Page 111 of Roommate's Guide to Love

I push myself up from the couch, knowing I should probably take the down time to pick up the toys that will just be discarded again later, when I hear a knock on the door. It’s the middle of the afternoon, so I have no idea who it could be. No one comes to my house. Deliveries get left on the porch. But after a few more knocks, clearly telling me they aren’t going away, I pick myself up off the couch to open the door to see a mid-twenty something male in an ill-fitting suit.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Porter McCoy?”

“Yes. That’s me. Why do you?—”

“Here.” He pushes an envelope into my hands. “You’ve been served.”

Did he just say served? As in legally served?

“What? By who?”

The twerp doesn’t answer me as he nearly runs off my porch, jumping in his car and peeling out of the parking lot and down the road.

“What was that?”

I don’t answer Quinn right away as I sit on the couch and stare at the envelope. “I think I’m getting sued?”

“Sued? Who the hell would sue you? Make someone’s drink wrong? They twist an ankle in the parking lot? Oh, I swear to God if Emily is on her bullshit…”

I don’t blink as I tear the envelope open. I start reading it, but the words are just blurring together in my haste. I put it down, trying to refocus. The only problem is that when I do, I see words and names I never wanted to see.

“Holy shit,” I whisper as I read it again.

“What? What is it?”

I look up to Quinn as I feel all of the color and blood drain from my face.

“Porter, you’re scaring me. Who is suing you?”

“My…my mom.”

“Your mom?” Quinn takes the papers from me.

I sit in silence as Quinn reads over the document. I feel her tense next to me when she gets to the part I just read.

A custody petition. From Bonnie McCoy Higgins. For the legal guardianship of Grace Higgins.

“Fucking Christ,” I spit out as I spring up from the couch and start pacing the living room. “Last week. The party. There was a car that pulled in. I couldn’t really see in it, but I could’ve sworn it was my mom.”

“Seriously? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. She hasn’t been back to Rolling Hills in close to twenty-five years. There’s no reason for her to be back here.”

Except there is.

And for some reason, she wants the little girl who’s become my entire world.

“Hey,” Quinn says, her arms wrapping around me from the back. “I know this is scary. But we’re going to get through this. No one is taking Grace away from us.”

Us…

That one word somehow calms me in the chaos that’s my brain right now. Because Quinn’s right—we’re a team now. Together. And I don’t know what the fuck my mother wants, or what her game is, but she’s not going to win.

I’m not going to let her.

This is my family now. And no one, and I mean no one, is going to fuck with my family and get away with it.

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