by Lulu Pratt
“Think we’ve got maybe another twenty minutes before Riley wakes up?” I nibble at Lara’s neck as she giggles as quietly as she can.
“I think maybe just twenty minutes… and I think we might have less if we can’t keep quiet,” she tells me.
“Well, I know I can,” I say playfully. I kiss her again and feel Lara tugging my boxers down over my hips, letting my cock free. I’ve almost forgotten how hard I am. As soon as there’s nothing between us anymore I can feel my balls aching, feel my dick throbbing with the need to feel Lara’s body wrapped around me. I shift down between her legs and guide the tip of my cock against her soaking wet pussy. I hold back for just another few seconds longer, and then I slide into her slowly, so slowly I almost can’t stand it.
I pull out again, almost all the way, taking my time. Lara is soaking wet, and so tight, her muscles flexing around me in a little spasm like her body doesn’t want me to leave. I push back into her a little faster, catching her lips with mine, swallowing down the moan that rises from her throat. I start moving more steadily, finding my rhythm, and Lara fits herself right into it, pushing her hips down when I thrust into her, twisting away from me when I pull out. It feels so good and so perfect that even if I’d wanted to — and I definitely don’t — I couldn’t think of anything else.
Lara and I move together, kissing each other everywhere, touching each other, and I swear to God it’s like heaven and hell all at the same time. Heaven because it feels so good I don’t even want to come yet, and hell because after a few minutes I start to almost worry that I won’t come at all, and I think if I don’t get off I might die. But I keep going, finding Lara’s clit with my fingertips and rubbing it even as I keep pushing deep inside of her.
I can feel the tension ratcheting up in Lara’s body too, and I know she’s right on the edge, riding that wave with me, so close she can taste it but so far it seems like forever away. In the back of my mind I half-realize that we’d better finish soon, but I can’t think about it for more than just a second. Before I know it, I’m struggling to hold back the climax I can feel like a vise gripping my balls.
But I feel Lara’s muscles tighten around my cock and I feel her shiver and then she moans against my neck long and low and I know she’s hit her climax first. I ride through it, holding back with an effort that seems to be harder than anything I’ve ever done in my life, wanting to feel her finish completely, wanting to enjoy this as much as humanly possible.
I let her cool off for a few moments and then I’m right back at it, almost pounding into her. I only barely remember that my daughter’s asleep on the other end of the house, I’m so desperate to finally get off. I feel Lara’s body tensing again, and I hold back just a little while longer so we can finish at the same time.
When it happens, it’s as good as it’s ever been in my entire life, maybe better than it’s ever been. I don’t know, but every nerve in my body tingles as I finally give into the climax, coming hard deep inside of Lara, and I feel her coming too, clutching me like she’s clinging to me for life itself as her body shakes and tightens around me. We keep going until neither of us can move an inch, both of us panting and gasping for breath, and then we just collapse onto the couch tangled up in each other.
As soon as I catch my breath I know I want to go again right away, but I also know that Riley’s probably going to wake up in a matter of minutes, and while she can’t quite get out of her crib, I don’t want the guilt of leaving my little girl alone, awake, wondering what happened.
I pull myself up, my cock still buried in Lara, and look down at her. She’s still flushed, but she’s got that climax-drunk look on her face, in her eyes, that tells me she’s as satisfied as a person can be. For a fraction of a second, it reminds me of Alexis, the way she looked after we’d finished together that one time, and then the reminder is gone, and I’m back in the moment with Lara, no ghosts in the room with us.
“We have to go through with it,” Lara says, looking up at me, and for a second I’m confused.
“Oh, yeah,” I say, once the blood flow to my brain gives me the chance to think.
“We need to just…” Lara sighs and shakes her head. “It’s going to be ugly,” she says.
“It is, but it would be way uglier to let them keep going,” I point out.
Lara thinks about that for a second and nods. “They’re obviously not going to do the right thing, for whatever reasons they have,” she agrees.
“I really thought I could get my parents to get the point. But obviously they’re set against Nathan. And Nathan’s set against me,” I say. I hate the fact of that, I hate it for me, I hate it for Riley, and I hate it for Alexis, who would have never wanted any of this. Who had hoped that her provision for Riley would bring us all together, not tear us apart even more. Well in at least one way she got her wish, I think absently. I don’t know if Alexis thought anything would come about between me and Lara, but I know, she’d told me, that she wanted me to move on, to be happy with someone else if she died first. I’d wanted the same for her.
“If they’re not going to suck it up and be mature, we’re going to have to make it impossible for any of them to win,” Lara says quietly.
“We already have the plan, unless you’ve changed your mind?”
Lara shakes her head to tell me that she hasn’t.
We’d been talking about what we would do, what our “nuclear option” would be, if we couldn’t convince our parents to drop their cases against each other and us. The court date to go over Nathan’s case against me and my parents’ case against Nathan is only a couple of weeks away. More than enough time for our plan.
“Let’s get dressed. We should get Riley up, anyway,” Lara says, squirming underneath me.
