What You Wish For Pt. 04

"No," she sobbed. "That's what it was about in court. But not now, Tyler. That's not why I'm here now. That's not why I'm trying my hardest to show you I've changed."

She looked at me, her face tear streaked, some of her hair plastered to the waterworks on her cheeks.

"You see it, don't you? You know I'm telling you the truth, right?"

"I see a scared little girl," I said. "A scared little girl who's pissed away her life so far, and now she's worried about losing the last thing she's got."

She whipped her head back and forth. "No, Tyler. That's not true. I want us to be friends. Even if you never take me back, I still don't want you to hate me. You can. You have every right to."

I said nothing, kept my mouth clamped tighter than a tick.

"I know all about your book," she pleaded. "I know you've got enough money to bury me in court. To probably take Ben away from me. I know that, Tyler. Allie told me. And she told me it's real good, too. The book. That they think you'll be famous. But I don't want that. I don't want any of it."

She turned away and tried to check her tears, wiping her face with her hands and hiccuping with the effort of controlling her emotions.

"Tyler, you let me keep Ben and I'll never deny you time with him. I don't want any of your money. I'll support him on my own. But I want him to know his father now. I know I was wrong. I know you have no reason to believe me. I know that. But I'm asking you to . . . to give me a chance here."

"And you're sure he's mine."

Kristin sat on the ground, her back against the workshop wall, and huddled her legs in on herself.

"When you moved back to town, I was afraid something like this would happen. So I went online, ordered a DNA kit. I got some of Randy's DNA while he was sleeping, and I took a swab of Ben's, too, and I mailed it in. There's no way Randy's the father."

She looked up at me, seeing the skepticism on my face.

"You'll understand if I don't trust you on this one," I said.

She just looked at me.

"Who else have you slept with?" I said.

"No one," she replied. "Just you and Randy. My whole life, just the two of you." She gave a sad smile. "Probably why I wasn't so hot in bed like you said. Maybe I should've read more or rented some of those pay per views on the dirty channels, huh?"

I sat next to her. "Well," I said, staring into the woods, "I may have been exaggerating my case when I said that."

She elbowed me.

"What?"

"Were you? Overstating your case?"

"Well . . . ."

She elbowed me again.

"Okay, maybe a little."

"A little?" she said, turning to look at me.

Even with her red, swollen eyes and tear stained face, that flirtatious tilt of her lips and twinkling in her eyes got me hard instantly.

She noticed, her eyes traveling to my crotch and back to my eyes, her right eyebrow raising a touch.

"Maybe more than a little," I said, adjusting my hard on to the side. "A little more than a little."

"Shit head," she said, pushing me over to my side.

"Hey," I protested. But she just laughed and stood up.

"Come on," she said, walking back to the house, sashaying her ass from side to side as she did so. "Time to get Ben down for a nap."

By the time we got back into the house, though, Ben was already fast asleep, curled on Mom's lap. She was gently stroking his hair while Dad watched from across the room.

Leaving them alone, I went upstairs with Kristin and showed her the new book I was working on. She seemed impressed by the outline, and even more impressed by the story I'd thus far written. A touch of depression hit, though, when she realized the ex-wife character in the story was her.

"You think that's bad," I said, reaching into the box next to my desk and pulling out a manuscript of the first book, "read this.

We spent the next few hours chatting about old times and laughing about people we knew and just enjoying each other's company.

There was that elephant in the room, though. The elephant I wasn't sure I could ignore.