Finally Carlos got off the stand and his attorney said, “Petitioner would like to call Jacob Slausen to the stand.”
The bailiff went out to the hall to get Jake.
Not looking at either me or Amelia, Jake strode confidently to the witness stand, was sworn in, and sat down.
“Mr. Slausen,” said the attorney, “isn’t it true that you are Lucinda Figueroa’s neighbor.”
“Yes.”
“And isn’t it true that you are dating Ms. Figueroa?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it true that you have a sexual relationship with Ms. Figueroa?”
Amelia stood up. “Objection. Irrelevant.”
“Overruled,” said the judge.
What did overruled mean? Did it mean we won?
Jake answered. “No.” I guess we didn’t win. But what did he mean, no? Well, I guess we had a sexual relationship but that was in the past. So Jake was telling the truth.
“No?” asked the attorney.
“No,” said Jake firmly. “I answered the question.”
“Mr. Slausen, have you ever had a sexual relationship with Ms. Figueroa?”
“Objection. Irrelevant,” said Amelia, standing up again.
“Sustained,” said the judge.
Amelia sat down. I guess that means he didn’t have to answer the question. She looked a little smug. She whispered in my ear, “That didn’t go the way Carlos’s attorney wanted it to go. The judge agreed that your past relationship with Jake doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. So we don’t have to go there. His plan to smear you backfired. I’ll explain about the art class. He just got shut down. That’s what that means.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
“No further questions,” said the attorney.
“Your witness, counsel,” said the judge to Amelia. She stood up, a notebook with a list of questions in her hand.
“Mr. Slausen, have you ever spent time with the minor child, Roberto Figueroa?” Jake’s dark eyes, previously focused on Carlos’s attorney now bored into me, then turned to Amelia, answering in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Yes.”
“In what capacity?"
“I babysat him.”
Amelia closed her notebook, not needing it. “Did you have the opportunity to observe Ms. Figueroa on any other occasions with Roberto?”
“Yes.”
“Did you form an opinion of Ms. Figueroa as a mother?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. Confident.
“And what is your opinion?”
Jake let out a breath. Then he looked straight at me, blue eyes blazing. “Lucinda Figueroa is the finest mother a child could want. Her child is well-cared for. She loves him and he loves her. She does everything she can to make sure that her child’s needs are put before her own. She’s raised a respectful kid. Ms. Figueroa has clearly done everything she could to make sure that her child was raised right.”
Hearing Jake praise my son to me sutured a small portion of the gaping wound that this process had reopened.
“Did you have the opportunity to speak to Roberto about his father?”
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday.” Really?
“What did he tell you?”
Jake paused. “He told me that he wants to stay with his mom. He told me that when he’s with his dad he doesn’t see his dad that much because he works on weekends.” This was news to me. “He says he’s mostly watched by his grandmother. He told me that he was worried that he was going to have to choose between his mom and his dad. I tried to reassure him that California courts don’t make children choose between their parents anymore.”
“Anything else?” asked Amelia.
“He told me that he loves his mother more than Minecraft.”
Mijo. My son.
“No further questions.”
Jake stepped down from the stand.
“Any further witnesses?” the judge asked Carlos’s attorney, who looked annoyed.
“No.”
“Rebuttal,” said the judge to Amelia.
Amelia called me up to the stand. In a blur, I answered all of the questions that we had practiced yesterday. About how Carlos had not been around for Roberto’s birth or early childhood. About how I had to fight him for child support in the beginning. About how I didn’t think that it was in Rob’s best interest to be uprooted at Christmas. And about how Carlos and I tried to keep it together in front of Rob.
“Is it true that you model at an art school here in Santa Barbara?” asked Amelia.
“Yes. It’s for art students who want to learn anatomy and life drawing.”
“Are you in any relationships with a significant other right now?”
“No.” And then I couldn’t help myself, “I haven’t been in any serious relationships since Carlos in high school.” And I glared at him.
When I was done, I let out a sigh of relief.
Then the judge started talking and she was angry at Carlos. “You mean to tell me that after all this time, you want to take Roberto? This is not an emergency hearing. It should not have been brought on an ex parte basis right before Christmas. The evidence shows that the minor child has been cared for by his mother, almost entirely, for his entire life. The test is best interest of the child. The Court finds that it is not appropriate for the father to be awarded custody for the entire winter vacation. I will award one day of visitation extra on the day after Christmas. But the remainder of the holiday, except for the regular weekend visitations, is to be unchanged. It is so ordered.” One more day with Rob was fine. I’d have given him that if he would have asked.
Carlos lost.
Thank heavens. I couldn’t even manage the strength to think, yay, I was so mentally exhausted.
I let out my breath that I had been holding. I needed to go home so that I could let out the tears, too. Damn all this crying lately. I looked at Amelia and gave her a hug. “Thank you so much,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Not to be a damper on things, but this is just an emergency hearing. We still have a later hearing to handle, but we will have time to prepare. Jake and I came up with a strategy to protect you last night.”
“I didn’t know how you knew all that about Rob and him.”
