“You won,” I said, holding her close. Never wanting to let her go.
“Oh, Lucas,” she said, her voice husky from her moans, “we’re all winners here.”
I hugged her even tighter, the water not even able to penetrate the nonexistent space between us.
“That we are,” I said. Kissing her lightly one last time, I looked into her eyes and repeated, “That we are.”
Chapter18
Lucas
“I thinkyou’ll be fine. There are some loose ends to tie up that will help if CPS decides to become more involved, but”—the lawyer who sat at his desk in front of me flipped through some papers—“we should be able to get the paperwork going right away to make you a legal guardian for…Andy.” He had to look at the paperwork to get Andy’s name right, which kind of pissed me off. But, I suppose, these guys saw lots of cases like this every day. Just because Andy was my main responsibility didn’t mean it was W. Stan Lansing’s.
Yeah, that was his name. Stick had found the guy. Said he was the top lawyer in town. I didn’t want to ask how Stick would know who was the best lawyer. Though I did clarify that I needed a family law guy, not a criminal lawyer.
Stick had just said, “Fuck you,” and given me old W. Stan’s business card.
“Thanks,” I said to W. Stan.
He nodded, already looking elsewhere on his desk, like for the next guy’s file.
And then, as if he remembered what they taught in law school about the lawyer’s equivalent of bedside manner, he looked me in the eye and said, “We’ll make this happen, Lucas. We’ll make sure little Andy is taken care of.”
I nodded. That was all I wanted—for Andy to have a shot.
I’d had mine—football. The tear of my shoulder, and then the torment of the taste for painkillers fucked up my shot.
But Andy had a clean slate, and I just wanted to make sure he had the best chance to keep the slate filled with choices.
If that choice was a clean and sober mother to raise him? Excellent.
If it was a big brother who gladly stepped in to pick up the slack because the mother wasn’t quite in top form? Well, yeah, that would work too.
But I wanted it on paper. I wanted it legal. I didn’t want CPS showing up in two years if my mom had a setback and yanking Andy out of the only home he’d known.
“We’ll have the papers drawn up for you to be guardian in the case that Ms. Kade is…” He looked at his notes. I wondered if “junkie” was written in the margins. “…indisposed. For whatever reason.” Yep. W. Stan was one smooth, pinstripe-wearing dude.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.” He stood and reached a meaty hand across his desk for me to shake, which I did gladly. “Janine will talk to you about payments and scheduling and that kind of thing,” he said as he sat down, already dismissing me.
“Okay, yeah,” I said, dreading talking with Janine, although if she was the receptionist who’d greeted me, she seemed like a very nice older lady.
I made my way out of W. Stan’s office and found Janine waiting for me, folder in hand. “Lucas, let’s sit over here and talk about things, shall we?”
I’d met some of Stick’s less-desirable friends (yes, Stick had friends even less desirable than a reformed Oxy addict and college dropout), but they didn’t hold a candle to the gentle but definitely strong-arm tactics of a high-priced law firm and dear, old Janine.
I walked out of their offices feeling great about the chance that Andy would always be looked after by a member of his family in a legal sense.
And totally fucked on how I was going to pay for those assurances.
* * *
“You look good, Mom,”I said to my mother, honestly meaning it. She looked better than I’d seen her since I’d come home from California.
“I feel good, Lucas,” she said. She smiled tentatively, like this well-being could be snatched away at any moment.
She probably thought that was why I was visiting her in the rehab center—to snatch it all away and remind her of the real world awaiting her. The world that had gotten so hard for her that she’d needed to escape. Through chemicals.
