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“My next suggestion would be this…”
On and on he went, highlighting every single thing that we would do from there on out.
“My final suggestion is to file for full custody,” he finished. “I think that we should make this final. I think that we should also request that her rights as a parent be terminated. I also think this should be done as soon as possible, for both your peace of mind and the benefit of the child’s welfare. I doubt there’s a judge alive that will see this for anything but what it is.”
Phoebe’s shoulders slumped. “Good. That’s very, very good.” She turned to me. “I agree. I think you should have him start this process now. And,” she turned back to the lawyer, a shark of a lawyer that her father had recommended. Who just so happened to be married to Cheyenne’s mother. “Todd, if there is anything you need, you know that my father can find it out.”
Todd’s grin went a tad bit scary. “I know, honey. I already have him on it.”
I closed my eyes as a feeling of relief surged through me.
Knowing that this was on the road to being fixed was one of the best feelings in the world.
***
Phoebe
Two hours later
“We’re going to buy me a truck,” he growled.
I felt my lips tip up at the corner. “Oh, can I choose what color you get?”
He looked down at me. “This is not funny.”
I tried to control the smile gracing my lips. “I never said it was.”
“You’re laughing,” he countered.
I took off my glasses—my contacts had run out yesterday, and I hadn’t had a chance to go get a refill for this month—and wiped my watering eyes.
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the disgusted look on your face,” I sobered. “It’s going to be okay.”
His eyes studied me for a long moment.
“I know,” he admitted. “As long as you’re here, I know it will be.”
I felt things inside of me start to melt, and I walked forward until my face was buried in his chest, and my arms were locked tightly around him.
“I love you, Benson Bayou Beauregard,” I whispered to him, tilting my head up so that he could hear me.
His eyes lit upon hearing those words.
“I didn’t think that I’d ever feel this way about another person,” he admitted. “I didn’t think I could…but you showed me differently.” He swallowed hard, and I knew that it’d be hard for him to say the words. His brain just wasn’t wired to work that way. The fact that he was giving me the words at all was a miracle in and of itself. “I love…I love you, too.”
I stretched up on my tiptoes and offered him my lips, which he took readily.
“Let’s go get you a truck,” I urged.
He gave me a tight squeeze, then let me go. “Then we’ll go to Lowe’s and get some paint. Pink paint.”
I threw my head back and laughed, right there in his arms. “Now that didn’t sound like you were disgusted at all.”
He curled his lip. “Pink’s such an awful color. It would be fitting for my girl to love it.”
I winked up at him. “Both of your girls.”Chapter 17I wish I loved exercising as much as I love eating.
-Phoebe to Bayou
Phoebe
I yanked off my glasses and threw them at Bayou, unable to help myself.
“What was that for?” he asked, sounding normal.
He had no clue. No clue what he’d done to me.
“I’m so mad at you right now, I don’t even want to see you,” I snarled.
And, after everything, that was the thing he finally decided was funny.
The ass.
Hoax started laughing, too, only making it worse.
See, we were all at a club party.
Hoax was there with his children and Pru. Bayou, Isa and me. Zee, the helicopter pilot. Castiel, the police detective and arson investigator. Liner, the man who looked like he’d been woken up too early—which, I’d been told, he had been. There’d been an extremely bad storm roll through the town and state, and he’d been working for going on forty-eight hours straight. Apparently, the only sleep he’d gotten over the past few days was a couple of hours here and there in the front seat of his truck.
But he had managed to go to the dealership with Bayou and help pick out a brand-new vehicle for me—paid in full—and bring it to this party.
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” he finally said once he’d controlled his laughter. “You said you needed a new vehicle. I was just trying to help.”
I looked at the truck. My dream truck.
How had he known?
I turned accusing eyes on my sister, who looked away rather guiltily.
“Bayou, this is too much,” I finally said. “You can’t just go spend thousands of dollars on me. That’s not how life works.”
