Ethan and Eliza, the main family lawyer he’d been working with, had spent two and a half hours arguing my case to the judge as Olivia and I sat in silence beside them.
Grace sat on the other side beside two lawyers, her shoulder-length auburn hair swept up into a bun to focus all of the attention on her directly on her fucking scrubs.
She’d rather make a point of being a pediatric nurse than attend court in proper attire.
“As you can see, Mrs. Martin and Mr. Blackwood are clearly inebriated in that image. The timestamp on it is three-fifty-eight in the morning, your honor,” Grace’s main lawyer argued. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what his name was. “Our records show that Mrs. Martin had only been signed on as a formal employee of Blackwood Energy Solutions four days before she and Mr. Blackwood set off to Las Vegas on a work trip.”
“If I may,” Ethan interjected, his hand reaching for the little microphone in front of him. The judge nodded to him. “I would like to reiterate that Mrs. Martin was an intern at Blackwood Energy Solutions for five months before being signed on as an employee. Her records reflect that.”
“Regardless,” Grace’s lawyer continued, “the timing and, if I’m being frank, chaos of their nuptials should be called into question. We have supplied a signed, dated, and notarized letter from the man who took that image, confirming that Mrs. Martin and Mr. Blackwood were stumbling, incoherent, slurring their words, and barely able to string sentences together. Their marriage is nothing short of a drunken night out two months ago that ended in a mistake, and shows that Mr. Blackwood is not responsible enough to look after himself, let alone his son.”
I tucked my hands beneath the table to keep the evidence of my curling fists out of sight.
“Your honor, that is ludicrous,” Ethan said, his demeanor utterly calm in the face of this. “My client was unaware at that time that he had a son. He married Mrs. Martin because he wanted to and he could, and at that time, a son he had no idea existed was not factoring into the decisions he made. Since then, he has been nothing short of an exemplary parent. He has provided a stable home with two parents, a significant income that puts any fear of the expenses of parenting to rest, and an education for his son that is among some of the best in this country. He is more than fit to have custody over Noah Thompson.”
“I understand that this is a heated topic, but I would like to ask both parties to stop interjecting before they are given the green light,” Judge Harrow said, her sigh blasting through the small speakers and nearly blowing them.
Grace’s lawyer raised his hand, and she nodded to him. “I would like to add that Mrs. Martin has not changed her last name since their marriage took place two months ago,” he said flatly. “She also still rents an apartment on the lower west side of San Francisco.”
“Objection, your honor. There is no evidence of an apartment in any of the documents provided by either side,” Eliza interjected.
I felt like I was going to explode.
There didn’t seem to be a winner or a loser here — both sides were strong and both were weak, and there wasn’t a single part of me that was certain I’d walk out of here with custody. Things were going in circles, the same talking points being brought up again and again, and I was seconds away from losing my Goddamn mind and screaming at every person in this room.
But I couldn’t. For Noah, I couldn’t. But I could do something else.
Olivia’s head turned toward me as I leaned in the opposite direction over to Ethan. “I need to say something,” I whispered.
“Like fuck you do,” he hissed. “I know you’re stressed but you need to keep your mouth shut before you ruin the small headway we have.”
Grace’s lawyer began to speak again and I couldn’t hear a Goddamn word of it. “We’d like to call for a brief recess—”
“Your honor, I’d like to make a statement myself, if I can,” I interrupted, the squeak and crunch of the shitty courtroom chair against the wood floors almost drowning out my unamplified voice.
Ethan grabbed my wrist. “Stop,” he hissed.
“Mr. Blackwood,” Judge Harrow responded. Her wrinkled face crinkled further, her thin, wireframe glasses shifting on her nose. “If you’d like to make a statement on the record, by all means, the floor is yours.”
“Damien,” Olivia whispered. My head swung around and down toward her, and for the first time in weeks, she met my gaze and didn’t flinch. “Don’t.”
“I’m not just going to sit here and let people who aren’t involved in this,” I motioned between us with my hand, “speak on it.”
“We don’t have all day, Mr. Blackwood.” Judge Harrow’s brows knitted together as she stared down at me over her glasses.
For a fleeting second, a look of genuine worry flickered across Olivia’s features. Her lips parted, her eyes widened, her chin raised, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. This could ruin my chances.
But it could also, maybe, hopefully, solidify them.
