Page 33 of The Reality of Us
“What just happened?” Alice asked Owen.
“You just became a local,” he said, dropping his gaze to the counter when Alice smiled shyly, because there was no point hoping she’d stick around. Was there?
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Owen tapped his fingers against his leg in time with the loud ticking of the clock on the opposite wall.
“I should’ve been expecting this.” Jessica crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze shifting to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the conference room. “For a second, I thought he might’ve changed, but …”
The court-appointed mediator, a tall guy with sideburns Elvis would’ve approved of, started packing up his notepad and laptop.
Rob’s lawyer pushed back into the conference room, a harried look on his face, gaze firmly fixed on his phone. “I still can’t get through to him.”
They’d officially been stood up.
Wannabe Elvis snapped his briefcase closed, the sound echoing in the large room and headed for the door.
“This is totally out of character. Something must’ve happened. I’ll be in touch once I’ve spoken with Rob.” His lawyer hurried after the mediator.
Owen waited until it was just him and Jessica. “You doing okay?” He regretted the question the second it was out of his mouth. Asking something so obvious was a rookie mistake.
Jessica shook her head. “This is how it started. He’d miss dinner once or twice. Then not come home at all.”
“I know it’s frustrating, but this is going to work in our favour. Missing mediation is a big deal. This only strengthens our argument that he’s unfit to have Sam as much as he wants him.”
Something about the way Jessica avoided his gaze made Owen pause. That was the plan, right? He’d already started drafting his opening remarks for the court case.
“Do you know what keeps running through my mind?” Jessica whispered. “Sam’s not even three. If I have to share custody for another fifteen years …” She drew in a long, shuddery breath, but when she looked up, her eyes were clear, no trace of angry tears on her face today.
Owen had a bad feeling he knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth.
“I want full custody with no visitation.”
“So, no contact for Sam with his dad at all?”
Fire flashed across her face. “Please don’t judge me.”
Owen sank into the chair next to her. “I’m not, I promise. I just want to make sure you understand that we’ll almost definitely end up going to court over this. It’s unlikely Rob will back down from fifty-fifty to nothing, even with a black mark against him for skipping today’s session.”
Jessica bit her lip.
“And it will probably get ugly. These things almost always do. I don’t say that to scare you but to prepare you. They’ll dig through your past and try to make you look bad.” Jessica’s criminal record would definitely be coming back to haunt them.
“But it’s what’s best for Sam, and there’s nothing I won’t do to protect him.”
Owen kept his face blank, but the irony of the moment wasn’t lost on him. Here was Jessica, who was prepared to go to war for her future, while Alice was desperate to make her troubles go away by not reacting at all. How was he going to balance each client’s expectations within the realities of the law?
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
Life was about to get very messy.
In hindsight, firefighter costumes would’ve been the lesser evil.
“How’d they managed to rope us into this anyway?” Raff asked, frowning at the hanging rack that held his suit. Lulu had wanted him to wear his police blues, but he’d refused, explaining it was against uniform policy. Owen’s suit and Nate’s NFL uniform were hanging next to them. Teddy would be wearing scrubs despite the fact he was studying to be a dentist, not a doctor. “Mum said it was your idea.”
Owen raised his eyebrows, the whisper of a headache starting to pound behind his eyes. “Because this seems like something I’d suggest?”
“She trapped him,” Nate piped up from the corner where he was fixing a chair with a loose leg. “He was trying to impress Alice. Didn’t even put up a fight, apparently.”
