Page 140 of The Woman By the Lake

Other than that, its décor was “Single Mountain Guy Who Has Money.” The furniture was comfortable but attractive. The prints on the wall had masculine personality, with a montage of pictures on one wall that shared he liked skiing, camping, white water rafting and had a number of friends who sported tans like he did and smiled a lot, often while they were drinking beer.

“Sit. You guys want a beer? Soda?” he offered.

“I’m good,” Riggs said.

“Me too,” I put in.

We sat together on the couch.

Storm sat in an armchair off to the side.

“Viggo here?” Riggs asked.

“He’s napping,” Storm told him.

Bummer.

I would have liked to have met him.

“I’ll cut to it so I don’t fuck up your Saturday any more than I already have, and appreciate you coming to mine,” Storm started.

“We were out, not a problem,” Riggs replied.

“Still. Appreciate you,” Storm murmured. He then announced, “I’ve already talked to my attorney. I’m going for full custody of Viggo. And when I told my lawyer what went down, considering what’s already gone down, he said we have a good chance at getting it. I gotta confess, I’ve been thinking on this awhile, so some groundwork has been laid. I’ve had an investigator follow her, and I got some pretty damning info. It’s not like a single mom shouldn’t be able to enjoy herself, but she goes to the liquor store often, she goes out and ties one on often, she fucks around a lot, she brings men back to the house when the boys are there, which means she gets a lot of babysitters.”

Angelica brought men home when the boys were there?

Riggs didn’t react to this like I thought he would, that being blowing his stack.

He simply said, “I hear you.” He then turned to me and said quietly, “Sorry, I meant to get into this with you tonight, but we’re here, and after what happened with her, I don’t think it’s gonna surprise you.” Back to Storm. “I made the decision I’m gonna promote Easton to foreman. If I don’t give him more responsibility, he’s gonna bail and find it for himself. I got commissions lined up so far out, the waiting list is eight months, and I’m turning shit down. I can head out to a site and see how the boys are doing, but I’m gonna stay home for the most part. This means I’m taking her back to court to get an order to reflect that change and have shared custody. If she balks, because that will mean support is cut, I’ll change that demand to full too.”

I stayed silent even if this made me gleeful.

Not that Angelica was going to possibly lose a lot of time with both of her boys.

Because Riggs was going to be home most of the time.

Storm glanced briefly at me, something I translated as him thinking I was a part of Riggs’s decision-making, before saying to Riggs, “I hear you.”

“Gotta admit, it’s more than that,” Riggs continued. “Ledge has impressed on me he’s getting older, and he needs a man around more often. That man is gonna be me.”

“I hear that too,” Storm replied. “So, I wanted to give you that heads up. Though, I’ll give you this to think about. My attorney says my case will be even stronger if we’re co-plaintiffs. Which means yours would too. That’ll be up to you. And I’ll remind you, she’s gonna lose her shit, because she’ll lose all support from me, and that was what she was after in the first place. Bottom line in this, it’s looking good that Viggo will be with me, so we gotta work something out on the regular so our boys have time together. I don’t want Viggo growing up not knowing his brother.”

Okay, official.

I liked this guy.

“Same,” Riggs said. “If you get full, alternating weekends when we have them?”

Storm nodded. “Sounds good. And regular sleepovers. You put me on Ledger’s drop-off, pick-up list. When Viggo is in school, I’ll do the same. And maybe we go out to dinner or take them camping or some shit on occasion.”

“Works for me,” Riggs agreed.

“Then we’re sorted,” Storm said.

They reached out and shook.

I made a show of pulling out my phone and pretending to stab at the screen.

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