Page 59 of Live Love Steal
She shifted in her chair. “I have a house.”
His eyes flicked to me and my lawyer. This was not news to us, but apparently it wasn’t detailed in the records, or the judge wanted to hear it spoken out loud. “You have a house,” he repeated. “To clarify, do you own it?”
Sharon shook her head.
“Does it belong to a relative?” This time, she didn’t move. The judge studied her expression. “A boyfriend, perhaps?”
“He’s got a good job.”
I was embarrassed for her. I looked down at my clenched hands. I twisted my arm until the ball-point tattoo Isobel drew on it stared up at me. I’m iron. I can do this. I can be a good dad. I wasn’t going to be my father, losing me to a mom who was more concerned with screwing him over than taking care of me.
“Mr. McMullen?”
I sat up straighter. “Yes?”
“Have you met this… boyfriend?”
I shook my head. “No, sir.” If I had, he might be dead. Noah didn’t like him, I knew that much.
His eyebrow crept higher. “Has your son?”
I looked to my lawyer, she’d warned me not to mention him at all. She pulled up a corner of one of the pages in Jackson’s file. Her eyes widened. “I believe he has.”
“Miss…Kayne, has your son met the man he’s going to share a house with?”
“He has.” She sat primly, as if she were relaxed, but I knew that pose. There was a lot unspoken in her posture.
“And do they get along?” He lifted a finger. “Hold on to what you’re going to say.” He buzzed his assistant, “Please send the guardian ad litem in.”
I stretched to see out the door, searching for Noah. But instead, I saw a wall of my brothers. More than just Griz, Wolf, Jackson, and Bear were out there now. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed they all were out there.
Sharon’s face went slightly paler. She had a front-row seat to the tableau outside. And she knew that when she left with Noah, she’d be walking through that gauntlet of bikers.
And me.
I stared at her. Then glanced at the smudged ink on my wrist again. Even if I wasn’t iron, my brothers were.
The court representative for my son sat down and answered the obvious questions. Then the judge asked, “What was your impression of Noah’s emotions about the move?”
“He is… obviously anxious.” The young man glanced at Sharon.
“Anxious as in excited, happy?”
“No. He is, in my non-medical opinion, making himself sick over it.”
It took everything I had to not blow up. I flexed my hands so they wouldn’t ball up into fists. As I did that, I took a moment to put my thumb on Isobel’s mark and count.
The judge closed all the folders. He crossed his hands on top of them and addressed me. “Mr. McMullen, I don’t know if you remember this about me or not, but I used to man the bench for juvenile cases.”
That’s why he looked familiar. I’d stood in front of him for Grand Theft Auto. A lucky break and some wonky evidence, and I’d walked free. I picked up my gaze and dared to look at him. If I were going down, I’d go down like a man.
He let that dangle in the atmosphere for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sharon’s smug smile.
“I remember you.”
He nodded. “And I also worked several child custody cases. Your mom was a piece of work. Back then, the courts sided with the mother almost always. That was a mistake in your case.”
What was he saying?
