Time to flip the last of the pancakes.
Nothing new from Gail. Apparently she was confused too, since she was bubbling him back.
He turned from his phone to focus on pancakes. He was just about to finally dig into his own breakfast when his phone rang.
Eugene.
Jesus. Just what he needed. “What is it now?”
“Nothing new, but I need you to come to my office. I’m getting ready to file affidavits and need some receipts and your signature.”
“Yeah?” He rubbed his face and wondered if he couldn’t finish breakfast first.
“Yup. Bring evidence of any communication from the monsters that shows they’re unfit.”
“I can do that.” Robbie eyed Sawyer’s phone, which he had propped up so he could easily scroll TikTok and eat at the same time. Eugene needed that DM from them.
“Also, can you bring Sawyer? A statement from him would help.”
“Uh, I think so? I’ll check and get back to you.”
“’Kay.”
“Eugene?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I finish breakfast first?”
“That is so valid. Eat. Then come. But forward me anything you can so I can get started going through them.”
“Got it.” Robbie hung up and started his own phone-with-breakfast duo, though he bet his scroll through his email was less fun that Sawyer’s on his socials.
An hour later they arrived at Eugene’s office—a small homey space on the second floor of a repurposed nineteenth-century home now smack in the middle of a commercial high street—and then stayed there for a couple more hours writing statements and helping Eugene write up an explanation as to why Robbie wasn’t just a fit parent butwasSawyer’s parent, and Sawyer’s grandparents might be biologically related, but they were not fit parents. Especially not for Robbie’s kid, who they routinely belittled and deadnamed.
By the time Eugene sent them home, Robbie was drained and his eyes were itchy and a headache was building. He wanted ice cream and Finn. Sawyer didn’t look much better. Thank God Eugene needed more of Robbie’s time than Sawyer’s and had sent the kid into his waiting room to escape the nonsense.
Though Robbie wasn’t sure how relaxing the room was, given Eugene’s choice of decoration—a mix between whatever struck his fancy at the secondhand shops, like the amateur still life with a banana that looked more like a dildo or the vintage poster of Smokey the Bear, and a series of comedy posters from China that had used subpar translating services, so came out more like Dada-ist jokes than pithy puns. Robbie was still trying to figure out what the intention was behind the poster with a chimp in a suit and the captionI am a lawyer who saves time, says I am always right.
Sometime between leaving Eugene’s office and getting home, Sawyer recovered enough from the emotional turmoil oflisting all the reasons he didn’t want to live with his biological grandparents to decide that the best way to deal with the morning was to distract himself.
“So. Robbie. What’s going on with you and Finn?”
Distract himself entirely at Robbie’s expense, Robbie amended mentally. “Nothing that’s your business right now, kid. We talked about that this morning.”
“No,” Sawyer said, in the voice he used when he thought he was being very patient and Robbie was being very stupid, “youavoidedtalking about that this morning.”
One day, when Sawyer cured cancer or solved world hunger or invented teleportation, Robbie would be able to admit it was a good thing he had more brains than self-restraint. Today wasn’t that day. “Yeah. I get to do that. I’m an adult. That’s how this works. Sometimes you ask for things and I say no.”
To no one’s surprise, Sawyer did not take the hint. “Okay, but, like… are you really friends with benefits? Don’t lie to me about it. Dad lied to me enough.”
Robbie hissed between his teeth. That was below the belt, straight-up manipulation, and it was absolutely going to work because Robbie was a sucker. Put him up against the ghost of his brother’s shitty parenting, he’d swing at every lousy pitch you threw. “It’s complicated, Sawyer.”
“So you’renotfriends with benefits?”
Jesus Christ. Robbie wasn’t rethinking his stance on becoming Sawyer’s legal guardian, but hewasconsidering taking up guided meditation. Or ax-throwing. Could go either way. “I’m not talking about this right now, okay? Not,” he added quickly, “because I’m avoiding it.” He was kind of avoiding it, but mostly “Because it’s a conversation I need to have with Finn first.”
For a few seconds, he thought Sawyer had actually accepted the boundary, but no. He had one last push. “But you wouldn’t, like…. It’s just that Imogen said…. And Finn is really nice!”