“He called me,” she said. “We worked on it until really late last night. Or actually this morning.”
Oh my God. He had been helping me. Protecting me. Shielding me from himself to protect Rob.
“Excuse me,” I said. I ran out of the courtroom. Jake waited in the hallway looking at his cell phone, immediately turning to me and putting it away at seeing me emerge from the room.
“What happened?”
“Basically, we won,” I whispered, excitedly. “Carlos gets one extra day with Rob during Christmas break. That’s it.”
“Excellent,” he whispered back. “Listen, can I talk with you?”
I nodded.
He pulled me aside, down the hall, and down into a corridor out of the way, and kept walking until my back was against the wall, his hand on one side of me. He started talking fast, quietly and sincerely.
“I tried to stay away. I knew this was going to happen. I wanted to protect you and Rob. I know how these family law things go. They look into everything and ask you all kinds of questions about your personal life. Anything could have been twisted and used against you. I wanted to be able to answer the judge honestly. If I would have done what I wanted to, pound on your door every day since we had that fight, then that private investigator hanging out all the time would have had a lot more than innuendo. There was no way I was going to jeopardize you and Rob. So, I stayed away.”
My eyes widened and my breathing stopped.
“But I can’t do it any longer.”
“Jake,” I breathed. My voice sounded whispery, even to me. I’d just transported myself into my own romance novel and I could care less. I could talk to him again. I
could hold him again. Maybe. If he’d let me. I looked down at the ground, unable to process what he had just told me.
The mass of thoughts and emotions swirling around inside me coalesced into a few discrete thoughts. He’d been acting noble, staying away from me for my own good, for the good of my child. He had sacrificed for me and I didn’t even know it. And these thoughts warmed me. I had believed that he’d been an asshole, but there was a whole lot more going on, things that I had no idea about. He’d taken care of my child so that I could properly prepare for the custody battle. Not only was he on my side, but he was also on Rob’s side. My child adored him. Basically, Jake had made sure we’d won my custody battle by testifying truthfully. I had never been more grateful to another human being.
Now, all I wanted to do was get to know him better, get to know what was beyond the wall that he had put up, that kept him from letting anyone else in. I wanted him to be mine.
He moved closer to me and gently put his hand under my chin, lifting it up to look at him, trailing his finger, caressing me.
“I don’t know if the PI will be around watching us still,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t want to hurt anything you have with Rob. But I can’t leave you alone. I can’t—”
“You’re good for Rob.” The words came out in a rush, my body leaning in. It was my turn to get closer to him. “You pay attention to him, real attention. And you’re a steady, honest, loyal man with a great career. This what will the judge think stuff is bullshit. Carlos looked like a snake oil salesman up there. I mean, I’m scared, but I think that the truth will win out. Don’t you?”
“There is nothing certain in a courtroom.” Jake took on a lawyerly tone that matched his business suit. He stepped back from me, dropping his hand and turning away. “This proceeding that Carlos brought is a big deal. You can’t lose. Rob needs you—”
“I think Rob is going to be just fine. I can’t believe that a judge would take him away from me. I mean, I raised him single-handedly his whole life.” Then I remembered something and got mad and hissed, “And I can’t believe that Carlos works on weekends when he is supposed to be taking care of Rob.”
“I know. I would have told you once I found out but I didn’t get a chance.”
I shook my head in anger. That was a topic to bring up with Amelia. But he and I had more to discuss. Like how hot and cold he was with me. “I want to talk to you. What happened that day in your office?”
“I fucked up,” he said immediately.
“Yes. You did. But why? What was going on with you?”
“The short answer is that there is a big difference between what my office sees and what you see.”
“I want the long answer.”
He paused.
I kept going. I needed to know this. I needed to press it. “You have to explain things to me. I can’t read your mind. I can’t be with you if you are going to shut me out for no reason. I can’t handle it. It’s on-Jake and off-Jake. You don’t have to be always on, but I want to know what’s going on inside your head—”
“It has never been okay for me to be an artist. That is not a part of my life that I share with anyone. Before he was a workaholic, my dad was an artist and he was the kind that was completely irresponsible. My childhood was very bad. I know how to dumpster dive. I had to panhandle. After my mother left us when my brother died, I did anything I could to get out of there. I worked as many jobs as I could to go to college and then to law school so I would never have to live that way again. The thing is, I’ve always drawn and I’ve always wanted to be an artist. But it’s never been okay for me to do so. No one knows that I take classes or draw or anything. So when I saw you, I handled it badly.”
“You did. Not badly. You treated me like shit.”
“And I’m sorry.” Eyes on me, he radiated intensity, but sincerity. I still didn’t know what he was talking about. But I couldn’t handle not knowing any more.
“Show me,” I whispered. “Show me your art. Show me what you’re hiding.”
He stared at me and I stared back, hoping that he would let me in. Even though he had his quirks, every indication to me was that there was something in him, beyond the wall he had built, that was worth getting to know. Second chance? Third chance? I still thought it was worth it.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll tell you everything, shit I’ve never told another soul. I don’t care anymore, I just want you to trust me. I just want you to be mine.” His voice lowered even more. “You remind me of some dreams I had.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ll give you another chance. I’ve wanted to for a while. I want you too, Jake.” I pushed his chest at his intake of breath. “But don’t fuck it up.”
