Tonya gasped. “He wants to break them up? No. Absolutely not.”
“In my experience, things work out better for all involved if we don’t have to go to the judge. It could swing the other way, so compromising is the best method at this point.”
“How can the judge require me to compromise on the care of my kids?” Tonya asked.
Fish. They were fish.
“Before you make a decision, you should go over all of Rex’s requests. Then we can counter.”
Sadie handed over the document containing the aforementioned requests.
Tonya stared at it but didn’t seem to actually read the words on the paper. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Sadie walked Tonya to the door.
Babushka still held court at the desk. “Vhat do you say, you come over for dinner tonight. See Roman. Don’t make commitment to him or put out too early. Just lead him on. Then we start phase two.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Especially with Roman. Especially with a plan that came in phases. “I have a date with a Green Giant microwave dinner tonight.”
“Now you have better plans.”
The phone rang and Babushka reached for the receiver.
Roman satat his desk as he sifted through the images from a recent wedding he’d photographed, ignoring his brother and Brek.
He’d done his studio up in neutral colors—mostly white because it worked best for his studio sessions. Along the walls, he’d hung some of his favorite images. The ones that weren’t classified.
There was the photo of his best Army pal—Tyler—who had taken a bullet during the firefight that inspired Roman to get his Louise tattoo.
The portrait of his whole family that he’d taken when he came home on leave a couple years back.
A sunrise over Mosul.
A sunset over Sri Lanka.
An old photo of his babushka and dedushka shortly after they’d first come to the country. He hadn’t taken it, but it meant the world to him.
All of the images were precious moments locked in time on paper.
“You look like a man who has found a woman.” Jase stretched back in one of the oversized chairs near the corner of Roman’s studio that he used as a prop for in-studio sessions. “Don’t worry, that terrified look goes away eventually.”
Brek chuckled.
Brek had followed Jase in, but instead of using one of the multiple chairs throughout the studio, he’d taken up residence sitting on the side of Roman’s desk.
Yes, Roman had found a woman. He’d found Sadie.
Right now, he was questioning every decision he’d ever made that led him to his current situation.
“Sadie, huh?” Brek asked with what could only be described as an Elvis-inspired lip-curl smirk.
That’s what Roman wished, but he didn’t need the whole world blabbing when he was floundering. “I see Jase has wasted no time in flapping his trap.”
“Ah, but you forget that Brek was at the wedding where Babushka announced your engagement. My trap did not need to flap. Brek figured it out all by his own self.”
Brek flashed a toddler-esque grin. “True.”
“What do you guys want anyway?” Roman asked, focusing on sorting the images into various folders to send to the client.
