“What?” Sawyer sat up straighter. “What does that mean?”
“Brah, it means that CAS could change her mind if you or Robbie give them reason to,” Eugene cut in smoothly, though he glared at Margaret.
She lifted her hands. “I’m not suggesting you will, but I need you both to understand the situation. It’ll mean some surprise visits from one of my colleagues and poking into your lives here and maybe even checking in with teachers or family friends to get their sense of Sawyer’s care.”
Eugene nodded as he munched on an apple slice. “Pretty standard for these kinds of cases. We gotta wait for a court date. In the meantime, we’ll get our ducks in line, see if Vince is willing to sign that paperwork to hand you over.” Margaret made a noise and Eugene nodded. “Which may not mean much but could mean something. And hopefully by the time we see a judge, Margaret and her coworkers are gonna know Robbie’s what’s best for you.”
Sawyer looked at Eugene with suspicion but didn’t argue.
Hours later, once Margaret and the cops left and Robbie had cosseted Sawyer enough to get the kid to let Robbie out of his sight and go to bed, he slumped into a seat and groaned.
“How you coping?” Eugene handed Robbie a beer and settled on the couch.
Robbie rubbed his face. “Ask me tomorrow. Is it bad that I’m kinda grateful the idiot got arrested so I can finally get formal guardianship? And maybe official custody one day?”
“Frankly, I’d be impressed if you weren’t.”
“Thanks.” Robbie smiled at him. “And not just for today. For all of it. Seriously, Eugene. I’d have been a mess today without you.”
“Nah, you’d have handled everything just fine,” he disagreed with a wave of his hand. “You’re a natural—dad vibes all the way down.”
Robbie snorted.
And then his phone buzzed with a notification—a text from Finn.
He opened the message and found an image of a freshly replaced bathroom faucet.International handyman of mystery.
Finn had unforeseen depths, apparently.Impressive, but how are you at cleaning pizza charcoal out of ovens?
There was a clatter as Eugene set his feet on the coffee table and assessed him. “Something else on your mind, man? Cause your aura just did like a pretty quick 180.” He eyed Robbie’s phone meaningfully.
Robbie took a deep pull of beer to give himself a minute. He’d never explicitly come out to Eugene, but he was pretty sure he knew anyway. “I’m… seeing someone.”
“Oh, love is in the air.” He nodded sagely. “Happy for you, my guy. Someone special?”
“Yeah. It’s still new, but… yeah.”Special.Understatement. Robbie was ass over tits. He had no idea how he was supposed to keep their relationship under wraps for five more weeks. He’d be lucky if he got to Tuesday without asking Finn to move in with him.
Eugene wiped a dribble of beer from his hipster beard. “So like, you introduce them to Sawyer yet?”
Them.Yep, Eugene knew. Now Robbie just had to confirm it. He could totally do that. He’d gone on TV and made an ass of himself learning how to ice dance. He’d stood in front of ninety-mile-an-hour slap shots. On purpose. “Sawyer’s met him,” he said, furiously annoyed with his heart for beating so fast. “But he doesn’t know we’re….”Meeting up in hotels for undernegotiated kink and frantically sexting each other when we can’t.“Dating,” he finished.
“Hmm.” Eugene didn’t react to the pronoun. Of course he didn’t. The stupid yet inevitable ball of tension in Robbie’s stomach loosened. “You afraid Sawyer doesn’t like him?”
The tension disappeared completely as Robbie snorted. “Sawyer thinks he’s the bee’s knees. He might like him better than he likes me.”
“So then what’s the holdup?”
“Aside from not wanting to give anyone ammunition to deny me custody of my kid? It uh. Has to stay secret for a while for… other reasons.”
“Got it. Major Romeo and Juliet energy.”
“Something like that.”
Eugene tapped the side of his nose. “Say no more, brah. Discretion.”
“Exactly.” Somehow Robbie had reached the bottom of his beer. He got up for a second. “Anyway, enough about me. Tell me all the office gossip.”
Eugene employed a rotating cast of college-age kids in various capacities—part-time, clerical work, paralegals, law students. They were all completely hapless adults. Stories of their ineptitude could soften the impact of even the most embarrassing of hockey blowouts. Robbie once let in four goalsin five minutes and got pulled not even halfway into the first period, and that night Eugene had him in stitches because Michaela the weekend receptionist had hired someone to water her fake plant when she was on spring break in Florida.