I grin and climb off her, pulling out with only a little bit of regret. I could happily spend the rest of the evening making up for how terrible Thanksgiving was, but my daughter has to come first.
“Maybe we can order some pizza or something,” I suggest. Lara frowns in confusion as she pulls on her panties, and then laughs, shaking her head again.
“Yeah, I guess I should be more bummed about the lack of leftovers, especially since I cooked,” she says, sighing.
“I have a feeling everyone’s going to regret how things went down today. But pizza should be pretty good,” I say. I pull on my clothes and go to get my daughter from her nap, thinking about just how bad things have to be for Riley’s own grandparents to ruin her Thanksgiving.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
LARA
I’VE NEVER BEEN to the courthouse before. The couple of traffic tickets I’ve gotten I paid online without contesting. The family court seems weirdly grim, with the paint job that I’m sure some contractor told the state government would be soothing. Instead the colors just give me the same kind of feeling of unease I get whenever someone tells me to relax. A faint memory of the estate lawyer’s office comes back to me.
I take a deep breath to try to calm my nerves. Ethan and I are as prepared for this as we can possibly be, and I remind myself that it’s not like the court is going to give Riley to our parents, not when they see how contentious my dad and Ethan’s parents are to each other. And in the worst-case scenario, if they decide to award sole custody to Ethan, it isn’t like he’s going to deny me access to Riley. It’s mostly just that if we don’t pull off what we’re trying to do, it’s going to become some long, drawn-out legal battle.
The stakes aren’t that high. I have to keep reminding myself of that, even if it feels like the stakes are incredibly high. We’re fighting to keep Riley from being enmeshed in a stupid, drawn-out legal battle that both of us agree she should be kept out of. Assuming we win the day, we hope there will not be any other legal issues, but everything will have to shake out between our parents.
“Lara, you got here early,” I look up to see Dad walking to me.
I nod. “I wanted to make sure I was ready for this,” I say. I haven’t spoken to him since Thanksgiving, in
spite of the fact that he’s tried to call me four times in the couple of weeks since then. Christmas is only two weeks away, and the idea of keeping him out of my life, and Riley’s, and leaving him alone for the holiday for the first time in years, hurts me. But I know I can’t back down, not now.
“You’re going to testify, then?”
I can hear the uncertainty in my father’s voice, and I know he’s worried about what I’m going to say. I know he’s angry at me for getting in the way of his plans, and I’m pretty sure that he remembers what I told him before Thanksgiving dinner.
“I am going to testify,” I say levelly.
“You know I’m only trying to do what’s right, don’t you?”
I look at Dad. He looks so old, so sad and angry and beyond everything in the whole world. I hate that things have turned out the way that they have, but he’s done this to himself.
“I know what you think you’re trying to do, Dad,” I say. I take a deep breath.
“This could still work,” Dad insists.
I shake my head. “I’m not going to help you. And I think you know just as well as I do that if Alexis were here, and knew what you were doing, that she would scream at you and disown you as her father,” I say.
“If she were here, none of us would be here, least of all you,” Dad points out. Before I can say anything, Ethan and Riley appear in the hallway, and he steps away from me to go into the courtroom.
“What did he have to say?” Ethan asks quietly.
I shrug off Ethan’s question. It’s not important, and there’s nothing to be gained from talking about it in front of Riley.
“Why don’t we get settled in?” I look at Riley and smile at her, putting aside all my nervousness for a few moments.
“Why we here?” Riley looks at me and then looks at Ethan, wanting answers.
“We’re just here to talk to a nice judge about an argument we’re having,” I tell her. Of course, Riley can’t really understand it.
“The judge is going to help us decide something,” Ethan adds.
“What’s a judge?” Riley frowns in confusion, looking more like my sister than she ever has in her life.
My heart feels like it’s being squeezed inside of my chest for a moment, but then the feeling goes away when I take a breath.
“A judge is someone who helps people figure things out when they can’t agree,” I say.
“Why?” Riley looks at both of us, and neither Ethan nor I have a good answer for that.
“Things are complicated,” Ethan says finally.
“But I want you to remember that we all love you and care about you,” I tell her.
“Okay,” Riley says, smiling up at both Ethan and me.
We go into the courtroom and a few minutes later, Ethan’s parents arrive. Since Ethan and I aren’t taking either of our parents’ sides, we’re sort of at a loss of where to sit, which I hadn’t really considered. We take up spots on the aisle behind where my dad and his lawyer are set up, and where Ethan’s parents are set up with their lawyer, and a few more people come in while we all wait for the judge to come in.
Finally, after what feels like an hour, the court officers come in and close the courtroom, and a moment later we’re all told to stand.
“We have what seems to be a rather contentious case in front of us,” the judge says as soon as she sits.
I remind myself to be patient, that we’re going to have our chance to do what we need to do. The judge is going to understand what’s going on, and based on what she’s saying to open things up, I have to think she already does.
“From what I understand, the issue seems to be that no one here has a solid idea of what would best suit not only the interests of the girl’s life, but also the conditions of her deceased mother’s wishes. I want to make sure to hear all sides of this dispute, because we need to get to the bottom of this as thoroughly as possible, so I hope none of you have plans.”
