“Gym,” Robbie said, because he hadn’t been a closeted bisexual professional athlete for twenty years without learning to lie unflinchingly.
Sawyer stabbed a noodle, frowning. “I thought you had Tuesdays off.”
“From the show,” Robbie said. “Not from life.” Ugh. Was he going to have to start coming up with better lies? That would be a drag.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Sawyer narrowed his eyes like he could hear it. Fucking teenagers were like dogs or something. Sawyer needed to go to a few rock concerts, take the edge off that sharp hearing. “Is that your trainer?”
“What am I, clairvoyant?” Robbie shook his head. “No phones at the table. You know the rules.” He was kind of feeling like Sawyer wanted to look over his shoulder, but he had the vague idea that you weren’t supposed to tell kids to mind their own business, which was unfortunate because it was a lesson Sawyer could stand to learn.
Of course, the same rule didn’t always apply to parents—or parent-like persons—and now that Sawyer was relaxed and less defensive, Robbie picked up a noodle and casually asked, “So what had you so distracted you forgot about pizza?”
Sawyer’s head shot up. Bingo.
“What?”
“It’s pizza, kid.”
He looked down and his shoulders slumped. Robbie doubted he had wanted to keep this from him, but teen pride could be a bitch.
“Dad. He says Clive and Deborah are talking about grandparents’ rights.”
Robbie froze. Sawyer had started calling his grandparents by their first names, rather than Grandma and Grandpa, once they made it clear they wouldn’t respect his chosen name. They’d never been very good about “nicknames,” and Robbie had always grated under their use of Robert, but to refuse to use Sawyer because it wasn’t on his birth certificate was just cruel. (They turned a hilarious shade of red when Sawyer pointed out that it was, in fact, on his birth certificate as part of his mother’s name. Robbie would cherish that memory as part of the last time he had voluntarily escorted Sawyer to their house.)
“Grandparents’ rights,” Robbie said slowly.
“Dad says they think he’s, like, keeping me from them.” That was so fucked up for so many reasons, not least because why the hell was Vince texting Sawyer this and not Robbie?
“Right, and you staying away from them has nothing to do with their crappy behaviour.”
Sawyer snorted, but his mouth turned down. “I looked it up. If a judge says so, then they’d get visitation rights, like divorced parents.”
Robbie took that in. “Did the internet also mention whether or not the judge would care about your thoughts?” His own research into custody law over the past few months indicated that most judges considered what the kids wanted, especially ones Sawyer’s age.
“Maybe.” He poked his pancake with chopsticks.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like they filed yet.” Sawyer shook his head. “So, no sense borrowing trouble tonight. But I’ll text Vince to see what they saidandEugene to get the downlow on grandparents’ rights and give him a heads-up.”
Some, but not all, of the stress eased out of Sawyer’s face. “Yeah?”
“Of course.” He reached out, unable to not touch, and smoothed his hand over Sawyer’s hair. “Leave the worrying to the adults, okay?”
“So where’sthe fire?” Eugene asked when he finally obeyed Robbie’s911! call tonight!text.
Robbie snorted at the irony. “It was in my oven, sorta, briefly.”
“What?” Eugene almost snapped. Robbie had never heard him sound so urgent.
“We’re fine. I might have to sacrifice my oven to the gods of cleaning and air freshening, but the damage was limited to one very burned frozen pizza.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Sawyer got distracted by a text from Vince. The troglodytes want grandparents’ rights.”
“Shit.”
Robbie updated him, and Eugene listened and hummed.
“Look, we can talk more details in a day or two, after I’ve done some research and hopefully have their request. But the long and the short of it is that Sawyer’s opinion matters. The judge will want to hear a fourteen-year-old’s perspective. Unless we get a transphobe, I can’t see them having a chance in hell.”
