“What am I supposed to tell our parents?” he asked.
“Tell them that I’m working and going to school,” I said. “Which I am.”
My parents didn’t know what I did before, but Louis did.
They thought I was just a roamer that liked to take odd jobs here and there. Which, technically, wasn’t a lie. I went where the jobs took me.
It only happened that I was FBI—or former FBI anyway.
“You were supposed to come down this weekend. Our party, remember?” he grumbled.
Our dad’s birthday was this weekend. “I’ll be there.”
After I visited my man again, anyway.
CHAPTER 16
You smell like drama.
-Text from Beckham to Sammy
BECKHAM
I looked at myself in the mirror.
There was no hiding it or denying it any longer.
I fitted the tank top straps into place, tugged up my newly bought jeans, then slipped into a pair of boots that would allow me to run if I needed to.
I finished the ensemble off with my wedding ring and his, fitting them both into place.
My wedding ring I wore on my ring finger.
Trouper’s wedding ring I wore on a chain around my neck.
Just before I began to walk outside, my phone rang.
I frowned when I saw the number.
“Hello?” I answered.
“This is Warden Stanley.”
My heart jumped.
“Yes?”
“I’m putting you in a private room again,” he said. “I’ll continue to do that for the rest of Trouper’s stay here.”
I grinned wickedly.
“Did you find her?” I asked, hope filling my voice.
“She’s on the way home as we speak. My son is with her.” His voice broke.
I grinned so widely that my face hurt.
“That’s the best news that I’ve heard all day,” I admitted. “But, I, um, have some more for you. Not anything near as exciting as this. But about a few things that you might find helpful at that prison of yours.”
“Is that right?” he asked. “What do I give you in return?”
I was already shaking my head. “I don’t need anything in return. I just want that place safe for Trouper. If I give you the information, that might happen.”
Meaning, if I got rid of a few bad apples, they might not take their bad attitudes out on Trouper while he was there.
“Drop it by on the way out,” he suggested.
After promising that I would, I headed in the direction of the prison.
I went through the same song and dance as last time, and then was walked to the private meeting rooms I was in before.
This time, Trouper was already there waiting on me.
Since Troup never looked up from his angry glare at the table, he didn’t see what I’d been hiding over the last couple of months.
When I took my seat, he reluctantly picked up the phone and placed it to his ear.
I picked up mine, so fucking happy to see him that I was dancing in my seat.
He did not look amused.
“You need to leave,” was the first thing out of his mouth.
I was already shaking my head.
“No,” I refused. “I will not leave.”
“You need to leave, because I don’t want you here.”
I knew that he didn’t.
He was serious about that.
He did not want me here, seeing him like this.
But he didn’t get a choice.
Just like I didn’t get the choice of him beating the absolute shit out of someone to the brink of death and paralyzing the man forever.
Nope, he didn’t get to decide whether I came to visit him or not.
Not anymore.
“You were the one who told me it would all be okay,” I told him. “And it is. By me coming to see you. I don’t have a job anymore. There’s nothing tying me down. And since you can’t really come see me just yet, that means that I am going to sit here, every fucking time that I’m allowed to, and you’re going to not complain because you love me.”
Trouper’s eye twitched.
He wanted to argue.
I could see it in his eyes.
But he also wanted to see me.
He was at war with himself.
Instead of answering or saying anything, he hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed across his chest, biceps bulging.
I narrowed my eyes.
That little shit.
He thought he could just sit there and not talk to me?
Well, little did he know that I came prepared.
I pulled up the piece of paper that I’d written on before I’d come in here.
The words were bold and bright on the white background, and there was no way that he wouldn’t be able to read the letters.
I picked it up, stood up, and then slapped the note against the glass.
I’m pregnant.
Those two words dropped like a bomb.
He read them, his mouth dropped open, and then I shit you not, he looked like he was about to throw up.
I laughed.
That made two of us.
I’d been nauseous for weeks.
He slowly reached for the phone and placed it to his ear.
“You’re pregnant?” he asked, sounding strangled.