She finishes and gives Dad the floor first since Dad filed his suit against Ethan first.
“I believe that my son-in-law, Ethan, is not in the best position to take care of my granddaughter,” Dad begins, and I make myself sit still and keep quiet as he goes on about how Ethan is irresponsible and potentially, at least circumstantially, partly to blame for my sister’s death. I can only be grateful that Riley can’t understand anything about what her grandfather is saying about her father.
“That is a very interesting testimony,” the judge says, and I can hear that she’s as doubtful as I’ve ever been about what Dad has to say.
She moves onto Ethan’s parents, and his mom takes the lead there, and once again the three of us, Ethan, me and Riley, have to sit still through what she has to say. Yet again we all hear the lines drawn in the sand — Ethan is Riley’s father, and a good and dedicated father to her, so shouldn’t lose custody and instead should have full custody.
“There are two other people who I think need to weigh in on this,” the judge says finally. I sit up, getting ready to do my bit. Ethan and I talked about what we would say, and what we would do to prepare for this court appearance. I’m as ready as I will ever be for what we need to do. She calls me up first and I give Riley a quick kiss before walking to the front of the courtroom, to speak my peace.
“Thank you, Your Honor, for asking me to speak,” I say. My heart is pounding in my chest as I take another quick breath and try to keep my thoughts together.
“Do you agree with your father’s assertion that Riley would be better suited to stay with yourself and him? Or do you agree with her other grandparents that her father should have sole custody?”
I shake my head.
“Neither, Your Honor. I don’t agree with any of Riley’s grandparents on this issue, and I think that my deceased sister’s wishes are in my niece’s best interests,” I say.
“Please explain,” the judge says, though I can see the flicker of a smile on her face. The few people watching the proceedings seem pretty shocked.
“Currently, Riley has no unsupervised days, and we have managed between the two of us, to work out a schedule that allows her to spend plenty of time with each of us, without having to rely on daycare, which we feel she is still too young to attend. We’re both in positions to accommodate her needs for care and support while both of us work full-time,” I explain.
The real, big announcement is still looming in my head, but I know I have to let that come later on, so instead I tell the judge about the ways that Ethan and I have worked together to make sure of Riley’s care, and to give her ample time with both of us. I don’t go into our history together, that’s beside the point.
“Thank you for your testimony,” the judge says when I’m done. “I’d like to hear from Riley’s father as well on this score, just in the interests of getting all the voices needed.”
I sit down and take Riley from Ethan as he goes up to do his part.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
ETHAN
I STEP UP to deliver my testimony, looking around the courtroom. Lara’s set me up really well for what I have to say to the judge. Assuming that she’s as receptive as she seems, I think the chances are good for us to get what we want, and, legally at least, settle things once and for all.
“I assume that you agree with Ms. Hampstead on the facts of the case, and in the argument that it’s best to stick with the plans and provisions made by your late wife in her will,” the judge says, once I’m settled in my place.
“Absolutely, Your Honor. Lara and I have talked about this in detail, and we’ve been agreement on this for a long time, since before our parents made their filings,” I say.
“Can you provide me with your input on the arguments made by the grandparents?”
I nod again.
“I can. As much as I love my parents, I have to disagree with them that I should have sole custody of my daughter. If Lara wasn’t around, and hadn’t already proved herself as a capable and loving guardian, I might agree,
but that’s not the case,” I say.
“I think the court records can reflect that no one here disputes that Lara has done very well in her capacity as Riley’s guardian,” the judge says, looking at my parents, who I watch. They nod reluctantly, conceding the point.
“Obviously the big issue at hand is that as things stand right now, Riley has to move around a lot. She spends certain days out of the week with me, and certain days with Lara,” I point out.
“That does seem to be one of the main, agreed-upon areas of contention,” the judge agrees.
“But if the court thinks that it’s a problem for who to spend different days in different homes, then joint-custody agreements for divorced couples wouldn’t make sense,” I finish.
“Of course, in those instances, the parents are separating, and it’s been agreed by experts that joint custody is better than sole custody for parents who have equally strong relationships with their children,” my parents’ lawyer pipes up.
“But you would still have to agree, I think, that if it is a problem for kids to spend different days in different locations with their parents, that the whole convention of joint custody is a bad idea, right?”
The judge smiles slightly. “Of course, that is something that the court would have to concede. And in this instance, you are absolutely right that there’s no proof that spending time in separate homes is not, on its own, bad, as long as parents cooperate, and schooling is not disrupted,” the judge says.
“So, the whole theory that both our parents’ arguments relies on is flawed,” I say.
“I sense that you’re not finished with that point,” the judge counters.
I grin. I can’t help myself. “I’m not, you’re right about that,” I say.
“Continue, then,” the judge says.
“Out of an excess of concern for Riley’s scheduling and her lifestyle, Lara and I have come to an agreement that we will move in together, to provide her with a single home to live in with the two of us,” I tell her. In telling her, I’m also telling my parents and Lara’s dad, who we hadn’t even given any warning at all of our idea.
