Page 66 of Scoring Eden

Alex: My girlfriend’s ex-husband is threatening to petition for sole custody. He’s a pretty well-known divorce lawyer, so we need the best recommendation you’ve got.

Oliver: Who’s her ex-husband?

Alex: Sebastian Hague.

Oliver: Yeah, he’s an asshole. Known in the circle for unethical practices, but the bastard has never been caught.

Oliver: I know someone who can take him on. I’ll forward you her number.

EIGHTEEN

EDEN

The last thing I needed was to wake up this morning having leaked on Alex’s sheets, but here we are. Mother Nature waits for nobody. And if she wants to show up two days early with no prior warning, then she damn well will.

Now that she has, she’s certainly working her hardest to make her presence known. If it isn’t enough that she’s managed to make it look as if I murdered someone in here last night, the cantankerous old hag has a death grip on my uterus and is refusing to let go.

I have half the mattress stripped when the door to the bedroom bursts open, and my son—dressed in a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas—bounds his way inside.

“Mom! I had the best sleep ever, oh my gosh. The bed is so big it was like sleeping on a spaceship. I can’t believe we get to stay in the Alex Wolfe’s house!”

After spending the rest of yesterday playing video games with Alex, we’d ordered pizza for dinner. I was worried he’d have trouble sleeping in such a new environment and thought he might climb in with me at some point during the night.

Evidently, I needn’t have worried.

“Wait.” He freezes, staring slack-jawed at the stain on the sheets. “Mom, you’re bleeding. You need to go to the hospital right now.”

One glance of blood and my child has hit the panic button.

“No, honey, I’m fine. It’s just—”

“ALEX!” he screams at the top of his lungs.

Ah, shit.

“Please don’t do that. Buddy, it’s all good. It’s just my—”

Too late.

“ALEX! MOM IS GONNA DIE!” he screams again, and to my utmost horror, I hear frenzied footsteps running down the hallway.

“Macon, it’s my period. That’s all. I’m not dying.”

“Oh.” His body sags. “Well, that’s okay, then.”

Footsteps draw closer, and I have no choice but to yank at the sheet as hard as I can. But the stupid thing gets caught on the corner farthest away from me, causing me to topple backward. I fall to the floor with a thud.

Fuck, I think I broke my coccyx.

Of course, this is the moment Alex joins us. As if the whole situation wasn’t humiliating enough already.

“What’s going on?”

To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned. He should be, but only for the threat this situation has on my sanity.

Alex assesses the situation with furrowed brows, scanning over Macon then the blood-stained sheets. They widen when they finally reach me on the floor, legs askew and dressed in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and a now ruined pair of panties.

This is all a bit too much to deal with at six o’clock in the morning.