CHAPTER NINE
Skye’s face is flushed when we leave the apartment.
“So this is really what you want? You don’t want to look at the other ones?”
I turn to her and take her by the shoulders. “Yeah, really. I like this place.” I smile. “Besides, it’s where you gave your first blow job.” My cock throbs at the thought of it, at the messiness of her hair, her pink cheeks.
She bites her lip hard and shushes me. “Come on, someone might hear you.”
“What? We’re wholesome. A couple moving into an apartment in fucking Queens of all places. We haven’t even fucked.”
“We should fix that,” she whispers. A shiver runs through my body and reaches the base of my spine.
I take her in my arms and kiss her, pulling her close. “We should. When the time is right.”
“Look at you with all this romantic stuff,” she says. “Someone might say you like me.” She looks at me, horrified when she says it, like she’s said something wrong. Something tightens deep in my chest, causing me an almost physical pain. “Sorry,” she adds.
“I do like you. We’re friends, aren’t we?” I give her a grin and pull her in close as we walk down to the subway. “More than that. You’re helping me. And I know you were in this for a casual thing, but—”
We stop in front of the stairs that lead down to the trains. “Don’t say anything else,” she says. “Casual is good. Romantic—not so much, right?”
“Yeah,” I sigh. There’s so much more I want to say. I want to put my hands on her body, push her against the wall by the stairs. Tell her I don’t know anyone like her, that she’s different. And different is good. So good.
If she were anyone else, I would have fucked her by now. But she’s not anyone else. I don’t know why I’m hesitating, why I’m standing here, just looking at her.
“Come on, Liam.” Skye grabs me by the hand and pulls me down into the pit of the subway. The ride is a quiet one, with many things left unsaid. But when we arrive back in Hell’s Kitchen, she takes me by the hand and doesn’t let go until we’re in the lawyer’s waiting room.
“This is it,” I whisper. “My lawyer—Donnelly—he’s meeting with Marta’s lawyer to put custody back on the table. Overnight visits at the very least. I don’t have hard evidence against Marta—” I crack my knuckles, thinking of my little girl’s stories. Her anxiety. The stomach pain she complains each time she comes back from her grandmother’s.
“Rhiannon says you probably have a good case. We’ll see.”
The lawyer’s office always reminds me of the dentist—cold and clean with its anonymous white walls. There are law degrees and shitty paintings and a sad beta fish in a bowl with a plant in it. But nothing makes it personal. Shit, my dentist’s office is way more personal.
This time, being here feels slightly better. This time, Skye is with me, and we have an apartment and a plan. I’m down to the wire with this custody thing, and she came along in the nick of time. I glance at her, sitting in the hard-backed chair next to mine, wondering what she’s thinking. She looks lost in thought, and she pulls out a little notebook to write in. It has roses on the cover, and the edges are worn down.
I have the sudden impulse to take her hand into mine and squeeze it. But I don’t.
Don’t want to confuse things, I think. We’ve already got them confused enough.
I look over at Skye again. She’s jotting things down, then occasionally looking around the lawyer’s waiting room, then writing down a few more words.
She’s got bigger dreams than me and an old apartment in Queens. It’s not close to her work, and it’s sure as hell not what she would have imagined for herself. At least, I think it’s not. She’ll be moving on when we’re done here.
But I want to pull these moments apart and spread them out, keeping them as long as I can.
“Mr. Dougherty,” the receptionist says, looking over the fish bowl on her desk. “Mr. Jameson will see you now.” She looks at Skye somewhat suspiciously. This isn’t exactly a great area of the city, and they don’t expect people who look like Skye to wander in with a guy like me, who previously had no chance in hell of getting his daughter back. “And this is—”
“My girlfriend,” I answer. Skye blanches, but then she looks over at me and nods. “We’re getting an apartment together for Brie. My little girl.”
We stand together and walk back to the room where I was told—three times—that Marta would retain full custody until I had a more stable living arrangement for Brie. Marta’s fucking family has these lawyer people on her side, and half of the court system too. My lawyer is on the Dougherty side of things, but, until now, it’s all seemed completely insurmountable.
But I take Skye’s hand, and it doesn’t seem that way anymore.
“Are they going to buy this shit?” Her voice is a low whisper, full of worry.
“They better. It’s my only strategy.”