I cleared my throat and turned to the judge. “Your honor, I don’t feel comfortable with four lawyers arguing over my relationship’s validity when none of them know the ins and outs of it,” I started. My mind spun into overdrive in the span of a breath, words forming and being crossed out and rewritten. I should have prepared for this, but I had not. I should have seen this coming, but I had not. “One side is espousing theories that we were simply drunk enough to throw ourselves into a chapel for the thrill of doing something idiotic, something that we’d want to demolish the next morning when the alcohol wore off and we’d come back to ourselves. My side, however, is pushing the narrative that we were instead acting on instincts, knowing how well we meshed after a short time together and taking the plunge after weeks of seeing each other.”
The too-cold air of the courtroom stung my nostrils as I forced myself to breathe in.
“Ms. Thompson’s lawyers are almost entirely correct,” I admitted, the heaviness of it just barely making a difference to every other weight on my shoulders.
Ethan’s hand dropped from around my wrist, thunking on the table beneath him in irritation.
“They’re not correct about everything,” I clarified. “But what happened that night was not something silly we did after weeks of build-up, and we certainly weren’t happy about the situation when we’d woken up half-naked and hungover the following morning. I believe I even offered an annulment to Mrs. Martin in the midst of her panic within ten minutes of us realizing what we’d done.”
Why the fuck did I say that? Why did I give them more ammunition? I needed to trust my gut, but dear God, it was sending me down the wrong path.
“That was the plan, your honor. File for annulment, and pretend none of it ever happened. But before my son even entered the picture, I couldn’t stop myself from seeking her out, from thinking about her, from wanting to see her again,” I said. “I couldn’t get her out of my head. We spent more time together, just the two of us, and I wasn’t entirely sure where her head was at with it but I knew exactly where mine was. I didn’t care about what we’d done — a mistake like that can be erased. But I didn’t want to remove her entirely. In fact, I wanted the opposite, I wanted to see her more, I wanted to explore the possibility of more with her. And then I found out about my son.”
“Your honor, if I may, this is irrelevant,” Grace’s main lawyer interjected, his voice far louder than mine as he spoke into the microphone. Ethan moved beside me. “He’s admitted that it was a drunken, thoughtless decision. The rest is just nonsense.”
“Let him speak,” Ethan said, his curt tone halting the man in his tracks. “He has a right to speak on this. Let him.”
The judge motioned for me to continue, and Grace’s lawyer sunk into his rickety wooden chair.
I swallowed past the solidifying mass in my throat. “I found out about Noah, and I had to shift gears. My thoughts morphed to considering what was best for him and not for me, and what I assumed would be best for him at that time was my undivided attention. I called Mrs. Martin and told her that whatever we…were…needed to end. I explained my situation. And although she was upset with me, she understood. I needed to put a son that I hadn’t even met yet first. And I did that.”
Grace turned in her chair, her brown eyes boring a hole into my head.
“I was told by both my lawyer and the paperwork that was given to me that I had two weeks to prepare for Noah’s arrival,” I explained. “I was given a date and a time that he would be dropped off at my home, and I started to prepare. I ordered clothing, furniture, bedding, toys, simple food. I ensured that everything would come before his arrival, and Grace—sorry, Ms. Thompson went behind my back and changed the date to a week sooner. She informed my lawyer at eleven o’clock the night before when I was already in bed, and then at six in the morning, I was woken up by Grace’s arrival with my very confused son. Nothing had arrived yet, I hadn’t figured out childcare yet, and I was thrust into my role without the adequate time I needed.”
“Objection, your honor,” Grace’s lawyer interrupted me. “We supplied evidence to show that the date was adjusted a few days in advance.”
“And we supplied evidence that I was not informed of that adjustment until eleven PM the night before,” Ethan challenged.
“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “What matters is that I was confused and stressed out of my skull, my sister was out of town, and I had no one to take him during my incredibly important two hour meeting that morning. And in a last ditch effort to figure out what I was going to do, I begged Mrs. Martin for her help. Being the absolutely incredible woman that she is, she agreed to watch him for me, and the two of them clicked right away.”
“The two of them?” Judge Harrow asked.
“Mrs. Martin and my son, Noah,” I clarified. “They clicked. And out of desperation and that inkling to still want to be around her, I asked her to watch him more. I asked her to move in while I tried to figure out childcare. She agreed, albeit incredibly reluctantly. I had just told her that we couldn’t continue on as we were, and suddenly she was moving into my house. I understood her hesitation. There was attraction between us and I don’t think either of us knew how we would handle that.”
