The Rules of Dating(92)
“How did you know that detail about the Tom Cruise movie?” I asked.
“I Googled spoilers on the way here.”
“Smart.”
He shook his head. “This whole thing is like a mind game, isn’t it? Like how fast can you absorb information?”
Colby’s phone rang, and he picked it up immediately. “Hello?” He turned to me and whispered, “It’s the attorney.”
Once again on edge, I watched as Colby spoke to him.
He pulled his hair in frustration as he listened. “Okay. Well, it’s unavoidable, so at least it’s set.” He stood up and paced. “Yup. Okay. That sounds good. I’ll see you next week on Thursday then. Thank you.”
After he hung up, he let out a long breath. “They set a date for the Stokes hearing. The attorney wants Maya and me to come in and meet with him this week so we can discuss a strategic plan.”
“Well, at least it’s progress.”
“Exactly. It’s like we have to go through hell to get to the other side,” he said.
“That’s a good way to describe it.”
A dark expression suddenly came over his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I feel like today is hitting me in waves,” he said. “I’m so ashamed to have put you through that.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Truly.”
“Well, I’m not. You’re the most important thing in my life besides Saylor, and to have to reduce you to a babysitter? That just felt so damn wrong.”
“Please don’t expend any more energy worrying about my feelings. It was all an act. I know that. I handled it. It’s all good, Colby. Get out of your head tonight and come back to me instead.”
I tried my best to reassure him, but I knew with the hearing looming, the coming weeks were going to be the beginning of a new and very difficult chapter in our lives. For tonight, I just wanted to make him feel good again. Make us feel good again.
There was only one thing I could think of that might make that happen. “Hey, I have an idea,” I said.
“What?”
“Let’s go to bed early and play Mr. Lennon fucks the babysitter.”
CHAPTER 27
Colby
“I spoke to Richard Weber a little while ago,” my attorney told Maya and me as we sat in his office the following week. “I usually give the investigator a courtesy call to let them know if I’ll be joining a client at a Stokes hearing.”
“How’d that go?” I asked.
He frowned. “Unfortunately, he didn’t think the home visit went as well as you guys did.”
Shit. I looked over at Maya. “Did he mention why?”
“Something about a drawing on the refrigerator that showed you holding hands with the babysitter.”
I closed my eyes. I’d noticed Saylor’s artwork the morning after the investigator’s surprise visit when I’d grabbed the milk out of the fridge. But I’d chosen to allow myself to believe he hadn’t seen it, since both Billie and I thought the visit had gone well. I also didn’t have the heart to take away the positivity Billie was feeling after she’d jumped into the role of babysitter without even a warning.
Maya glared at me. “Your stupid little girlfriend is going to ruin this for both of us.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose. “First of all, don’t call Billie my stupid little girlfriend. She deserves a hell of a lot more respect than that, especially from you, considering she’s taken on the responsibility of being the woman in Saylor’s life when you shrugged your role off like it was nothing. And second of all, the only one capable of ruining anything here is you, because you dragged us all into this mess.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t have—” Maya began, but my attorney interrupted her.
“Alright, alright.” He motioned with his hands for us to lower our voices. “Why don’t we settle down. Pointing fingers isn’t going to help this situation at all.” He looked back and forth between us and sighed. “You two need to be on the same page and find a way to get along. Things have become serious now. The investigator also mentioned that he plans to seek criminal charges if the Stokes hearing doesn’t convince him your marriage is legitimate.”
I got up from my chair to pace back and forth in front of Adam’s desk. “Jesus Christ. I can’t go to prison.” I buried my hands in my hair and pulled as I walked. “I have a four-year-old who needs me. What the hell are we going to do? Can we withdraw the petition, maybe tell the investigator we’re getting a divorce because Maya cheated on me or something?”
Maya calmly examined her manicure and rolled her eyes. “Men are far more likely to cheat than women…”
Adam shook his head. “We can withdraw the petition, but that won’t necessarily stop a prosecution. I’ve had cases where the couple didn’t attend the Stokes hearing, yet the investigator still went after them.”
“Fuck. What do we do now?”
“You don’t have much of a choice here, Colby. You need to pass the Stokes with flying colors.”
“We couldn’t even pass a joint interview that lasted an hour, and now this guy is out for blood. How the hell are we going to pass an eight-hour interrogation?”