by the end of the meal, they were discussing what she could do to further her career if she wanted to.

“But that’s the thing, I’m not sure if I want to,” she admitted.

“I know this is my last year in the 1500. It’s a young girl’s game, and I’m just not as young as I probably should be to hang.

But I’m going to train for this last one, and then I’m going to pivot into marathons.

I want to pursue this for now…and then we’ll see where I go for my career outside of running.

I have a ton of sponsors that have already talked about making the move with me when I transition to marathons.

Plus, I have a ton of brands that have now asked to pick me up after the last run I ran. ”

“Thanks to me,” I teased.

“All thanks to you, yes.” She rolled her eyes. “I feel like I’ve been chasing after you since we met in high school. All I ever see is your back.”

I winked at her. “But it’s a really nice back, right?”

Parker scoffed. “Conceited much?”

I stood up and started to the sink with my dish. “If the shoe fits.”