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Eerie, however, did.
“Nathan doesn’t care about his reputation.” Eerie snorted. “If he did, he wouldn’t have done half the things that he’d done during his baseball career.”
I wanted to throat punch her.
Nathan hadn’t done anything bad during his career.
I would know. I’d borderline stalked him his entire life.
The most risqué thing he’d done was marry me. And that had been way out of his comfort zone.
I kept my trap shut, though.
They didn’t need my input. Especially when all it would’ve been was a couple hundred ‘fuck yous’ aimed Eerie’s way.
“Nathan does care about his reputation. He also cares about his family. Do you know why he quit?” Swayze asked. Not waiting for a reply, she continued. “He quit because the media was pulling up information on his father—his biological father—that had been murdered, along with his mother and unborn sibling. After asking them to cease their probing, they just ramped it up. So to keep himself out of the limelight, he retired.”
“That’s the biggest bunch of…” Eerie started, realizing that what she’d said wasn’t quite as quiet as she’d intended for it to be.
The judge gave her a sharp look that had her trailing off before she’d even finished her sentence.
Seriously, if looks could kill, she’d be a glowing cinder right then.
“Be that as it may,” the judge said, “that has no relevance to what we’re discussing today.”
I gritted my teeth so hard that I heard my molars creak in protest.
“There’s a possibility that he’s not even Nathan’s kid,” Eerie’s lawyer tried. “How do we know that the illegal DNA test performed on this child was done correctly?”
The judge nearly rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she said. “Another DNA test will be performed immediately. The child’s representative will be the one in control of the DNA test. In fact, he will choose a company to perform this test. Because I know that your next argument will be that the defendant’s wife works there. All parties in agreement?”
The baby’s lawyer, Nathan’s lawyer, and Eerie’s lawyer—who might I add looked as if this was a lost cause—all nodded their agreements.
Eerie looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.
I would’ve laughed had I not wanted that judge’s attention on me.
The judge was scary.
She was scary good at picking through lies—the ones that Eerie had tried to spin all morning—and I didn’t want her to realize that I was a complete and utter faker.
That Nathan and I were just playing at being married.
Even if we were getting really darn good at it.
Every morning since our deal had been struck, we’d woken up in each other’s arms.
We went to sleep in each other’s arms, too, if he was there and not at work.
I was beginning to get comfortable in the routine. Beginning to feel like this was what happiness felt like. What perfection personified meant.
I had a house. A husband. A baby—even if I did have to share that baby with Eerie, I was really beginning to love the guy—and my dream job.
This was all that I’d ever wanted since the moment that I’d fallen in love with Nathan.
Though, granted, in my daydreams, the baby was supposed to be mine and Nathan’s, not Nathan’s and another woman’s.
But, seeing as Eerie had always done some freaky, creepy shit that always turned out bad for me, I didn’t see the point in going down that particular rabbit hole of fuckedupness.
“Pending DNA tests,” the judge said as she looked at Nathan’s lawyer, “what else do you have that you’d like me to consider?”
“The name change, your honor,” Swayze said. “That’s something that needs to be addressed immediately.”
I felt my fingers tense.
The judge pulled her glasses from her nose and rubbed her eyes with her opposite hand. “And the name? Why does that need to be changed? We can just add the last name to the birth certificate.”
Nathan looked sick for a moment as Swayze explained the importance of the name.
Judge Batista turned to survey Eerie who started to sink down low in her chair as if she couldn’t quite believe that all that information could have somehow been said.
“You’re telling me you named that child after a person that attempted to murder the child’s father?” the judge asked Eerie.
Eerie lifted up her chin.
“Stanley’s my father’s name,” she said.
Stanley was her father’s name.
What wasn’t her father’s name was Jones.
Which Swayze pointed out seconds later to my smug satisfaction.
The judge turned to Nathan then.
“What would you like to name your child?” she asked.
“Darren Wolfgang Amsel Cox.”
“Amsel?” Judge Batista asked.
“That’s actually my adopted father’s last name. Amsel. I go by Nathan Cox, though. Always have. I didn’t want to take my biological father’s name away when that’s all I have left of him, and neither did my adoptive father.”
Understanding was written all over her face.
“Gotcha,” she said as she looked at the child’s lawyer who looked quite bored. “Do you have any problems with that, Mr. Prater?”