Olivia shifted in her seat, and when I glanced at her, she was already looking up at me. Fuck, she’s too beautiful. I’d royally, horribly, disgustingly messed up with her, and every second of looking at her and interacting with her the last few weeks had only solidified that.
“But I don’t think either of us expected where it would end up, either,” I continued. “We tried to keep it platonic. We told ourselves that it would just be until I could find adequate childcare for Noah that met my expectations. But in truth, she set my expectations so high that I struggled to find someone that would be with Noah the way she is. She treats him like he’s her own, and every second of watching that, every time I saw the photo of him on her lockscreen, the tears she didn’t know I had seen when he was in the hospital, the hugs, the love she showed him… it only made things harder. We gave ourselves the grace to act on how we felt until we figured out what we were doing in terms of our marriage, and things spiraled.”
“Your honor, he’s openly admitting that it’s a sham marriage,” Grace’s lawyer spat down the microphone, the speakers nearly blowing again.
“Let him speak, Mr. Allen,” Judge Harrow said, “or I will have you removed.”
“I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t end, your honor,” I continued. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Olivia again, couldn’t bare the idea of the anger on her face from my words. “And I think she did, too. We did what we were doing for Noah, but I think both of us, deep down, knew that it was partly for ourselves. It was both selfish and selfless, thoughtless and thoughtful. I have never been good at holding down a relationship, Judge Harrow, but with Olivia—sorry, Mrs. Martin—it seemed like the easiest thing in the world. Like breathing, or brushing your teeth, or turning on the coffee pot in the morning and being impatient for the first cup.”
I swallowed again, my mouth far too dry for comfort. From the corner of my eye, I could see Olivia moving, could see her hand wiping something from her face.
“When we went out that night in Vegas, I hadn’t expected to wake up the next morning with a wife. That is true. That has always been true. But I wouldn’t go back in time and change it, I wouldn’t pray to whatever is out there and ask for a different outcome. I somehow ended up with the best possible thing I could have asked for — a loving, beautiful, smart woman as my wife, and an incredible son that absolutely adores her. And the thought of losing either one…”
The mass in my throat doubled in size as reality began to hit.
I could lose both of them today. I was almost certainly losing one.
The breath I took in was shaky, and I couldn’t hide it. The backs of my eyes burned, and although I could fight that, I couldn’t stamp down what it did to my voice. “Noah loves her more than I can describe,” I warbled. “And I…”
Say it. I can say it.
“I just needed that to be known.”
Coward.
————
An hour passed of nonsensical back and forth between lawyers. I sat in my chair, barely hearing what was said, barely able to look at anything other than Olivia’s stiff form and the empty podium in front of us. I couldn’t focus. I could barely breathe.
I wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to say what I nearly had, wanted to tell her that she deserved more than me, wanted to beg her to forgive me. But court hadn’t been dismissed and I couldn’t do that here.
Ethan’s elbow collided with my arm, and I sunk back into reality.
“I want to be absolutely clear when I say that I understand both parties need for custody,” Judge Harrow said. “I also understand why both parties believe the other shouldn’t have that.”
The older woman breathed in deeply as she adjusted her spectacles.
“But I have come to a decision,” she sighed.
She lifted the papers in front of her and hit the bottoms against her desk to align them. Nausea twisted my gut into ropes.
“In the case of custody over Noah Thompson, age five, Damien Blackwood will receive full custody with visitation allowed by Ms. Thompson. Where it is possible, Mr. Blackwood should strive to allow visitation when Ms. Thompson requests this. This decision is final and will not be up for debate unless circumstances change within the next five years, at which time Ms. Thompson, should she want to, can challenge the court’s decision.”
I let out a breath.
I won.
I won.
“You are dismissed,” she added.
I won. I won. I won. I won—
“Thank fuck,” Ethan sighed exasperatedly.
I wasn’t thinking straight. I moved, and I shouldn’t have, but the adrenaline was shooting through my system and I couldn’t believe that I had actually won — I fucking won.
I stood from my seat. Olivia was already up.
My hands came to her cheeks, just gently, just barely holding on.
I leaned in to kiss her, and she turned away.
