I lifted my hand and ran my thumb down the edge of my mouth and lifted my eyebrows up. “Avett is a good kid; she just fell in with a shitty crowd. She definitely doesn’t deserve to end up in jail for what went down at the Bar. She has a good family that will look out for her. Obviously if they’re paying your bill.”
The other guy reared back a little and Sayer turned around to look at me with wide eyes. I shrugged. “Avett is Brite Walker’s only child. Brite used to own the bar my buddy Asa Cross works at and Avett worked in the kitchen there for a few months. She hooked up with a junkie and somehow ended up driving him to the bar the night he decided to try and rob the place. She got picked up on an accessory charge, and I know Brite freaked out and has been doing everything in his power to keep her out of jail.”
Sayer cleared her throat and pointed between the two of us. “Quaid Jackson, this is my client Zeb Fuller.”
Her client? That was how she introduced me to the slick bastard in the thousand-dollar duds? It made my spine stiffen as I stuck my hand out. It annoyed me even further that the other lawyer had a firm and all-business handshake. I wanted him to be a weasel, mostly because he looked at Sayer the same way I looked at her . . . fascinated and hungry. He wanted under her fancy pants suit as much as I did.
“I actually handled a case for Asa a couple months back. You keep some very interesting company, don’t you, Mr. Fuller.” It wasn’t really a question, so I didn’t bother to answer him. I knew for a fact good people could be found on both sides of the law and that wasn’t something I needed to prove to anyone.
Sayer shifted her weight again and let out a small sigh. “I actually know Asa, too. That case turned out to be a setup, didn’t it? He’s involved with the cop who arrested him now, and I’ve met Brite several times. He’s a lovely man who I’m sure wants nothing more than to help his daughter, which is why you were so highly recommended to him. I’m sure you have her situation well in hand. We really need to head in. It was nice to see you, Quaid.”
She turned to look at me over her shoulder and inclined her head toward the big building. I went to step around the other man when he reached out a hand and grasped Sayer’s arm. He smiled at her again and I really, really had to fight down the urge to physically remove his hands from her.
“I have a dinner party coming up with the partners in a few months. I was going to call you to see if you wanted to go with me, but since we’re both here now I figure it doesn’t hurt to throw the invite out in person. I’d love for you to be my date for the event, Sayer.”
Oh, the dude so wanted to die. He may have asked Sayer, but he was watching me out of the corner of his eye and I couldn’t stop the growl that slipped out. I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my own eyes back at him. I wasn’t typically one for male posturing, but she had called me her “client” and that still stung.
She shot me a look over her shoulder and I could see how uneasy she was being caught between the two of us. She shifted her weight on her feet and I saw her shake her head just a little bit in the negative.
“No. Thank you for asking but I already told you that I’m not interested in pursuing that kind of relationship with you. I’m sorry, Quaid.”
His smile never wavered, but he stopped looking at me and focused on her. “I’m a lawyer, it’s my job to try to persuade people to see things my way. I’ll see you around.” He finally let go of her arm and his attention shifted back to me. “Good luck today.”
I bit out a terse thanks and stiffly followed Sayer into the building and through security. We didn’t say anything to one another, which was probably for the best. All I wanted to do was ask her how in hell she could call me her client and leave it at that. Was that really how she saw me after everything we had been through together in the last month? It made me want to grab her and fuck some sense into her. I sure as hell wasn’t only a client when I was buried deep inside of her and she was whimpering my name over and over again as she came.
The courtroom was uncomfortably familiar, and I told myself not to panic over what had happened last time I put my fate in the hands of the system. This was an entirely different situation, and yet I felt like I had so much more to lose this go-round. Sure, my freedom was valuable and I missed it terribly when it had been taken from me, but that felt like nothing compared to the painful ache that engulfed me when I thought about having to leave my boy in the system. He belonged with me. We belonged together and I needed to believe that the judge would see that and that Sayer would do her thing and make sure everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
We took a seat on one side of the room and I nodded at Maria, who offered me a little smile. I was happy to know the court-appointed advocate seemed to be in my corner; now I just needed to convince the man that entered the room with his black robe billowing behind him after he was announced. I sat back down next to Sayer once he gave the order to proceed and took a deep breath as he looked down at me from his bench over the edge of his wire-rim glasses.
“We’re here today to discuss the sole legal and physical custody of the minor child Hyde Bishop, correct?”
Sayer got to her feet and addressed the man that held my entire future in the palm of his hand.
“That is correct. Paternity testing came back proving that Mr. Fuller is the boy’s biological parent, and he has been attending court-supervised visitation with the child for the last month. There is no other immediate family and we can’t see any reason for the child to remain in foster care when he has a biological parent willing and eager to give him a permanent home.”
The judge looked at Sayer in much the same way he looked at me and then flipped through several of the papers that were spread out in front of him on the desk.
“The mother is deceased?”
“Correct.”
“And I’m going to assume you have done your due diligence and looked for family on the mother’s side to inquire about caring for the child?”
My jaw tightened and I blew out a heavy breath through my nose. Even if Hyde did have family on the maternal side, they had left the little boy alone and scared in the system for months. They didn’t deserve him.
“Yes. The child’s mother was estranged from her family and had some problems. Her lifestyle left a rift in the family. The family on the maternal side wasn’t interested in taking the boy in. I have the paperwork in the file from my conversations with them.”