My Future Husband

Chapter 10

“Wow... that's... a lot.” Me and Heather sit with our legs hanging off the edge of the lighthouse, Liam safely inside with Teal on his lap. The poor thing is petrified of heights.

Liam, not Teal, that boy isn’t afraid of anything.

“Yep.” She offers me her bottle of orange juice like it’s whiskey, so I take a quick shot before handing it back. I should’ve told her a long time ago. Obviously I left out the particularly gory parts about the mafia and murder, she’s still only fourteen, but I filled her in on what I could.

“At least you’ve done the whole ‘boyfriend coming back from the dead’ thing before.”

“You’re Auntie BeeBee already beat you to the zombie jokes.” She snorts, sipping her juice. “Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, even your mum and dad don’t know everything.”

“I get it, but you should’ve.” I know. It’s the lies that hurt the most. “I’d like to meet Elba, she sounds awesome.” Yeah, she was.

“She’d love you.” She’d take Heather under her wing in a heartbeat.

I’ve found myself thinking about Elba more than I’d care to admit, wondering where she is, if she got out, or if she’s still stuck in that world. I promised her one day we’d sit on this beach, drinking cheap wine and smiling at our new found freedom. One of my life’s biggest regrets will always be that I’ll never be able to give her that.

“So, Kage... What are you gonna do? I mean, it’s just been you and Teal for so long, it's going to be hard for you to give him up if he wants to like, fight you for custody or something?” I can’t even think about that. It’s not like he wouldn’t have solid grounds, I hid his child from him, I’ve got a record, up until Teal was six months old I was having weekly visits from child protective services due to my history.

I passed every test, proved myself a worthy mom, but I know it doesn’t read well on paper. If he wanted to fight me, he could, but I can’t imagine him ever wanting to take that boy away from me.

Not that he’d actually get a chance to, Brie would have his severed head stapled to the Welcome to Westbrooke sign before she let anyone have my son.

“It won't come to that. Right now, I’m more concerned whether he’ll even want to know him.” I know a part of him will, when the dust settles and he can understand, but there's a lot of guys that would just get in their car and drive straight out of town.

“What about you? I mean... I don’t think I’ve ever been in love, but from what Mum tells me, it’s not just something you get over.” There would be a lot less damaged people in the world if we could. “Do you want to get back together?”

Please don’t ask me that.

“It's not about me, at this point me and him aren't even part of the question.” It kills me to even think it, but it’s true. Our relationship isn’t the important one, it’s his and Teal’s. “It's been an absolute whore of a day.”

“Speaking of whores... You going to try and talk to Hope or what?” I cackle, her hatred for that girl knows absolutely no bounds.

“Heather.” She mouths an ‘I’m sorry’ to me, but we both know she doesn’t mean it.

She doesn’t actually have any reason to hate Hope, when she was younger I thought it was just jealousy, she hated that Liam had someone else in his life he could depend on, but now I think it’s some misguided way of protecting him. If no one else gets close to him, no one can hurt him. He’s had enough hurt for a lifetime, she just wants to protect him from any more.