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“Fine.”
She was definitely throwing me attitude, though I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I found myself enjoying it.
Inside her apartment, I looked around. “Where are your new legal wards?”
“Heath is at work until seven, and Hannah is at her friend’s house.”
“Do they know about you getting custody?”
Devyn shook her head. “Not yet. I didn’t even tell them I was going to court. I didn’t want them to be disappointed if the judge said no for some reason. But I thought I might take them out for ice cream after dinner and surprise them with the news. They’re going to be relieved.”
I smiled and held up the wine. “That’s great. You want to celebrate a little before they get home?”
“Sure.”
Devyn was still acting a little distant, but not as icy as when she’d opened the door. I pretended nothing was wrong as I opened the bottle and poured us each a glass of merlot. Passing her one, I held my glass out to clink.
“Congratulations on gaining custody of the terrible twosome.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
We both sipped. “So did the woman from CPS show up today?”
“Yeah. She’s not too friendly. But when I showed her the signed order from the judge, she had no choice but to talk to me in place of Vera. She gave me a half-hour lecture on the importance of getting the kids to school and suggested I bring them down to social services for counseling. I’m hoping she’s not the permanent case worker assigned to us. Marcus said they assign someone to do drop-in visits and stuff.”
“Even if she is, she can’t take the kids anymore, right?”
Devyn shook her head. “According to Marcus, she’d need to have a reason for removal and the court would need to agree.”
“So those little shits can’t skip school or get themselves in any more trouble then.”
“Yeah. I have to do a better job of keeping them in line.”
We talked about court for a while and all the things she had to do in order to maintain temporary custody. After, I decided to circle back to the attitude she’d had when I first walked in. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Were you jealous that I was out with another woman?”
Devyn looked away. “No.”
My lip twitched. “No, huh?”
“I wasn’t jealous.”
It was difficult to keep a straight face, because she was so clearly full of shit. But…if she wasn’t jealous, a few details wouldn’t bother her, right?
I sipped my wine and watched Devyn’s face. “Tarryn asked if I wanted to take her back to my place.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s nice.”
“We’ve had sex before. So I don’t think she wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV.”
Devyn’s face flushed red.
I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see her get pissed—admit she was damn jealous.
“Yeah, that Tarryn’s a real wild woman in bed. Last time she visited, we broke a lamp. Knocked it right off the end table from the bed bouncing around so much.”
