“Put her in the bedroom, would you? I need to talk freely.”
I set her in her crib, then gently combed her hair with my fingers. She wasn’t going to be taken away from us. Faye was mad, but she’d know what to do. She was way too smart to get blindsided by this kind of thing. She’d probably already come up with some brilliant plan.
“I have no fucking clue what to do,” she said when I came back into the kitchen.
My stomach flipped over. “You don’t?”
“I never expected this,” she said. “Not for one moment. When Amanda said she didn’t know who the dad was, I never thought to question it.”
I’d never seen her this pissed, not even the time before we started dating when she called me to her place in the middle of the night to soothe Gretchen’s cries. Seeing her like this was kind of scary… kind of intimidating… and all right, kind of goddamn sexy. I was in love with the woman, okay? As concerned as I was for Gretchen, seeing Faye all worked up and passionate was fucking hot.
“Maybe she lied.” I pulled her close to me, leaning both of us against the wall. “Maybe she’s trying to pull something over on this guy.”
“I don’t know.” Faye exhaled, leaning her head on my shoulder. “Derek seems pretty sure of himself. From the sounds of it, he already knows the results of a paternity test.”
I stroked her back. “We can’t let him take Gretchen, right? I mean… she already has a mom.” Two moms, I held myself back from saying.
“The adoption isn’t finalized.” Faye turned her head to look at me, her eyes filled with pain. “I don’t know the legal status. I don’t know if the courts will care that I’ve been her guardian for a year. If this guy is her blood father, then…”
“Fuck.” I held her close and we clung to each other.
What would she do without Gretchen? Hell, where would we be without Gretchen? She’d been part of this Faye-and-me thing since day one.
Maybe there were people out there who would’ve been happy at the idea of getting their partner to themselves. Me? I wasn’t that cold-hearted.
I cherished the everloving shit out of that kid. Derek would have to pry her out of my cold, dead hands.
Wait… I stopped my train of thought. “You don’t think this is a good thing, do you?” I asked. “You never wanted Gretchen in the first place. You always complained about having her dumped on you…”
“Want-ed. Complain-ed.” She choked out a laugh at the funny sound of the second one. “You get my drift. It’s past tense. I fucking adore that kid. I don’t want her to leave me.”
“Me, either.” To put it mildly.
“And this Derek guy is a douchebag, isn’t he? We’re better for Gretchen than that.”
“Oh, yeah. That guy just reeks of cucumber sandwiches and casual racism.”
“Probably complains about Mexicans over high tea at the country club.” Faye gave me a half-smile. “Did you see the way he looked when he said lesbian lover? I mean, you’re my girlfriend. Everybody knows that.”
I loved this woman a little more every day. “You’re the greatest,” I murmured. “But what are we going to do?”
“I’m going to start by calling Amanda.”
* * *
In a turn of events surprising absolutely no one, Amanda wasn’t answering her cell phone.
Faye and I were left to deal with things as best as we could in the meantime. Which was… not that well.
There was some yelling and crying and staring at each other.
There was angry sex and comforting sex and everything in between.
And yet, I never saw it coming when Faye pushed up her glasses one day and asked me to see her lawyer with her.
“Six o’clock tonight,” she said almost shyly as we sat, as usual, in her office. “You don’t have to come, of course. I just thought you might be interested. This kind of concerns you, too.”
“Of course I’ll go with you.” I didn’t need to be asked twice. If she’d ever thought to ask me to go to any of the other appointments, I would’ve gone to those, too.