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“Why? Do you have plans tonight?”
“Yes.”
“With your boyfriend, Liam?”
Slightly taken aback at the question, she blinked at him before answering. “Yes.”
She didn’t ask how he knew about Liam, so David assumed she thought Jacob had passed along that information. “Well, you might want to let him know your plans are going to be delayed.”
“Delayed for how long?”
“I don’t know,” he told her blandly. “Hopefully not long.”
Her expression aggravated, David watched as she proceeded to send a text to Liam, then stare down at her phone, waiting for his reply. “So, what’s this about?” she asked again.
Now aggravated himself, because Ashley was focused on her phone like a thirteen-year-old, he did what he’d always done in the past when having to ‘compete’ for her attention: nothing.
It took her about a minute to realize he hadn’t responded to her question and looked up. “What’s this about?” she asked a third time.
Since she now actually had eyes on him, David said, “It’s about Jacob.”
“What about him?”
She sounded only mildly curious, and not in the least bit concerned, so David decided to just dive right in. “It’s recently come to my attention—”
The whoosh of an incoming text cut him off, and Ashley immediately diverted all her attention back to her phone. After reading the reply, she sent one back, and then she and Liam continued to exchange a dozen or so more texts, until finally, Ashley set her phone down. She appeared to be a little anxious, as if Liam had been displeased their plans were being delayed.
Good. Fuck him in the ass with a cactus.
For a moment (even though it was nebulous, given he didn’t have a clear picture of what Liam looked like and had to picture a generic man’s ass with a cactus jammed in it), the visual almost brought a twisted smile to David’s face.
Clearing his throat, he started all over again, now that he mostly had Ashley’s full attention. “It’s come to my attention that Jacob’s been abused.”
She frowned. “What? When?”
“During his visitations with you.”
The frown disappeared as her eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. “Is this a joke?”
Feeling the telltale signs of his blood pressure rising, David slid a hand in his pocket and grabbed onto the red jasper worry stone and discreetly began to use it. Rub, rub, rub. “No. Nothing that’s happened to Jacob is a joke.”
“And what, exactly, are you saying has happened to him while staying with me?”
“Neglect, for starters—”
“Neglect? What neglect?”
“Well, Jacob’s inconsistent mealtimes are an issue, as is his constant diet of McDonald’s while in your care—”
“But he loves McDonald’s,” Ashley argued.
“That’s true, but McDonalds is a shit substitute for healthy and nutritious home-cooked meals, which is really important to young, developing children.” He waited a beat, then plowed forward. “There’s also the issue of you not providing him with basic necessities, like Goodnites, when you were aware of his bed-wetting issues, and his lack of consistent bedtimes and naps—”
Ashley muttered something unintelligible under her breath, as if her patience was being sorely tested.
He thought about asking if she’d spent any of the money he gave her to buy Goodnites, but decided it didn’t matter if she had, because he was going to do everything in his power to make it so Jacob never stayed with her again. “Last, but not least,” he said, instead, “is the fact that you’ve repeatedly left Jacob in the care of a babysitter during his visits, rather than spend time with him.”
Ashley cut her eyes to David, as if expecting him to explode over the violation of their custody agreement, but he simply stared back with his best dead-eye shark impersonation, which seemed to unsettle her.
