Best Fake Fiance (Loveless Brothers 2)

My palms start sweating. I have to remind myself to breathe. My heart feels like it’s being wrung out. Something is going on, and I don’t know what.

“The hearing began at eleven o’clock, Mr. Winchester,” Judge Hughes says, but his voice doesn’t have the same stern note that it did a moment ago. “Is everyone prepared?”

Crystal, her lawyer, and the other man sit. The judge moves some papers around.

“Yes, your honor,” her lawyer finally says.

“All right,” the judge says, and picks up a piece of paper, looking at it through reading glasses. “I hereby call to session the matter of Partlow vs. Loveless, Virginia case number…”

He goes on for a moment with the formalities, and Lucinda finally catches my eye, raising both her eyebrows the tiniest fraction, an expression that I’m pretty sure means Did you know?

I shake my head ever so slightly. She turns her attention forward again.

“…so if counsel for Ms. Partlow would please begin?”

“Thank you, your honor,” the other lawyer says. He stands. He buttons his jacket in a smooth, practiced gesture, then stands behind the podium between the two desks. “First, as Ms. Partlow is now known as Mrs. Thornhill, I move that we include that in the record.”

I sit bolt upright, my head swiveling toward Crystal, across the room. She’s looking back at me, a smug, satisfied look on her face.

I look down. There’s a huge diamond ring on her finger, the man sitting next to her patting her hand comfortingly.

I feel like the courtroom is tilting. Now I’m sweating everywhere, not just my palms. Crystal getting pregnant is one thing. If she got knocked up again by accident, I — the first person to accidentally knock her up — wouldn’t exactly be surprised.

But getting married is different. That takes at least some amount of intention and forethought, two things I wasn’t sure Crystal was capable of.

I couldn’t care less that Crystal’s married. Good for her. But if I don’t know, that means she didn’t tell Rusty, either.

She didn’t tell her own daughter that she has a new stepdad.

She didn’t tell her daughter that she’s going to have a new sibling.

Cold prickles travel down my spine.

“Furthermore,” continues her lawyer. “I’d like to make an amendment to the petition.”

“What is the amendment?” asks the judge.

“I’d like to change this from a visitation hearing to a custody hearing,” the lawyer says.

I feel like the floor falls from under me. Lucinda’s already on her feet.

“Your Honor,” she says, but the judge holds up one hand.

“That’s highly unusual, on what grounds?” Hughes drones on, like a bomb didn’t just go off in his courtroom.

“Mr. Thornhill has accepted a job offer in Denver, and the Thornhills would like to amend custody in light of that,” the lawyer goes on.

I’m out of my chair before I know it.

“No!” I say.

Lucinda’s grip is on my arm like steel, but I ignore it.

“You can’t take her to Denver,” I say, my voice already rising. “She lives here. Her life is here, her family, her friends, her school, you can’t just—”

“Ms. Washington, please control your client,” the judge booms over me.

“Daniel,” Lucinda says, her hand even tighter on my arm.

I close my mouth, mid-word, but I haven’t broken eye contact with Crystal’s lawyer, my heart pounding wildly out of control.

Denver. It’s two time zones away. A thousand miles. Fifteen hundred?

“Daniel,” Lucinda says again, and I swallow hard. “Come on.”

I sit, slowly. I’m amazed that my hands aren’t shaking.

“If I may continue?” the lawyer asks in a tone of voice that makes me want to commit violence. “We’re requesting full custody, with Mr. Loveless getting the standard ninety overnights of visitation per year.”

I can’t breathe. I can’t. I bring one hand to my mouth because I think I might vomit, the courtroom closing in around me, but I don’t say anything. Already I’m afraid that I fucked myself over with my outburst.

“Your Honor,” Lucinda is saying, still on her feet. “This is highly unusual. Mr. Loveless has been the sole legal and physical guardian for nearly six years, and a change of this magnitude would be incredibly—”

“Thank you, Ms. Washington,” the judge says, and Lucinda presses her lips together, eyes blazing. He redirects his attention to the slimeball behind the podium.

“I do happen to agree with opposing counsel on this, Mr. Winchester,” he says. “This is an extraordinary request made with no warning. I’m sure you’re fully aware that the court is in no way prepared to make a ruling at this hearing?”

“Of course, Your Honor,” he says, smoothly as ever.

Denver. Ninety overnights. That’s three months; that means that they’d have her during the school year, and maybe I’d fly her out for vacations and the summer.

I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine a life where I don’t wrangle her out of bed and onto the school bus every morning, a life where I don’t help her with homework at the kitchen table, a life where she doesn’t complain while I try to untangle her hair after she bathes.