She sighs heavily, but before she can get a smart-mouthed comment in, we’re in the lawyer’s conference room. There’s Marta and her guy, who looks like a little bulldog. And there’s my lawyer, sitting across from him. I stop cold, because today there’s something different. Brie is here, too.
I knew it before we came today, but seeing her here is a reality I wasn’t quite ready for. Skye takes a deep breath in when she sees my daughter. I look over at her, and she cocks her head to the side, biting her lip.
“Daddy!” My daughter bursts out of her chair before Martha has a chance to catch her arm and hold her back. That’s how it usually is—Marta is always policing Brie’s quick bursts of energy, holding her back. But today, her gnarled old hand isn’t fast enough. Brie rushes into my arms and holds onto my waist. Before anyone can say a word, I’ve lifted her into my arms and twirled her around now. She’s at least fifty pounds and nearly four feet tall, but she feels as light as a feather to me. She always will.
“I missed you, pumpkin,” I say. I never expect my heart to fill up quite like it does, like there’s no one and nothing else in the room. It surprises me every time. Recently, it’s gotten even worse—not worse, exactly—but more intense. The longing for us to be a family again. I squeeze my girl tight. When I glance at Skye, there are tears in her eyes.
“This is inappropriate. The man is only allowed supervised visitation,” Marta says. Her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Her face, so similar to my ex-wife’s, has been distorted by years of hatefulness.
“We’re here to overturn that today,” my lawyer says. “Mr. Dougherty has proven himself to be an upstanding citizen in the years since his release—”
“That’s it exactly,” Marta snarls. “Since his release. Kindly put her down, Liam.”
I don’t. Instead I shift Brie to my hip, and she nestles her head against my shoulder. “Not a chance,” I say. “Let me have five minutes.”
“Please,” Brie says. “I just want to stay with Daddy.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Just a few minutes.” I kiss Brie on her cheek and take in her little kid smell—kids’ shampoo, a hint of sweat, the faint smell of the outdoors. At least Marta is keeping her bathed, I think.
“At school,” Brie whispers, “There’s a big kid who’s—”
Marta’s lawyer cuts us off. “I’m afraid I do think this is inappropriate, just as Mrs. Maguire said.”
Marta looks at me, pleased with herself, a creepy-looking smile taking over her face. “And with your new girlfriend here too—might be confusing to Brie. Or is she even your girlfriend? I hear about you and your women from the bar. If you can rightfully call them women, that is.”
“Marta, please watch your mouth around Brie. If you didn’t want me to see her, why did you bring her here?” I try to keep the anger out of my voice. “And this isn’t just some woman from the bar—”
“Please put the child down,” Marta’s lawyer says. I can never quite remember this guy’s name, just that his face looks like it needs to be punched. “Mrs. Maguire was unable to find childcare this afternoon, which is something she wishes to discuss. We feel you should be paying child support—”
“Child support,” I growl, protectively putting my hand behind my daughter’s head, just like I did when she was a baby and couldn’t quite sit up straight yet. “I pay child support every month. I don’t know what Marta’s been telling you, but you can check my bank statements. I’ve saved every penny.”
“And that’s why you’re living in that horrible place above the bar. It’s no place for overnight stays, let alone joint custody,” Marta says. Her lawyer puts his hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to stop speaking, but she brushes him away. “And you—you wouldn’t even be able to get her to school on time.”
Skye looks over at me meaningfully and nods. Fucking Queens. Why did she have to be right about that? But I think about her in the apartment, how beautiful she looked when she was exactly where I wanted her. Maybe Queens isn’t that bad.
“I can get her to school on time when I move into a new apartment. It’s more than an apartment—it’s an old townhouse converted into apartments,” I say. Brie buries her face in my neck, her long brown hair cascading over my shoulders. “Two bedrooms. A backyard. Dishwasher, the whole nine yards.” I try to remember if there’s a washer and drier because I know it’s something Marta will find out before the day is over.
“In Hell’s Kitchen. That’s no place for a kid,” Marta huffs. “If my daughter were alive—”
I look to Skye and her eyes go wide. She regains composure before anyone in the room notices. That’s a thing you’d tell your serious girlfriend, isn’t it? Shit.
“She’s not, Marta. I’m the only living parent she has. She belongs with me.”
The old woman crosses her arms, shutting the rest of the room out. Good. I know where this is going. She’s about to say something she won’t be able to take back. Fucking let her. Marta looks up at me with her vicious cornflower-blue eyes. “You were in prison for six months. You’re broke as shit, and you’re a criminal. Every one of your brothers are criminals.” She’s on a roll now, and her lawyer is trying to stop her.
