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Chapter 18
“You can’t stay.” She sat up in bed, searching for her shirt.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “I can’t go.”
“Finn …” she rebuked.
“Jane …” He shut her up with a kiss.
The sheet under them was moist from their shower-wet bodies that had crashed on it for another round as soon as they had gotten out of her bathroom.
She broke their kiss. “I don’t have to remind you …” she halted. “I just don’t like that silence of hers.”
No, she didn’t have to remind him. He had a feeling Avery was planning something, but his lawyer had promised him that she had no legal standing to take Max from him on the grounds of his relationship with Jane.
“I’m not going to live without you in my life anymore. Do you understand?” He locked her under him and watched her from above. She just stared at him. “Do you understand?”
“Just until things—”
“Things will never be easy. It will always be awkward when we’re all in the same room. And we will have to be sometimes, at least for the next six years until Max turns eighteen, and even after that. If we wait for things to be easy, we might as well just …”
She brought her hand up and traced his face with her fingers. “Finn, we’re in this together.”
“Are we? D’you promise? Because I feel like you’re slipping away.”
“No, I’m in. I don’t regret any of this. I’m just trying to minimize the shit storm.”
He gritted his teeth. “Okay. I’ll go now. But you and I … I’m not giving this up.”
She raised her head from the mattress and met his lips in a deep kiss.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And shit storm it was.
Avery didn’t say much when he picked Max up on Sunday evening. Neither did Max. Finn asked if his mother had said anything that he’d want to ask him about or have him explain. Max said that all they’d done was play with the VR, watch a movie, and visit his grandparents.
Finn wished his own mother didn’t live in Florida and that he could have Max spend some time with her. He planned to take Max to see her on Christmas.
On Monday, the reason for Avery’s uncharacteristic silence transpired.
“She filed a change request to the physical custody order—Max’s living arrangements. She wants him to live with her and visit you every other weekend. She says you had him for two years, and that it wasn’t legally settled,” his lawyer said.
He had just parked outside the pool. Sixteen people awaited him inside for practice toward a regional meet.
“She moved away and was fine with him living with me.”
“I know. There’s more. She says that, unbeknownst to her, you made sure the holidays were split so that you’d have Max at hers and be free to meet with your mistress because, to the best of her knowledge, this relationship has been going on since you two were married.”
He slammed his hands down on the steering wheel. The honk went off. “What mistress? I’m not married!” He took a deep breath. “And as for the rest, it’s all lies.”
“I submitted the agreement we prepared as a counter offer, and I’ll add the necessary rejection of all her false claims as to your relationship with her cousin,” his lawyer said in a cool and calm manner. “We’ll have a court hearing.” He paused then added, “Something good might come out of it. It wasn’t healthy to let living arrangements settle themselves without legally binding them.”
Finn ran a hand over his forehead. Then, before he shifted back into gear, he texted the dad who was volunteering as his coach assistant. He then headed straight to Riviera View.
“Do you want to explain to the court how, for two years, you lived in another town, an hour away, and were okay with seeing your son only on the weekends?” he barked into Avery’s face as soon as she opened the door. “Do you want to explain to the court why it’s okay to move Max to another school in the middle of a school year?” His voice was loud, the car was left at the curb with the engine on, people were out, and he didn’t care about the scene they were making.
“Do you want to explain to the court that you’ve been screwing your son’s aunt under the roof he lives in?”
