While she cracks the lid off Nathan’s, I start speaking. “Nothing you did today was wrong, Lydia. Neither of you are responsible for his actions.”
“He was yelling at me,” Nathan whispers, pinching a piece of chocolate between his fingers. “And he smelled really bad.”
My chest tightens to the point of pain. “I know. And you did everything you were supposed to do, Nathan.”
“What do we do now?” Lydia asks, stroking his hair.
“I need you to tell me everything that happened from the moment he arrived to when the supervisors escorted him out.”
My notebook is a heavy weight that I grab from the table and bring to my lap. I click my pen and nod at Lydia, encouraging her to get started. She nods once and clears her throat, opening up.
I write everything down. Times, movements, the words she remembers him saying. The way he leered at her when he toldher that this was her fault and that she was setting him up. His snarled voice using my name to try and scare her. Nathan’s flinching when Kevin flipped his attention to him and accused him of being in on it. How it took three supervisors to haul him out of the supervision centre because of how hard he was fighting.
I’ve already learned as much as I can from my call with the woman handling their case at the centre, including his recorded blood alcohol level and the language he used while he was being hauled outside. Once the full report comes in, I’ll know every detail.
Then the judge will.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Lydia,” I say once she’s finished, closing my notebook. “Kevin’s access is officially frozen until we’re back in front of a judge. I’ll be requesting stricter conditions, including suspension of all visitation.”
I don’t include how I’m hopeful this will be enough to nail him to the wall. His patterns of alcoholism and now instilling fear into his son should, in a perfect world, be enough to win us this case. I’m not going to tell her that yet, though. Not until I can meet with Rowena, get all of the paperwork drawn up and our next court date moved up. I expect I’ll be contacted by Kevin’s lawyer any minute now as well with a long list of excuses.
Lydia swallows thickly. “He’s going to be furious.”
“Let him be. He’s not going to scare you into rolling over.”
“I don’t want to see him again,” Nathan says, staring at me almost pleadingly. “I’m happy with my auntie.”
My nose burns. I straighten and shove my emotions into the drawer I file them into during times like this. It’s not going to do me any good to get distracted by how badly I want to find Kevin and run him over with my car.
I force myself to stare at Lydia. “If Kevin contacts you, do not respond. You forward everything to me. I mean it.”
She jerks her head in a forced nod and grips her knee.
“I’ve got you, Lydia,” I promise.
36
Asher tossesa bag of reusable food containers into my back seat and then climbs in.
It’s what he does at the end of every week that we play at home. Once he’s gone through the meals I’ve prepped for him, he gives me my containers back, and I refill them. I don’t hide my habit of taking care of him from anyone; we just don’t go around announcing it. He’s incredibly private, and even now, after he’s started accepting my constant presence in his life, I still don’t know if he likes me half the time.
When I offered to cook for him, it was after he’d pulled me aside and asked if I knew of anyone on the team who used a private chef. He wasn’t exactly an open book about why he wasn’t home enough after games or during days off to cook for himself, but I did learn that he’d been staying with his mom for a while and couldn’t keep ordering takeout if he wanted to stay in shape.
I mentioned that I was big on meal prepping and offered to add a few more portions to what I was already doing for him to have. After doing it for six months now, it’s become habit.
“Thanks, Finn,” he mutters once I’ve slipped behind the wheel.
“Don’t worry about it.” I check my phone for the thousandth time since this morning and frown at the lack of calls or replies from Aubrey. “Have you heard from Bree today?”
“No. Why?”
My heart clunks in my chest as I put the car in gear and drive out of the parking garage. “We had lunch plans, and she didn’t show. I haven’t been able to get a hold of her at all.”
“You didn’t miss a text?”
“No. I’ve looked.”
He straightens in the seat and pulls his phone out. I glance across the car and see him pulling open a text chain. When he starts typing, I look back out the windshield.
