Too Bad So Sad

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I loosened my tie, feeling choked up all of a sudden.

  “Y’all should go,” Johnny pointed out. “There’s no reason for you to be here anymore. The award’s been given and to be honest, I wouldn’t want to miss any firsts.”

  I didn’t, either.

  I didn’t want to miss a single thing when it came to this life I found myself living.

  I was there for the first ultrasound for both my daughter and my son. The first kick. The first breath. The first crawl and then the first walk.

  Now I was there each and every first that came to be and I had one woman in the entire world to thank for it.

  “I like how you think,” I said, slapping Johnny on the back. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.

  Then I went to collect my bride.

  ***

  Two hours later, I was standing in a tux with my girl’s dirty body wrapped around me.

  “Daddy, did you see me score?” she cried.

  I grinned and dropped a kiss to Clarissa’s lopsided bun. “Yeah, baby. I saw you score.”

  Reagan walked up then, a weird almost giddy smile on her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  She took Clarissa out of my hands and then put her down on the ground. “Baby, go find Grandpa and talk to him for a minute. I want to talk to your daddy.”

  Clarissa didn’t have to be told twice. She loved her grandpa—even though ten years later, Bennett still swore that he wasn’t old enough to be anyone’s grand-anything.

  But he loved his grandbabies, just like my mom and Lennox did.

  My kids were so fuckin’ spoiled that sometimes it was hard to tell them no.

  “What is it?” I asked, pulling her into my body and dropping a kiss on her upturned lips.

  Ten years later and she still made my heart race.

  “I got a call from the prison director.” She hesitated.

  She didn’t have to say which prison that she was referring to. I knew, just as well as she did, which one it was that she was talking about.

  “And?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t about to hear that he’d been offered the chance for parole.

  Reagan’s lips spread into a smile. “Well, I just found out that Dusty has been moved from the prison to a hospital because he’s dying.”

  I frowned. “Dying of what?”

  “Dying of a heart attack,” she explained, shocked.

  My brows rose. “He’s thirty-five.”

  “And they said that he suffered a major MI in the yard a few hours ago and that doctors don’t expect him to live past tomorrow morning,” she continued.

  I felt something akin to euphoria at hearing that statement.

  I’d been worried a lot over the last ten years that they’d let the douche out early after they’d already offered the piece of shit a reduced sentence for God knows what.

  To hear that the man wouldn’t be making it out to bother us in any way made me feel like dancing a jig.

  “I…that’s the best news I’ve ever heard in all my life,” I admitted.

  Reagan threw her arms around my shoulder and offered me her lips. I took them.

  “Now you can settle down and let me breathe,” she teased.

  I wrapped my arms back around her back and pulled her in tight. “You can breathe just fine…unless we’re in bed.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You’re a beast.”

  I growled and brushed my lips down the long column of her throat.

  “What’s private time?” Clarissa asked. “Mommy and Daddy don’t need private time. They need kid time!”

  My eyes sparkled when I looked down into my wife’s eyes.

  “Did you hear that, Dr. Cree?” I teased. “Mommy and Daddy time. I could kiss your father.”

  She snorted at the use of her “official” title. But she’d earned it.

  It’d been a hard road for her to conquer, but she’d done it, and she’d done it well.

  “Or you could kiss me.” She suggested.

  Easiest choice ever.

  What’s Next?

  Mess Me Up

  Book 1 of The Bear Bottom Guardians

  9-4-18

  Prologue

  Rome

  RP’s Biggest Fan,

  I’m not sure how you became my therapist, or how we even got to the point in being pen pals, but I’ll take what I can get.

  I could use a friend.

  So, you want to hear about my life? How it’s nowhere near as glamourous as everyone makes it out to be?

  Where should I start?

  How about the paparazzi. They’re awful. They follow me home. They follow me to work. They follow me to my son’s appointments—though technically, they don’t know he’s my son. Luckily. That was one thing I did manage to do right—keeping him out of the limelight.

  Lucky for me, too. Or, at least for him.

  And if the paparazzi wasn’t bad enough, my ex was only with me for my money—because she knew that I had it.

  If there was one thing I could erase from my life, it would be her.

  But, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have my son…and at this point, he’s the one bright light in my sea of dark.

  Last week she threatened to sue me because I broke the agreement we have on custody of our son. Do you want to know what I did? Nothing. Not one damn thing. I stayed at her house while she went away for the day, and I put a drink on her coffee table.

  Let me repeat that…I put a drink on her coffee table.

  Sure, it was a Coke can without a coaster…but I’d finished the damn thing. It was completely empty, it wasn’t sweating, and it didn’t leave any sort of mark.

  But, with the way she reacted, you would’ve thought that I’d done a whole lot more than that.

  Oh, and let’s not forget what my team manager wants me to do.

  He wants me to pose naked except for a strategically positioned football for Sports Illustrated. Since when did Sports Illustrated stop being about sports, and start being about what sells?

  You told me last week that you weren’t sure that you were going to write anymore. I realize that this back and forth we have going on isn’t normal, but if it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.

  I hope you write to me soon, RP’s Biggest Fan.

  Rome.