The agent’s pen scratched across the form as if she were already writing the verdict when she finally cleared her throat and started theinvestigation.
Interrogation was more like it.
“Ms. Blake,” she said without looking up, “do your children often spend evenings at the ice rink unsupervised while you’re working?”
Frankie’s voice shook. “They’re never unsupervised. The players, coaches?—”
“Are not parental supervision.” The woman cut in, cold as steel.
“But I am,” I cut in just as powerful. “Travis and I are parental figures in their lives as their mother’s partners. Therefore, we qualify as parental supervision when they’re at the rink. And they’re never there without us. So no, the answer to your question is no, they do not spend evenings at the rink unsupervised while Frankie works.”
The woman’s eyes squinted in indignation slightly before she looked back down at the papers. “Ms. Blake, your petition shows a pattern of neglectful behavior.” Looking back up at Frankie, she pushed on, “The elementary school they attend documented four instances this year alone when you’ve been late to pick them up.”
I could hear Frankie swallow, but she replied through her fear. “Never more than a few minutes. The doors were always still open; I wasn’t that late. It was just a few minutes.”
“Were you spending that time with your lovers?” The woman cut making my skin crawl.
“No,” Frankie answered firmly, “I was at college, attending classes to get my business degree. Those four instances were when my class ran over, and I was stuck arriving a few moments late. That’s all.”
“How many sexual relationships have you been in over the last four years?”
“Are you kidding me?” I roared, and Frankie flinched, the accusation laced with enough venom to bruise her.
“None.” Frankie replied firmly, “I don’t date. I don’t go out. I don’t have friends. I don’t do anything but work, go to school, and take care of my kids, taking them from hockey practice and art camp and every other extracurricular activity I can afford because I want them to be well-rounded individuals.” She took a shuddering breath and pressed on. “Until I started dating Travis and Elliot, I hadn’t been with anyone since my children’s father.”
The agent turned her gaze to me. Sharp. Too sharp.
“Mr. Torres, correct? You and your friend—Mr. Hayes. You’re both romantically involved with Ms. Blake?”
Frankie inhaled sharply, shame burning her cheeks. This was her worst fear come true.
I squared my shoulders, meeting her stare head on, “Yes. Both of us. And if you think loving Frankie makes her an unfit mother, then you’ve never seen what real parenting looks like. It doesn’t matter if there’s one or two of us, the dynamic in our household does not differ from any other single parent dating and introducing their children to their partners.”
The pen stopped scratching across her notes, and the room got colder almost instantly. “Are the children exposed to your—relationship?”
The question was acid in my gut. What the fuck did she think we did in front of the kids?
“They’re exposed to love. To safety. To two men who would lay down their lives for them, same as their mother. That’s what they see. They’re loved by a woman, and two men, who are finally giving them the good male influence in their lives that they’ve been lacking since their father beat the shit out of their mother so badly, she ran for her life and returned to Cedar Bluff.”
Frankie broke then, tears spilling as she buried her face in her hands. “They’re mybabies. I would never hurt them. I would never put them at risk.”
With a mask of impassive power, the agent wrote something else, and I felt my control slipping with each stroke of her pen. My voice dropped, low and dangerous.
“You’re twisting her life into something ugly because her ex fed you lies. You want to investigate? Fine. But don’t sit there and act like you already know the end of the story. You don’t know her. You don’t know us.”
The agent didn’t flinch, didn’t even acknowledge the fury radiating off me. Just opened the folder next to her on the table and pulled out something.
“What do you have to say about this?” she asked, laying down a dark photo on the table in front of Frankie.
“Oh, my God—” Frankie’s voice broke on a startled sob as she flipped the photo over, disgusted by the image.
“Jesus fuck.” I growled, ripping it from her hands and crumpling it. “Seriously?”
“Well,” The agent asked, raising one brow. “You tell me what that is, because to me, it looks like you’re engaging in a sex act inthe middle of a public parking lot. Topless in the wide open, not even trying to hide it.”
“You can’t throw out nude photos of a woman and hold them against her when she didn’t consent to them being taken!” I roared.
The agent didn’t even blink. “The security camera footage from the outside of the rink had them. We didn’t invade any privacy to obtain them. If you wanted privacy, perhaps you should have had your orgy behind closed doors.”
