Page 82 of Accidental Vegas Vows

Damien

Ethan and Eliza, the main family lawyer he’d been working with, had spent two and a half hours arguing my case to the judge as Olivia and I sat in silence beside them.

Grace sat on the other side beside two lawyers, her shoulder-length auburn hair swept up into a bun to focus all of the attention on her directly on her fucking scrubs.

She’d rather make a point of being a pediatric nurse than attend court in proper attire.

“As you can see, Mrs. Martin and Mr. Blackwood are clearly inebriated in that image. The timestamp on it is three-fifty-eight in the morning, your honor,” Grace’s main lawyer argued. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what his name was. “Our records show that Mrs. Martin had only been signed on as a formal employee of Blackwood Energy Solutions four days before she and Mr. Blackwood set off to Las Vegas on a work trip.”

“If I may,” Ethan interjected, his hand reaching for the little microphone in front of him. The judge nodded to him. “I would like to reiterate that Mrs. Martin was an intern at Blackwood Energy Solutions for five months before being signed on as an employee. Her records reflect that.”

“Regardless,” Grace’s lawyer continued, “the timing and, if I’m being frank, chaos of their nuptials should be called into question. We have supplied a signed, dated, and notarized letter from the man who took that image, confirming that Mrs. Martin and Mr. Blackwood were stumbling, incoherent, slurring their words, and barely able to string sentences together. Their marriage is nothing short of a drunken night out two months ago that ended in a mistake, and shows that Mr. Blackwood is not responsible enough to look after himself, let alone his son.”

I tucked my hands beneath the table to keep the evidence of my curling fists out of sight.

“Your honor, that is ludicrous,” Ethan said, his demeanor utterly calm in the face of this. “My client was unaware at that time that he had a son. He married Mrs. Martin because he wanted to and he could, and at that time, a son he had no idea existed was not factoring into the decisions he made. Since then, he has been nothing short of an exemplary parent. He has provided a stable home with two parents, a significant income that puts any fear of the expenses of parenting to rest, and an education for his son that is among some of the best in this country. He is more than fit to have custody over Noah Thompson.”

“I understand that this is a heated topic, but I would like to ask both parties to stop interjecting before they are given the green light,” Judge Harrow said, her sigh blasting through the small speakers and nearly blowing them.

Grace’s lawyer raised his hand, and she nodded to him. “I would like to add that Mrs. Martin has not changed her last name since their marriage took place two months ago,” he said flatly. “She also still rents an apartment on the lower west side of San Francisco.”

“Objection, your honor. There is no evidence of an apartment in any of the documents provided by either side,” Eliza interjected.

I felt like I was going to explode.

There didn’t seem to be a winner or a loser here — both sides were strong and both were weak, and there wasn’t a single part of me that was certain I’d walk out of here with custody. Things were going in circles, the same talking points being brought up again and again, and I was seconds away from losing my Goddamn mind and screaming at every person in this room.

But I couldn’t. For Noah, I couldn’t. But I could do something else.

Olivia’s head turned toward me as I leaned in the opposite direction over to Ethan. “I need to say something,” I whispered.

“Like fuck you do,” he hissed. “I know you’re stressed but you need to keep your mouth shut before you ruin the small headway we have.”

Grace’s lawyer began to speak again and I couldn’t hear a Goddamn word of it. “We’d like to call for a brief recess?—”

“Your honor, I’d like to make a statement myself, if I can,” I interrupted, the squeak and crunch of the shitty courtroom chair against the wood floors almost drowning out my unamplified voice.

Ethan grabbed my wrist. “Stop,” he hissed.

“Mr. Blackwood,” Judge Harrow responded. Her wrinkled face crinkled further, her thin, wireframe glasses shifting on her nose. “If you’d like to make a statement on the record, by all means, the floor is yours.”

“Damien,” Olivia whispered. My head swung around and down toward her, and for the first time in weeks, she met my gaze and didn’t flinch. “Don’t.”

“I’m not just going to sit here and let people who aren’t involved in this,” I motioned between us with my hand, “speak on it.”

“We don’t have all day, Mr. Blackwood.” Judge Harrow’s brows knitted together as she stared down at me over her glasses.

For a fleeting second, a look of genuine worry flickered across Olivia’s features. Her lips parted, her eyes widened, her chin raised, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. This could ruin my chances.

But it could also, maybe, hopefully, solidify them.

I cleared my throat and turned to the judge. “Your honor, I don’t feel comfortable with four lawyers arguing over my relationship’s validity when none of them know the ins and outs of it,” I started. My mind spun into overdrive in the span of a breath, words forming and being crossed out and rewritten. I should have prepared for this, but I had not. I should have seen this coming, but I had not. “One side is espousing theories that we were simply drunk enough to throw ourselves into a chapel for the thrill of doing something idiotic, something that we’d want to demolish the next morning when the alcohol wore off and we’d come back to ourselves. My side, however, is pushing the narrative that we were instead acting on instincts, knowing how well we meshed after a short time together and taking the plunge after weeks of seeing each other.”

The too-cold air of the courtroom stung my nostrils as I forced myself to breathe in.

“Ms. Thompson’s lawyers are almost entirely correct,” I admitted, the heaviness of it just barely making a difference to every other weight on my shoulders.

Ethan’s hand dropped from around my wrist, thunking on the table beneath him in irritation.

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