“Mom! I’m gonna be late!” I smiled and turned around. Elliot was running toward me in his little school outfit with his blue backpack. Patting my hands on my apron, I pulled him into a hug. “Good morning, pumpkin.” “Mmm…mmmm….we….nneeee…..goooo….” I let go and he exaggerated taking in breaths. “What’s got you so excited about school today?” “We are having animals come today and they have a frog!” Smiling, my son’s newest obsession has been frogs, but his inability to find a frog at our local parks has left him depressed for the last couple months. When he heard there were going to be animals at his Pre-K class, he specifically asked for a frog. I didn’t know if they did actually have one, but it sounded like someone made a promise he was going to hold them accountable for. “Alright, sweetheart. We will go now.” I pulled off my apron and took his hand. “Mike, I’m going to take Elliot to school. I’ll be back in a half hour.” “Sounds good. Have fun, kiddo!” Elliot went up to Mike
“I’m sorry…what?” The voice on the other end stammered. Wiping my eyes, I shook my head at Mike who sent me a worried glare. Turning, I leaned against the wall, away from the eyes of customers. “I said, what took you people so damn long? I put in requests for the divorce as soon as I heard about his engagement to that model. I didn’t hear a single reply back. Not one. Honestly, three fucking months till their wedding and you’re just calling me now?” I could hear laughter on the other end. I knew other people were listening and I wondered if he was as well. I hoped he was. I hope he could hear the spite in my voice. “I’m sorry, ma’am, there are some circumstances that prevented us previously from coming forward. However, we would like to invite you out to the office to settle everything.” “Oh yeah?” I rolled my eyes. Of course, out to them. Why am I not surprised? “You realize I run my own business and I have other things that I need to do, correct? I can’t just drop everything for
Rubbing my eyes, I looked up at the carousel with my flight information on it. I was already holding my hard case with my bionic arm in it. I found out it was much easier to carry on my arm than it was to wear it in the airport. Most of the time, they made you break it apart anyways to look at it since they can’t wand it because it’s full metal. So, it’s just better that it goes through the machine like an instrument. It was a pain to be one handed, but usually airport staff were nice enough to help. There are always exceptions to that, and New York was one of them. It was absolute chaos trying to get through this airport. Finally, one of my fellow passengers, a doctor out for a conference, was nice enough to help me when I needed it. I knew I would be going from the airport to my hotel, then directly to the office because the flight landed on time but took an extra twenty minutes to get unloaded. Sighing, I set my arm down between my legs and leaned over, eyeing my bag. Quickly grabb
His back was turned to me and he was looking out the window. I thanked the gods that I didn’t meet his eyes. I think right there I would have crumbled. But seeing his back, being reminded that all I would ever see is this man’s back made me angrier. It helped me look back down at the page and fight through the pain that now hammered in my heart. Reading over the first couple pages, I went back and started crossing out paragraphs. Fifteen million. They were offering me fifteen fucking million and part of me wanted to be a petty bitch and take them for all their pennies. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t even take them for more than what I was thinking to help Elliot in the future. Reading through more of it, fifteen million wasn’t even all of it. They also added in a trust of five million, which I crossed out and put one million. That would cover all of Elliot’s college and then some if he wanted to invest in something for his future. Everything else I crossed out. I came to a fun clause
***Zachary’s POV*** “She crossed off all the money.” I didn’t move from where I had fallen back. My hand had touched her shoulder, or what was left of it. Suddenly all her movements with only her left hand made sense. She lost her arm, her whole right arm, saving me. It was enough to do so much damage they just removed it. We also weren’t in Vegas. We were in Greece, for our honeymoon. Not only had we signed the marriage certificate sober but then we had a honeymoon. “What do you mean she crossed off all the money?” Jason grabbed the papers out of Derek’s hands. “Shit. Everything but one million put into a trust account. Literally everything.” I looked at them before racing down the hallway. Jason was behind me, but I didn’t know if Stacy had also made it out. Almost sliding to a stop, I saw her, standing in front of the elevators. Every time I laid eyes on her my heart did flips. When I walked in and looked at her, her head down reading the document, I thought I was going to los
Peeling my eyes open, I was met with the familiar throbbing headache. It hit differently with an extra burn in the stomach and throat. Slowly sitting up, I looked around. I was in bed, which I didn’t remember being in. Hell, I didn’t even remember coming inside. The last thing I remembered sitting out in the rain, strumming and singing. I felt better. I felt better minus the copious amount of whiskey that was burning its way through my veins. Sitting up, I was still in my dress shirt and slacks. I discarded them and pulled on some sweats. Making my way down the stairs, I opened up the fridge and grabbed some milk. I needed something to coat my stomach at this point. I didn’t even know what time it was. There was still an edge of fuzziness that confirmed I’d drank enough that I hadn’t slept it off. “Welcome back to the land of the living.” Spewing milk over the counter, I nearly jumped out of my skin as Adrian popped his head up over the couch. “Fucking hell. Dumbass, don’t scare th
“When did this article go live?” “A few minutes ago.” Stacy was trying to find the initial source of the video and article, but it was blowing up so many places that it was hard to track exactly where it was coming from. Lately, more stuff had been posted by fans on social media platforms when articles picked them up. “Stop. Don’t. It’s not worth it. If they had sent an email out before it got posted, we could have stopped it. It’s already up on TV and it’s all over social media. She is a social media whore. We won’t make a dent. Even with the whole social team working on it.” I rubbed my temples. I picked up the phone on my desk. My personal cell was off since yesterday and now I really didn’t want to turn it on. Dialing a number I loathed to remember, I leaned forward in my chair, with my elbows on my desk, putting the call on speaker as it rang. “Claudia Anderson here.” “Hi, Mother.” I heard a scoff in the background. “Zachary, what a surprise. To what do I owe this pleasure?
“Are you sure you want to continue?” I laughed through the tears. “I mean, it can’t hurt any worse than it does, right?” “I think we need Jason and more liquor, though.” Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes. Fuck, when was the last time I cried like this? College maybe? No, before that. High school after my dad told us that he didn’t care that Adrian and I didn’t approve of Claudia. He had married her already and so she was our mother whether or not we liked it. “Adrian was with him, so I guess we get double trouble. But that means double the liquor.” I sighed. “I didn’t tell Adrian yet. He kept asking questions but I didn’t say.” “It’s fine. I’m sure Jason already spilled the beans. He sounded drunk already.” “Great. Now, I’m never going to hear the end of this.” Stacy laughed. “What? Them catching us sitting on the floor of your office, looking like a mess because we just cried through those photos and that was the smaller of the four folders? Yeah. No doubt. How old are we