“Keep going, Marta. Brie certainly needs to hear all of this,” I say. I try to make my voice threatening, but I break out into a grin even as I put my hands over my little girl’s ears. “Brie actually hates when you pull this crap. When you yell. When you gripe. It makes her anxious. Know how I know? She tells me. She cries on the phone with me.”
When you hit. When you insult her. Those I’m saving for the judge. For the first time in months, I feel something new rising within me. With Skye, even standing next to me, not saying anything, I feel braver and more powerful than I have when facing Marta and the courts.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Marta says. “My family has ten times the money and power of yours. You’re a broke piece of shit.”
I hold Brie close, wishing I could take away every one of her grandmother’s words. “That’s where you’re wrong, on every count, Marta. I’m not broke. I’ve worked my ass off every day for two years, planning for this hearing. Waiting for it. Making sure everything was in order so I could get my little girl back.”
“Where were you before that?” Marta sneers at me.
“You know where I was. I went to prison for a crime your family had me commit. To pay for the funeral expenses for your daughter. I did the time. I’m out of that life for good.” I bite my tongue. I want to tell her that I know she had me do it so she could get rid of me—so Marta could have the prize of her granddaughter to show off to her friends for the rest of her miserable years on earth. But Donnelly has coached me not to say this shit. He sits back and nods, watching the back and forth between me and Marta. If she does this at the hearing—and we both know how to push her buttons—the ball goes back into my court.
“And here you brought this whore along when you knew your girl would be here,” Marta says.
That thing clenches tight in my chest again. I look over at Skye, and I see how pale she is. Shit. This is way more than she bargained for.
“That’s not what she is,” I say. “And if I were ever able to see Brie, I might have gotten to make the introduction a lot earlier. We’ve been together for—” I search my brain for a reasonable amount of time. “Three months. Isn’t that right?”
I glance at Skye again. She’s keeping her cool. “Yeah,” she breathes. It’s the first word she’s said since we got in here, and I can hear the uncertainty in her voice even if no one else in here can.
Marta looks over at her lawyer with an angry expression on her face. “I doubt that,” Marta snips. “You’ve never been with anyone for longer than a few nights. My people keep tabs on you, and you know it. This girl is nothing more than some tramp you’ve found to make you look slightly more reasonable.”
I take a deep breath. Rage has clouded my judgment before with this woman, and it’s threatening to now. When I close my eyes, I see red. When I open them, I blurt out the only thing I can think of. “This is Skye Williams, and she’s my fiancée. We’re getting married. Next weekend.”
Skye makes a small, strangled sound. But, to her credit, she keeps her cool. She shouldn’t. I’m an asshole, and I have so little to offer her in return for her help.
I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn’t. Instead, she grabs my hand.
“Well,” Donnelly says. “Congratulations.”
This probably isn’t the proposal Skye had imagined.
But if I get her out of this mess quick and get custody again, she’ll get the one she wants. The one she deserves.
I put Brie down, still holding her close, and pull out my phone. When I open it, there’s a signed copy of the lease.
“Brie should be able to come stay overnight. Get to know her new room.”
“Please—can I?” Brie looks at all the adults in the room, who are arguing loudly. Marta’s voice is rising. “Will it have to be locked, Skye?”
Brie turns her big brown eyes to Skye. Skye shakes her head and gives me a worried look. The comment is small, said in Brie’s quiet voice.
It might have gone unnoticed, but something dawns on Skye. She kneels on the floor next to my girl, and she takes her hands. This woman I barely know—she does this for me. She finds the key—literally—that sways everything in our favor. At least for today.
“Do you mean your bedroom, sweetheart?” Skye asks.
Brie nods. “It’s a little scary. At night. With the door locked.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper. “If I can stay with you, you won’t lock it, right?”
“No, honey, we won’t. Never.” Skye pulls Brie to her and hugs her tight.
The room goes quiet.
When Skye stands up, she brushes Brie’s hair away from her face, and she smiles. “We’re going to need visitation until we get this whole locked door thing figured out. Wouldn’t everyone agree?”
Slowly, Marta’s lawyer nods.
We stand there, waiting, watching.
Things start happening around us. Legal things. Pens to paper. The tapping of keys on laptops.
The sound of things, finally, moving forward.
Shit. I guess we have a fucking wedding to plan.