I was nobody’s bitch.
“You forget I’m the one who stood by your side twenty-four seven, making sure you kept breathing,” I fumed. “Don’t fucking threaten me Bianci because I’ll piss on your threats and shove them right back down your throat when I’m done. Your mob card, your tough guy act, it won’t work here,” I ground out. “This shit between me and your sister, it’s none of your business and until I ask for your goddamn input, stay the fuck out of it,” I ordered.
He raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms against his chest before he nodded.
“Pretty strong words you got there, Riggs,” he said, cocking his head to the side unfazed.
“Try me, Bianci and those words will turn to actions,” I replied. “Your sister is a grown woman, stop fucking coddling her and let her be her own person. Give her that respect.”
“What do you know about respect?”
“Fuck you,” I ground out. “You think because I got your sister pregnant I disrespected her in some way—it wasn’t like that,” I explained.
Not that he deserved an explanation, but I was feeling generous.
I was losing my fucking mind.
“I’ve got respect for Lauren. I think she’s great. I didn’t plan on a kid, but shit happens,” I argued.
“It’s not about you, Riggs. It’s not about Lauren, either. You’re right she’s a grown ass woman, and she needs to take control of her life, I’ll give you that,” he started, pulling out his phone, turning the screen toward me. “It’s about that baby you created with my sister and it’s about being someone that baby can depend on and look up to.”
I glanced down at his phone and saw the picture of his kid, the one that wasn’t even biologically his.
“I changed my whole life for this boy and there isn’t an ounce of regret in me because he deserves it,” he said, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Your kid deserves the same,” he added.
I should spit on him for telling me to change who I was.
I wouldn’t, and more importantly I couldn’t, because he was defending my kid. He was sticking up for my kid, fighting for Pea, and teaching me a lesson. I could learn a thing or two from Anthony Bianci.
He was a good guy to have in your corner and my kid was lucky to have him.
Not me.
Him.
That was pathetic.
It was wrong, and it made me want to prove to him I could be better. I could be more than just the asshole deadbeat dad they thought I’d be.
“I’m trying,” I said.
“It’s all I ask,” he replied.
Yeah, Pea was damn lucky to have him as an uncle.
Pea needed a dad like that.
Pea needed me.
Bones was right.
I needed to own that shit.
Or at least try to.
For Pea.
Chapter Nineteen
“I don’t know why you’re insisting on living here,” my mother chastised.
For the millionth time.
After I explained to her that Riggs and I spoke and agreed to work together and co-parent, she started giving me shit. I can’t say I don’t totally agree with some of the things she’s said, like, when she warned me about keeping my guard up. Or when she told me fairytales don’t really exist and Riggs may say one thing now and do another later. I suppose she’s jaded by my father and the way he left us high and dry. I wonder if she wasn’t a woman scorned if she’d feel the same way.
“I don’t trust that scoundrel, why keep an apartment if you’re not going to live in it?” She asked, as she hung some of my clothes up in the closet.
I had Anthony take some of my things from the storage locker out this morning. There wasn’t much, but I had kept my bedroom set, and when Mia and I went our separate ways, I won the sofa in the split. Actually, she told me to take it all because she wasn’t planning on leaving her mom and dad’s house unless she had a ring on finger. Mia didn’t do adult very well. But hey, it works for me because I have a couch.
I plopped down on the couch and unpacked some of my clothes as my mother walked out of the bathroom.
“At least it’s clean,” she said, placing her hands on her hips as she fixed me with a look.
“You don’t think he has a wife or a bunch of kids he’s hiding and that’s why he has this place do you?” She questioned, raising an eyebrow in an attempt to really drive her point home.
I rolled my eyes. My mother really was supportive in a crisis. She could make me feel better with all her reassuring words.
Not.
I heard a commotion from the door and jumped to my feet, peering through the peep hole to see Riggs shouting at someone down the flight of stairs outside our apartment. Our apartment. Fucking weird.
“What’s going on?” My mother asked, nosily.
Shit.
“It’s Riggs,” I turned around and wagged my index finger at her. “Be nice!” I warned.
She scoffed.
Yeah, this was going to be fun.
Before I gave myself an anxiety attack thinking about the next eighteen years of my mother and Riggs interacting over Pea, I turned around and pulled the door open.