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Chapter 18 - Danny: Away For A Moment
Thanksgiving had started on such a high, but it quickly turned into a shit show. After I got served with papers, it took Gavin, Marcus, and Lily to calm me down.
I couldn’t breathe. The only thing I could think about was how that man wanted to take my baby away from me. I knew he had been after Axel. I had seen it in his eyes that day. That’s what Arthur was good at—taking. That’s all he ever did throughout the entirety of our relationship. He had taken so much of me until I was only but a shell of what I had once been.
His words had been like poison to my mind and I had allowed them to fester and take root inside of my heart until I started telling them to myself. Worthless. Hard to love. Average. Those were the words that had been on repeat for so long.
Now with him being back those venomous words were coming back—I could feel them sprouting again but this time I was stronger. I was better. I would not allow him to break me like he had before.
In the envelope were custody agreement papers. The man was demanding shared custody ofmyson. A child had refused from the moment he knew I was pregnant.
I was the one that had raised him. I had grown him in my womb. I had carried him safely for nine months through my depression and the shitstorm he had created in my life. I was the one who had pushed him out on my own. I had clothed him, loved him, and protected him for the first two years of his life and now suddenly he wanted to be a father? I would be damned if he took Axel away from me.
But the fire within me was contrary to my current state. I was breaking and doing my best to keep it together.
But this intense protective fire I had over Axel was smothered with the fear that had taken root in my chest. It was overwhelming.
“He can’t do this,” I sniffed, “He can’t take Axel away from me.”
“No, he won’t,” Jade said from the corner of the room where she was reading through the documents. “I will go over these tonight, and then I will take them to Arnie. I promise to fight for you with every fiber of my being. I will burn that motherfucker to the ground.”
I wanted to reply to her, but everything got caught in my throat. A sob escaped my lips, and Gavin pulled me tighter to his chest. I held onto him for dear life. All that trauma from years ago bubbled forward.
Grayson had taken Axel to the other room while I got myself together. I didn’t need him seeing me like this.
“Why the hell is he even back in town? I thought he was supposed to be some bigshot Hollywood star,” Marcus seethed, staring angrily at the floor.
“I think it has to do with his little scandal that happened about a month ago,” Lily said, coming into the living room with a glass of water. She handed it to me, but I turned it down.
“What do you mean?” It was Gavin who asked.
“Well, apparently he made some misogynistic comment in an interview, and then Twitter went batshit crazy over it. People canceled him faster than Brad Pitt after Angelina. It was some next-level type stuff. The hashtag ‘down with the Lord’ was trending for a whole week.”
I turned my head to look at Lily. “So he wants to use Axel as what? A scapegoat to clean up his reputation?”
“Probably,” Jade replied, flipping through the pages. “If that is the case, then I could use it if we are to proceed to court—which I highly doubt will happen, seeing as he had no parental rights over Axel. He did sign a paper saying he relinquishes his parental rights, correct?”
I shook my head in despair. “I thought him saying he didn’t want Axel was enough.”
“Is his name on the birth certificate?”
I shook my head again. “No, it’s just mine.”
“If that is the case, then we don’t have much to worry about. He could try to back alley this, but I doubt he would win. But it would work better if someone was on the birth certificate, though. Like a ‘stand in’ father figure.” Her eyes traveled to Gavin who kissed the top of my head.
She wasn’t suggesting what I thought she was suggesting, was she?
Gavin and I had just started dating. Asking him to be on my son’s birth certificate was a bit forward. I knew Gavin loved Axel, and Axel loved Gavin, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he would be comfortable assuming such a position. That would make him legally responsible for Axel. I couldn’t place that on him.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Maddy piped up for the first time. “You guys are a little family already. This would just make it more official now. You would obviously then have to decide whose name Ax would take, but that is an easy fix.”
She rubbed her swollen belly, and Marcus rolled his eyes at his wife. They were sitting on the loveseat opposite ours.
“I second that motion,” Lily agreed, “I have seen the way Ax looks at Gavin, and they are like kindred souls. If you didn’t know better, you would think they were father and son.”
“Okay, woah.” I pulled out of Gavin’s embrace, sitting up a little straighter. “I love Gav, but this is too big of a deal. That is a lot of responsibility, and I couldn’t put that kind of pressure on Gav. I can’t just put his name on Axel’s birth certificate just so I can win a court case. We just started dating and this would be insane.”
“Kind of like getting married just for an inheritance?” Maddy said, amused. “Sounded crazy at the time, and now I’m in a real marriage and the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. Sometimes the things we think are crazy end up being the exact thing we needed.”
