Heavy Metal (A Badboy Rockstar Romance) by Octavia Wildwood Page B

it.”
    “ You’ll take care of it?” Carl scoffed.  “You don’t have any money, unless you’ve been whoring yourself out.  How are you going to pay for it?”
    I could practically imagine him sneering as he sat in his living room recliner with his feet up and his belly hanging out underneath his shirt, empty beer cans littered on the floor all around him.  And I could almost see the way his nostrils were surely flaring as he grew more agitated by the minute.
    “I asked you a question!” he roared, his voice so loud I actually jumped. 
    “It’s none of your concern,” I told him, struggling to keep calm.  “Just know that I will take care of it and it won’t cost you a dime, promise.  So can you do that for me, please?  Ten minutes of your time is all I ask.”
    “No.”
    I sighed, feeling as though the conversation was simply going around in circles. 
    “Are you screwing someone else?” Carl suddenly demanded.
    “No,” I answered honestly.
    “Then come back here where you belong.”
    “I don’t want to be with you anymore, Carl.  We’re through, okay?  Please try to accept it.”
    “I was good to you,” he told me angrily.  “I was damn good to you.  I took you in when you had nowhere else to go, when no one else wanted you.  I kept you around even when you were a big fat slob.  You don’t know how lucky you were – how lucky you are – to have me.  Now stop this nonsense and get your scrawny ass back here. I am willing to forgive and forget, but it’s a time limited offer.”
    “Carl,” I told him for what felt like the millionth time, “I am not coming back.  We’re over.”
    “Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you,” he said conversationally, his tone ice cold.
    “Tell me what?”
    “I can’t keep that stupid cat of yours anymore.”
    “Well that’s fine,” I replied, confused.  “You don’t have to.  I already told you that.  Send him to me, problem solved.” Even as I said the words, a lump was forming in the back of my throat.  I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going but I already knew it wasn’t good.
    “No.  I don’t think he can withstand the trip,” Carl said.
    “What do you mean?  What’s wrong with him?  Is he sick?”
    “Maybe,” he replied vaguely.  “He pissed all over the bed.”
    “Oh,” I said, sighing in relief.  “That’s nothing.  He does that sometimes.  You know that.”
    “A healthy cat doesn’t piss on the bed,” Carl informed me, even though we both knew the cat did it deliberately from time to time just to spite him.  “I think you triggered something when you left.  It wasn’t just me you abandoned, you know.  You also abandoned the cat.”
    “I didn’t,” I protested.  Deep down I knew Carl was only trying to manipulate me and that Mittens was perfectly fine.  But even though intellectually I understood that, it didn’t make me feel any less guilty. 
    “It isn’t right to let an animal to suffer,” Carl said in the sleaziest, most calculating voice I’d ever heard.  “I’m a merciful man.  Putting the cat out of its misery seems like the kindest thing to do, don’t you think?”
    My eyes widened.  “Carl, you wouldn’t!” I gasped, my stomach suddenly lurching.
    “I won’t if you can prove to me that the cat isn’t suffering,” he told me.  “I guess if you come back and it perks up, we’ll know.  Be here by tomorrow morning or else I will have no choice but to euthanize your cat.”
    “No!”
    “I have to go now Hayley, but it’s been lovely chatting with you.”
    The next thing I knew, I was listening to a dial tone.  Carl had hung up on me.
    My mouth open, I stared at the phone in horror.  My mind was racing a mile a minute. 
    I honestly didn’t believe Carl would ever harm an animal – not even my cat that he hated oh so much.  But at the same time, his pride had been wounded and he was probably angrier than he had ever been in his entire life, which was really