Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“And your wife?” she asked. “Where is she?”
I paused, wondering how much I should disclose.
“Just tell me it all.” She waved her hand. “If you don’t tell me, I won’t know how to work with this.”
She had a point.
So I laid out everything, starting at the very beginning.
Not once did I glance over at my father.
“When I was in high school, I was dating Eerie,” I explained. “We dated on and off for a year, but our relationship was always toxic. She hated that I was ‘friends’ with Reggie—that’s my wife—and always went out of her way to be a complete and total asshole to Reggie. I got pissed about it, and we broke up. But, like I said, our relationship was always toxic. So we were back on and off quite a few times. Throughout, Reggie—I have to stress here that Reggie and I fight like cats and dogs. Ever since we were young. We continued to have a problem being in the same room together without verbal sparring.”
The lawyer nodded and waved her hand at me to continue.
“Reggie and Eerie fought like cats and dogs, too. But worse. Way worse. Then one day, it really just was enough for me. I said I was done, and meant it. Only, about a year later Eerie came to me telling me that she had an aggressive form of cancer, and that she needed to harvest her eggs.” I winced. “For some stupid reason, I fell for it. Though she did have cancer, she could’ve just as easily gotten a sperm donor through a sperm bank. Except I was dumb and gave in. It was about six months later that she was presumed cancer free, and I decided that those eggs that she had fertilized with my sperm and frozen wasn’t a good idea. So I asked the sperm bank what to do, and they said that with the contract that Eerie and I signed, if one person wasn’t comfortable with the agreement anymore, then there was no legal leg for Eerie to stand on. She couldn’t use the eggs. And they would be destroyed.”
“Fast forward about six months, I’m playing professional baseball, and I get this letter from her lawyer saying that she wanted to use the eggs. I told them that I wasn’t comfortable with it, and that I wouldn’t consent. Then I went to Vegas for my dad’s birthday, Reggie’s parents had come, too. And when I told her what was going on with Eerie, she jokingly said that we should get married because Eerie would hate it and probably stay away from me after that. I’m not saying that it was the smartest or most thought out marriage seeing as we were both very, very drunk at the time, but it’s legitimate.”
The lawyer nodded.
“I can work with that.” She grinned. “Do you have a copy of the signed contract with the sperm bank?” she asked curiously.
I pointed to the document that I’d thankfully managed to unearth in my father’s safe at his place before coming to the lawyer’s office. It was thankfully on the way. Souls Chapel was only a few minutes away from Uncertain, Texas where my father lived and I’d grown up.
“Right there,” I insisted.
She nodded her head. “Okay. Let me see what I can work with. I’ll call you as soon as I do some digging on my own. Oh, and for now, I’ve filed a temporary injunction with a judge. As of right now, Eerie won’t be able to move your child to another hospital. And you have just as much right to visit him as she does.”
I felt bile rise in my stomach.
“That woman isn’t getting this kid,” I said stoically. “I will fight tooth and nail for him. I don’t know why she went against my wishes. I don’t know who the hell fucked up. But when this is all said and done, that kid better be in my sole custody, Eerie better be in fucking prison, and I want to sue the fucking pants off of that sperm bank, Eerie, and anyone else that had any hand in this.”
The lawyer’s shark-like grin filled her face.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” she said. “I don’t charge this much, or have this much of a reputation, for nothing.”
I was just about to walk out when a thought occurred to me. “That baby needs to have my last name. Also, we need to change the first name because she knows how much I fuckin’ hate it.”
Swayze frowned. “Why?”
I swallowed hard. “Because that’s the name of the man that killed my biological father, mother, and unborn baby brother. And she knows it.”
Turns out, I somewhat liked Swayze Jensen quite a fucking bit. Upon first impression I thought she was quite young. Too young, in fact.
But it was more than obvious that she knew quite a bit about criminal law, and she was going to fight for me tooth and nail.