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For a moment, I have the urge to run. I don’t want to deal with lawyers anymore. I want the woman who made my nerve endings still feel like they’re supercharged from each time she came with my name on her lips.

I put those thoughts from my mind as quickly as they intruded. Letting myself fall for her is what got me into this trouble in the first place. I took my eye off the ball. Didn’t think about what Elizabeth might ask Scout—I was too focused on having time alone with Callie.

“What?” I stand aside so he can walk through the entryway of my house, where he’s never been before. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows where I live since my address is on the retainer I signed when I hired him, but it’s still strange to see him here. Like we’re suddenly close friends who visit each other at home.

My mind briefly wanders to what his home might look like, but then I banish the purposeless thoughts so I can focus on what he’s saying.

He doesn’t answer my questions, instead wandering through my living room and glancing around like he’s on a house tour. He picks up a picture frame Scout made me at school for Father’s Day. It has pasta shells glued onto wood and painted with every color available to him.

“Cute kid,” he says of Scout’s crooked grin. I realize it’s the first time he’s seen Scout, either in a photo or in person. I’ve intentionally kept the custody fight away from my son, trying to create as much normalcy for him as possible. He deserves that. He’s four, for fuck’s sake.

“Why are you here, John?”

“Because we have a problem.”

I coax him through the house and out to the back patio, where the light breeze will help me breathe. Suddenly, the stale air inside the house feels stifling. Pointing to the array of seating options, I wait for John to pull out a chair from the picnic table and sit. The image is still incongruous—my lawyer sitting on my patio.

Taking the seat across from him, I open my hands. “Enough lead-up. What’s the problem?”

“Opposing counsel got wind of your fake relationship. They’re going nuts, claiming you’re an unreliable father who lied under oath and fabricated a fiancée to try to win custody. I’m going to come back at them hard, claiming this is a desperate case of slander on their part⁠—”

I cut him off. “It’s true.”

“Come again?” His expression is so blank I’m not sure he heard me.

“I lied when I said Callie and I were a couple.”

He doesn’t speak. His head drops into his hands, and he shakes it side to side.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Fuck!”

I’ve never heard John swear, but I’m not deterred. I need him to fight for me. Otherwise, I’ve got nothing. “Please, John. I was desperate. It never would have occurred to me except that you saw us kiss and you assumed, and then it actually seemed like an idea that could work,” I say. Probably the most I’ve ever said to him. “It just…snowballed. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it seemed better if you weren’t complicit.”

“I saw you kiss.”

“I, um, yeah. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

He shrugs. “Looked real to me.”

“Yeah. She’s good at that.”

It was real. It is.

I want to tell him that our fake relationship has turned into something else. I want him to know how good she is with Scout, how good we both are when she’s around. But will he care? Will he even believe me?

Falling in love with her doesn’t make it any less of a lie.

“You’re going to have to explain it to a judge. This case can no longer be solved by a mediator. It needs to go to trial, and they’ve already set a date. It’s next week.”

“Next week?”

My heart sinks. It’s not just the implication that I’m unreliable—it’s how ruthless Elizabeth’s lawyers will be in trying to destroy any credibility I have. After feeling so optimistic these past months about my odds of proving Scout lives in a stable, loving family environment, I see my custody hopes fading into the ether.

I drop my head into my hands, realizing my blind stupidity in sending him out for the day with her. I took my eye off the custody fight for half a second. I should have prepped Scout, made sure he’d tell Elizabeth that Callie has been my girlfriend for the better part of a year. Just like I’d told the mediator under oath. But that would have meant asking him to lie, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

And worse than that, by letting my needs and wants come first, I screwed everything up. Maybe permanently.

“Maybe I really am a shitty dad,” I concede.