Solid: 2 1/2 (Twin Duo Book 3) by Jettie Woodruff Page B

I sucked at picking neighbors. Then again, I chose them for Tatiana, not Gabriella. She’d probably love two old women, Tatiana would not.
    Just when I had myself loaded with enough attitude to walk in my house, and right past my wife without a word, she threw a curve ball. Jesus Christ. I couldn’t fucking win.
    “Why are you crying?”
    “You came home. That surprises me.”
    “Why are you crying?”
    “Don’t ask. Just go take a shower so we can go.”
    I shook my head in utter confusion, walking to her while I tried to figure out what the hell to do with this crazy chick. “We can’t keep doing this, Gabriella. I’ve told you everything because I love you, and I want to grow old and wrinkly with you, but you’re a liar. You’re hiding something from me and it’s not right. I’ve laid it all out there for you. You know it all, yet you won’t give it all to me.”
    “I’m not crying because of you. I’m crying because Morgan has it way worse than I ever did. Drew is a monster. More than you. Way more.”
    I backed away from her with a frown. “Who the fuck is Morgan and Drew?”
    Gabriella stood from the sofa and walked away from me. “It’s a book. I needed something to occupy my time while I waited to see if you were going to show up.”
    My head shook back and forth while I contemplated my hormonal wife. I would never survive this. Thank God she was already five months along. Four more months was better than nine. Thinking about four more months made my head spin. That would be here before we knew it. Not a lot of time to prepare.
    “Gabriella, stop reading those depressing books, especially now. I’m trying to be pissed off at you for sneaking around behind my back, doing something that you know is driving a wedge between us, and refusing to tell me. Don’t fucking expect me to feel sorry for you over some made up story. Worry about this one right here, Gabriella. The one staring you right in the face. Fuck Drew and Megan. Worry about your own problems.”
    “Morgan.”
    “What?”
    “Her name is Morgan, not Megan.”
    The grumble that came out from deep within my throat lasted all the way up the steps. I couldn’t say another word. This was a new kind of anger for me. One that I didn’t know how to handle, and I had learned right quick to not handle. Walk away. A fistful of hair and a good old ass beating sure as hell didn’t work anymore. She liked it. And if she wasn’t in the mood for liking it, I had to protect myself with armor. What the fuck?
    I tried to shower away the anger, scrubbing hard with lavender scented bubbles. For whatever reason, the sweet aroma did relax me. A little. By the time I had started with a shower, and ended with a shave, I was finished. Being angry with her didn’t work like it once did. Gabriella would never look down to the floor because I told her to. Not now. Once again, I blamed it on hormones, thinking back to spying on her while she was pregnant with Phi.
    That’s when I had installed the cameras. I couldn’t leave my daughter with someone I barely knew, not until I was one-hundred-percent sure she would be taken care of. I snorted to my reflection as I glided the razor down my throat. She was more than taken care of. She was loved. Every time I went to my phone, she was reading to her, rocking her, bathing her, playing with her, always her. Gabriella was always her mommy, and I didn’t care what role Tatiana played in her life. DNA doesn’t make a mommy. Love does.
    Needless to say, I couldn’t remember any outburst while she was pregnant. Nothing. She pretty much did any and everything I told her to do. And she didn’t throw me right hooks.
    “That’s because she was broken, you fucking idiot,” I said with harsh words right to my own face. It was the truth. I deserved everything that woman handed to me and then some, but that didn’t change the fact that somewhere the train jumped the track. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in real