“Hey!” he calls, pulling his aviators up to rest on top of his head. “Thought I’d swing by and see my favorite girl.”
“She’s not here,” I call back, and his expression gets hard fast. “She’s at her friend Jennica’s at a play date. I’m picking her up in a couple hours.”
Hunter looks instantly relieved. “Oh, okay. I thought that maybe Lauren was screwing with the custody before the hearing.”
“Nah. I haven’t heard a thing from her,” I say as I watch him step onto the boat. “She didn’t even hand Charlie off to me when I picked her up. She had that asswipe she’s dating meet me at the door, and he had a written note with instructions.”
Hunter halts on the deck below, shielding his eyes as he looks up at me, his face twisted with fury. “Are you kidding me? What did the note say?”
“It was a list of things I needed to remember,” I explain. “Bedtime, when to feed her, and what food she likes and doesn’t. It’s like I was some new nanny or deadbeat dad who hadn’t spent any time with their kid. I haven’t gone more than three days without seeing my daughter since the divorce.”
Hunter shakes his head but says nothing as he uses his key to open the main door to the houseboat. A few seconds later he’s walking through my bedroom to the deck I’m on. “The note was handwritten or typed?”
“Typed. Why?”
“She’s creating documentation, that smart bi—”
I glare at Hunter before he can finish his expletive. He knows I don’t tolerate calling Lauren names. Out loud. She still gave me Charlie, and I worry if we get used to calling her names when Charlie’s not around, we might slip and do it when she is. I don’t want her to hear her mother called a bitch…even if she is one. Hunter stops mid-word. “She’s doing this so that when she lies and says you take bad care of Charlie, she will have ‘proof.’”
He makes air quotes as he says “proof,” and my jaw drops along with my stomach. “A written list she claims you need in order to take care of your child, because you are too inept or distracted to remember Charlie’s schedule. It’s fake and I’ll argue that, but it’s her word against ours, and the list, typed up, seems hard to disprove.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. But the good news is most family court judges know all the tricks,” Hunter explains as he walks over to the bar on the deck and grabs the whiskey bottle off the top. I hand him my glass.
“Take mine. I’m not thirsty anymore,” I tell him and Hunter grabs my tumbler and takes a sip before dropping down in the chair I was in before he arrived. I sigh and sit in the other one and try to relax, but I can’t.
“Please don’t worry,” Hunter says, tilting his head up toward the dipping sun.
“You’ve said that a million times.”
“And I’ll say it a million more…until you stop stressing,” my brother replies. “Lauren is not taking Charlie away. Not even for a second. In fact, by the time this is done, I’m hoping to get you more time.”
“I don’t want to take Lauren’s time from Charlie either,” I reply, and I mean it. Lauren isn’t a bad mother. Charlie needs her and loves her. “But this bullshit has got to stop. I don’t know why, after years of things being fine, she suddenly wants a change and is implying I’m unfit.”
“I bet it’s the boyfriend,” Hunter suggests and sips the whiskey again. “He’s the only thing that’s changed since the divorce.”
“That makes no sense. We’ve been divorced for two years. I’m sure she’s been involved with other people,” I argue back.
“You haven’t,” he remarks.
“Touché,” I reply. “But it’s not like this Cale guy is demanding my kid be around even more. Hell, he barely bothered to learn Charlie’s name, and I’m guessing if anything he would rather she spent more time with me so Lauren would be free to follow him around all the shitty gigs he does. She can’t spend all her nights in a dive bar when she’s got a child at home.”
Hunter sighs. “Let’s talk about something better. What’s happening with the hot nurse? Have you gotten to the sponge bath portion of the relationship?”
I laugh because he is ridiculous, but the fact is the whole situation is far from funny. It’s a damn tragedy, and Hunter’s going to kick my ass when I tell him. “I haven’t rescheduled our date. And I’m not going to anytime soon.”
“Okay, nowI’mgoing to call her,” Hunter replies, leaning toward me. “Maybe she can recommend a doctor, because clearly there’s something wrong with you.”
“Hunter, my life isn’t set up to include a girlfriend right now,” I remind him. “I work a lot, and the times I am home I have Charlie most days. Plus it’s baggage enough to have an ex-wife and kid, but to also be dealing with custody issues…Sadie doesn’t need that.”
“Sadie,” Hunter repeats her name, smiling as he pushes his sunglasses back up on his head again. “We have a name. How about a last name?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
His light eyes glint with mischief. “Okay, Sadie the Naughty Nurse it is.”
“Don’t be a cheap asshole, Hunter.”