He looked very serious. “I can’t promise that I won’t fuck it up. That’s the truth. But I can promise that I don’t want to fuck it up and if I do, I will do anything to fix it.”
Those were not the most soothing words. But they sounded like they were honest. Oh, what was I going to do with my sad, noble, artist-lawyer neighbor?
Kiss him, of course.
I got up on my tiptoes, reaching behind his neck. He looked at me for a second, questioning, and then stepped forward, collapsing his plush lips into mine, grasping me tightly in his suited arms, kissing me hard. I kissed him back equally forcefully, holding his head to mine, running my fingers through his hair, mussing it up. Oh, he smelled good. He felt good. He felt like home. I loved his lips, his tongue, the inside of his mouth, his neck, the way he held me.
I’d missed him. And all I was thinking about was how good this felt to be held by him.
But then I heard a familiar male voice call out, “Lucy?”
Jake and I broke apart.
“God you always were a filthy slut. What’s up with this?” Carlos was standing there, glaring at us.
I lost it.
“And you were always an asshole,” I snarled back at him.
“At least I didn’t perjure myself. You fucking liar,” he said, pointing at Jake. “You totally committed perjury.”
“No, Carlos, he didn’t. We were broken up.”
“Whatever. I know what I just saw. It didn’t look like you were broken up to me.”
And with that, Carlos gave me a nasty smirk and said, “See you here again soon.” Then he walked away.
Fuck.
Jake and I watched Carlos saunter down the hallway, Jake super pissed. “He knows about us. I was trying to avoid that exact thing. Fuck.”
I shook my head and put my hand on my hip. “You know what? I’m glad.” He looked at me, surprised. “I don’t like to hide things. With me, what you see is what you get. I am who I am and I’m proud of it. And I’m proud of being with you. You’re good for my son. So screw him.”
Jake smiled his wan, sad smile. “I suppose it’s too late now, anyway.” He pulled out his phone and looked at the time. “I guess I’ll go back to the office.”
I shook my head and grabbed his hand, pulling him to me. “Oh no you don’t.” I stepped way into his space, putting my finger on his chest. “This is the day you get a quickie before you go back to the office. And you’re going to show me your house because I’ve never seen it.”
His eyes flashed. He nodded, not saying anything. Unusual. I guess I’d stunned him into silence. I went to go and leave, but before I could turn to go down the halls to find our cars, he grabbed me, hard, slamming me into him. Hand on my ass, hand on my shoulder, he kissed me like it was his life’s work. Like he was creating a moment with me.
And for the second time in that historic courthouse hallway, heels on the terracotta tile, I lost myself with him. In him, the taste of his tongue, his seductive smell, the feeling of his hard, athletic body. People walked up and down the hallway, clattering their rollaway briefcases and their shoes. These sounds barely registered in my consciousness. I got lost—or maybe he was lost—but we both found each other.
He might be mine now.
Suddenly propell
ed to get a move on, we split apart, kissed again really quickly, and then with a hand squeeze to say goodbye, breathlessly headed to our cars.
We drove in separate cars to the same place. As I drove home, I called Amelia and told her. Again, I wasn’t going to keep anything from my attorney if it would hurt Rob. I told her that Jake had testified truthfully, but we might have gotten back together afterwards and Carlos saw. She gasped and said she would do damage control. I wasn’t sure what that would be, but I was grateful for her help.
Once I parked in front of the duplex, no private investigator in sight, I got out of my car, feeling electrified and turned on. As in, really fucking heated. Wet. Wanting to be naked with him.
But I had to be a mom first.
Jake pulled up right after me and I went over to him. “Let me check in on Roberto and I’ll be over.”
He nodded and looked like he was feeling about the same way I was, like he was going to explode if he wasn’t touching me. But he didn’t touch me anywhere except my hand, holding it. He walked with me over to the duplex and then let go of my hand, looking at me.
“I’ll be just a minute.”
“Be fast,” he ordered, and then he went and unlocked his home.
I walked into my house and called in to Sara, who’d been watching Rob during the hearing, so grateful for her help. She was the only one available at the last minute. I’d lucked out that she was going to work late tonight at Macy’s, so she could help me. Holiday hours.
When I walked into the living room, Rob was sitting on the couch reading a book and Sara was reading something on her tablet.
“Hey, guys.”
Despite being interrupted from his reading, Rob smiled at me. “Hi, Mom.”
I looked over at him. “You good, mijo?”
“Yep. Tía and I went to the park and came back and now we’re reading.”
“Sounds good,” I responded, grateful for the awesome free babysitting.
“How did it go?” Sara asked in a low voice, getting up. She walked with me into the kitchen before I started talking.
“Carlos basically lost,” I told her, “and Jake and I made up. But then Carlos caught us in the hallway so he thinks that Jake lied on the stand.”
All the Waters of the Earth (Giving You ... Book 3) Page 9
