Page 50 of Expecting an Argument
I cut him a glare. “Iwantto work.”
Beau shifted the green basket full of clothes from one hand to the other, but still gave me a little smirk. “Well, I suppose it would be a tragedy for society if you were no longer around to bully Herringbone.”
Finally, he was starting to see things my way.
The basket of clothes caught my eye and I reached down to pick up a blue sleep-and-play with brown puppies on the feet.
I shook my head as I held up the little footed onesie. “No, these have snaps. Ashley said we will hate ourselves unless we go with zippers.”
He rolled his eyes as I inspected the rest of the clothes he picked. I silently approved the texture and design of a few pieces, but recoiled as soon as my fingers touched slippery crimson fabric.
I yanked two tiny Lindsay University jerseys out of the basket. “Absolutely not. Put these back, or better yet, burn them!”
He snatched the jerseys back. “Every Fontaine has gone to Lindsay dating all the way back to my great-grandpa Louis! You won’t deny the twins their legacy just because you prefer obnoxious orange!”
I scoffed. “Fine. You can put my precious babies in that ghastly crimson onyourweekends.”
“Myweekends?”
“That’s how it works when parents share custody,” I explained. “Once I move out of the manor and start working, you get every other weekend and a big block of time in the summer when they start school.”
A muscle feathered in his cheek, but his eyes stayed cool. “And when they’re too young for school, Miss Lawyer?”
I swallowed. “Well…you wouldn’t get them overnight until they’re three—especially if I’m breastfeeding.”
He cut a cold glance to the shelf of pumps. “So that’s why youwant to do it.”
“That’s not why,” I protested. “Did you know that breastmilk can strengthen a baby’s immune system—”
“Bore someone else with your titty trivia,” Beau said as he walked away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to purge my basket of all your dreadedsnaps.”
I hissed out a breath as I watched him disappear behind the aisles, but turned back to add the Aspen model 9 to my baby registry app.
Beau could be as pissy as he wanted—Annie and Brady needed their mother. I would never keep the babies away from him, but I had to be independent, Iwantedto be independent.
Did he expect that our arrangement was going to end differently? That I would suddenly turn blonde, wear Lindsay crimson, and become the perfect Fontaine wife that stays at home all day to take care of the babies?
If he did, he was delusional. We were always meant to part ways after the babies were born. Besides, we weren’t even together!
I didn’t suck his dick because I liked him, I did it to prove a point—hecouldn’tcontrol me.
Listening to him whimper as I made him suffer was just an unexpected bonus.
I leaned against the shelf to take some pressure off my aching back as I scrolled through my registry list. I wasn’t going to register for double of everything—Beau could put in some work to figure out what diaper bags or other bullshit he wanted for his house.
What he did with the twins on his time was not my problem. He could dress them in Crimson Knight onesies with snap-fasteners if he wanted. Nothing he would do in that creepy manor would have anything to do with me or my life.
I finished adding the last item to my registry and looked forBeau. When I found him, the pile of clothes in his basket had only gotten taller. I was too tired to go through his likely ill-informed selections, so I merely waddled to the front to check out.
Beau batted my hand away when I tried to use my child support card to pay for the clothes, but I rebelled by buying myself a chocolate bar.
He pulled the truck around to the front of the store so I wouldn’t have to traverse the parking lot. When I climbed into the passenger seat, I caught a burst of red in the rearview mirror. I turned around and my heart skipped a beat when I found a vase holding a dozen red roses in the backseat.
I blinked, wondering if I had imagined it, but no—the flowers really were there. He must have snuck away and bought them while I was adding items to the registry.
Not counting the construction paper and glitter cards that everyone in fourth grade had put into my decorated shoebox, I never had a Valentine’s Day gift from a boy before.
“It’s tradition,” Beau explained as he drove out of the parking lot.
