Page 117 of Roommate's Guide to Love

Everyone falls to a silence while I notice Logan and Simon taking a look at the papers that were served.

“Are they legit?” I ask. “For all I know she downloaded copies online and paid some kid to deliver them.”

Logan looks it over again before taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve seen enough legal papers over my life to be able to decipher the real ones versus the fakes. From my barely trained eye, they look legitimate.”

“Do you have a lawyer?” Simon asks. “I know a few who handle family law.”

Porter nods. “Yes, I have one. The only problem is that when I called him last night, he told me he’s out of town for two weeks. So he can’t even look over anything until then. And…I don’t know, I just hate waiting on the unknown.”

“And that wait will pale in comparison to how slow the courts move,” Maeve adds. “Then, there will be hearings and home checks, not to mention finding Missy to actually get her to sign off on dissolving her rights. This could take years.”

I feel my face fall and my shoulders slouch, the word “years” ringing through my head. I knew this wouldn’t be a wam-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of case, but I didn’t expect multiple birthdays to go by.

No. It’s what you need to do. For Porter. For Grace. For the family we can be.

“What’s the matter?”

I look over to Porter, who has gotten really good on catching onto the split seconds where I lose my façade. “Everything’s fine.”

His eyebrows shoot up. Sometimes I hate that he’s not like most men who don’t realize that “fine” doesn’t mean “fine.”

“Quinn…”

“No, really, we can talk about it later.”

“Don’t let her,” Maeve interrupts. “She’ll put you off forever, always change the subject, and before you know it, everyone has forgotten the conversation until years later.”

I narrow my eyes at my sister. “It’s conversations like this I didn’t miss when I lived in Phoenix.”

She shrugs, clearly not caring. “Tough shit. Plus, if you can’t talk openly here, where can you?”

I look around the table, each set of eyes on me having so much love and warmth in them. Maeve’s right. This is a safe space. Doesn’t make what I’m about to say any easier.

“If this goes to a trial, or whatever hearings we’ll need to have in front of a judge, I’m going to step back from your life.”

Porter’s face drops. Ainsley gasps. I’m pretty sure if I could see Maeve and Stella, their eyes would be popping out of their head.

“Excuse me? You’re going to do what?”

“This is why I didn’t want to talk about it here,” I say. “But if you have to go in front of a judge, and he has to come interview people in your life, I know what my reputation is in this town. It’s not going to be hard for a lawyer to say that you’re living with a woman who’s unpredictable. I know there are social media posts that will never die. I…I just don’t want to be a liability to you. I won’t be one. So if I need to take myself out of that picture for you to keep Grace, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

There’s a silence as my words hang in the air. No one moves. I don’t think anyone is breathing. That’s until Porter breaks the silence.

“No.”

“Porter. It wasn’t a yes or no.”

“Oh, but it is.”

I shake my head. “Porter, I?—”

His finger is in front of my mouth before I can get out another syllable. “Now it’s your turn to listen. I love that you would do that for us. But under no uncertain terms am I going to do this without you. You’re a part of us, and if some judge is going to take some past bad decisions and bitchy social media posts and make that the reason that Grace isn’t with us? Then we didn’t get good enough lawyers.”

“Oh, you’ll have good lawyers,” Simon chimes in. “So don’t worry about that.”

“See? Simon’s got a guy. So whatever thought you had about needing to play the martyr? I love that you would do that, but get it out of your beautiful head. We’re a team. You and me. We’re a family now, and no one, not my mother, not a judge, not anyone, is going to take that away from us.”

Porter pulls me in, stealing a kiss that I feel all over my body. It lasts for more than a few seconds, which is when I remember my family is watching this.

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