Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 104448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Becoming a parent was a steep and unforgiving learning curve. I finally understood that lying played a critical role in protecting your children.
I did not, in fact, got this.
But I would figure it out.
No matter what.
TWENTY-FIVE
TULLY
There was something I hadn’t told Dev, something that made this situation a thousand times worse.
When the Scotts’ attorney had insisted on using their lab to run the paternity test, Susanna and I had arranged for a second set of samples to be sent to a separate lab for processing.
And those had also come back showing Lellie was not biologically related to Dev.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but I also knew that two different labs wouldn’t have made the same mistake.
When I boarded the jet to return home Sunday, after a blur of desperate hugs and promises to fix everything that felt hollow as hell, all I could think about was how I was going to tell Dev that he wasn’t actually Lellie’s father if it turned out it was true.
It shouldn’t matter whether Dev was Lellie’s biological father since Katie had named Dev in her will… but it did. A biological parent had a prima facie status that a non-biological parent didn’t. It meant he would be the legal default parent, to a certain extent, which would make it more difficult to challenge his right to custody. Without that, it would be much easier for the Scotts to challenge him and win, especially when I happened to know the judge assigned to the case was likely to be favorable to a trusted, long-term Texas resident and well-known Dallas pastor over an unknown single gay man from rural Wyoming.
The Scotts’ attorney would dig up every sordid detail of Dev’s sexual past, any break in his employment history despite his wealth, and his provable lack of interest in Katie or Lellie for the past two years.
It wouldn’t look good.
My palms began to sweat as I tried not to think about the moment a judge would proclaim the sudden end of Dev’s short fatherhood. I felt sick, but succumbing to my fear wouldn’t help the man I loved.
So I pulled out my laptop and began to strategize. I’d gotten where I was in my career because I had a sharp legal mind.
And I planned to use every bit of it to save Lellie from being taken away from her father.
The following morning, I decided to stop by Katie’s house to do one last walkthrough before letting the real estate agent take over. Renata and her parents had done a good job cleaning it and staging it to sell, and seeing it so devoid of Katie’s personal touches was heartbreaking.
I wandered idly through each room, pulling open drawers and peeking in closets to check for overlooked items.
You’re stalling.
Katie had made a lot of good memories in this house, and I’d been there for many of them. It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to the place we’d binge-watched Gilmore Girls and Ted Lasso. The place we’d taken a plaster cast of her giant pregnancy belly and joked about taking a cast of my dick at the same time to share on Grindr. The kitchen we’d destroyed with our attempt at making chicken tikka from scratch and where we’d interrogated Renata after her first date with her boyfriend.
The place I’d brought her home to from the hospital with a tiny little Lellie-shrimp curled up in her baby bucket car seat.
When I opened the small closet in Lellie’s nursery, part of me wanted to sit down inside it and close the door behind me. Wrap my arms around my knees and sob in the darkness for all the moments Katie had lost… and all the ones Dev might still lose.
Instead, I forced myself to close the door. And that’s when I saw the hairbrush on the floor behind the dresser.
When I got to the breakfast cafe, Susanna had already gotten us a table. Her brother was there with her.
“Hey,” she said, tilting her head at Tomas. “Thought I’d bring along another smart attorney to help us figure this out.”
I gave Tomas a hug. “Thanks, man. We could use the help.”
After taking a seat and asking the server for a cup of coffee, I turned back to Susanna. “I brought a brush with Lellie’s hair. Can’t they get a sample from that? We can find another lab.”
I knew I sounded desperate, but it’s because I was. And I didn’t know how else to help.
Susanna reached across the table and took my hand. “First of all, yes. We can definitely try that. But I…” She hesitated as if unsure how to proceed.
“Speak freely,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed by her caution.
“Brock Lois is shady as fuck,” Tomas said. “Susanna is trying to remain professional, but fuck that. The Scotts are represented by a snake, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have fucked with the results.”