He looked at the file he was working on and closed his computer. There was no way in the world that he was going to get anything done.

Rory grabbed his phone and called Sebastian. “What are you doing?”

“Paperwork,” Sebastian said.

“How about a beer at Howlers’? I’ll buy.”

“Can’t pass that up,” Sebastian said.

Rory changed into his jeans and t-shirt that he always kept handy at the office and headed to the bar.

“What’s up, Brother? It’s not like you to play hooky from work,” Sebastian said.

“Eva called.”

“Really? What did she want?”

“My guess is that she’s going to try to find a way back into our lives. She told me that she wasn’t going to do the soap opera anymore. Instead, she is going to do a sitcom that will air in the evenings.”

“Yay for her,” Sebastian said sarcastically.

“She said that she had been thinking about us a lot lately and missed us.”

“She doesn’t even know you or the kids anymore.”

“That’s what I told her. Then, she asked if we could go to lunch. I just said ‘No’ without an explanation or excuse.”

“What did she say to that?”

“That she hoped to see me soon and to give the kids a hug for her.”

“Wow. She has some balls, I gotta give her that.”

“She wasn’t much of a mother before she left to go on that reality show and then soap opera. Eva never wanted to stay home and be with the kids. Shopping and partying were much more entertaining. She’d go to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, or some other place to go shopping or to the clubs, or she would hit a casino. Hell, Savvy’s spent more time with the kids since I hired her than Eva ever did during the first year of Drake’s life.”

“Do you think that she’s going to try something stupid, like get custody of the kids?”

“She might, but the most she’ll get is visitation. I’ll do my best to limit that, at least until she can prove that she isn’t going to just run off and destroy the kids’ lives.”

“Do they even know who she is?”

“No. She didn’t want to be a part of their lives. What could I do? Show them who she is on television and then explain that she would rather be on television than be in their lives? When they ask about her, I just tell them that she loves them, but has a job that takes her far away. They usually don’t, though, and haven’t in a long time.”

“I guess Savvy is doing a good job playing the role for them.”

“She is. She’s incredible.”

Sebastian looked at Rory and said, “You had sex with her.”

“Yeah.”

“What in the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. It just happened. It turned out that she was a virgin.”

“Oh, hell,” Sebastian said.

“I’ve already yelled at myself. It’s not going to happen again.”