“It’s a go here, mate,” Sadie’s friends and family in the UK yelled.
One by one, everyone followed suit until it was time to share the news with our family.
Grinning at each other, we held up the canons filled with pink confetti.
“Remember, just twist the two tubes in opposite directions, and they’ll burst,” I murmured to her as she checked the tube in her hand.
“Just making sure I’ve got it the right way round. I don’t want to shoot myself in the thigh.”
“We’ll start the countdown,” MeeMee yelled, getting a responding scream from Wick. “Three, two, one… Show us that baby!”
Twisting the ends, I burst out laughing when Sadie’s exploded pink confetti everywhere, but mine failed to go off.
Ignoring the taunting coming from my brothers, I gave it one last ferocious twist. There was a pop, and then I was on my knees as a burning pain went from my crotch up to my throat. It felt like my balls had been ripped off, and a hot poker shoved in the gap, all the way up into my brain.
Feeling a small hand pat me on the back, I choked in some oxygen and prayed for it to end.
“I think you had it the wrong way round, honey,” Sadie whispered, explaining what the hell had just happened to me.
Glancing down to make sure there wasn’t a void where my favorite part of my anatomy used to be, I saw pink confetti and dust stuck to the front of my jeans.
“Well, it’s just as well you’re knocked up, ‘cos that might just be the only baby y’all are ever having,” my brother Wes shouted through his laughter.
“Is he okay?” a soft voice with a British accent asked, one that I recognized as belonging to Sadie’s nan.
As I breathed through the pain and felt it start to recede, I listened to everyone excitedly making plans. Was I embarrassed or upset that it’d played out this way? Fuck no. Even with the agony, I was proud as hell that we were getting to share our daughter's news with everyone we loved, all at the same time.
Getting to my feet took me a moment, but I finally managed it and held my thumb up to the camera to let them know I was okay.
“Glad to have you back, bro,” Jackson snickered. “Congrats on my niece. You make sure you look after her beautiful momma.”
“Considering she agreed to marry me today, I’ll be doing that every day for the rest of my life,” I croaked, smiling over at Sadie, who was holding her hand up so they could see the ring.
My best friend would be laughing his ass off in heaven right now at how this had played out. As someone who liked things to go smoothly and without a hitch, this was the opposite of what I’d wanted to happen, but it fit in perfectly with how he’d have done it.
Coop, you asshole, you totally set me up!
Somehow, that thought just made it even better. And when Sadie looked over at me, happiness and laughter in her eyes, I considered what’d just happened a gift from him to us. The pain was worth every second of it.Two days later…
“Kills me that I’ve got to tell you this,” Connor, the police officer in Gonzales County who’d been helping us out with shit, sighed. “Shonelle Bell’s body was found this morning. Her mother went to her apartment to look for signs she’d been back and found her on the couch.”
I was staring blindly at the counter where I’d been making two cups of weak coffee as the words registered.
“Didn’t anyone think to check there before now?”
“Uh, yeah, man, that’s the problem. We searched the place after Shonelle was reported missing, and her mom’s been going in daily, too. There hadn’t been any signs that she’d been back at all until this.”
“Jesus,” I hissed, pushing my hand through my hair as it sank in.
“There’s more. The preliminary cause of death appears to have been strangulation, but there will be an autopsy on the body. There was also a bottle of Rohypnol found in her pocket, which we’ve lifted some fingerprints from, and strangely enough, we found a suicide note, too.”
“A suicide note? When she was strangled?”
“That’s what I’m saying. The bruises around her neck are clear outlines of two large hands. You can even see the fingers.”
“So why write a suicide note?”
“Maybe it was an agreement with whoever strangled her? We won’t know the exact answer to that unless we find evidence or the person who did it. It’s the content of the note that’s concerning me.”
A feeling of dread settled deep in my bones.
“Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you all of it, but what I will say is that she accuses you of stalking her and harassment to the point she had no option but to take her life.”