Chapter 2 Stuck in the Mud
Stuck in the Mud
Jamie
The courtroom was a smothering kind of stale, barely large enough to fit the nine people in it.
Jamie glanced at his lawyer apprehensively, and then back at the judge, both of them wearing unreadable expressions that only managed to make his heart beat faster as he awaited the ruling.
He had never been particularly good at reading people.
Women, especially. It was probably why he was sitting there in the first place.
But it was hard not to believe that all these inscrutable faces weren’t there just to taunt him.
“I know this isn’t easy on anyone,” Judge Schiff said, “and I appreciate both your candor and patience today, Ms.Ewen, Mr.Gallagher.” She peered across the room at each of them like a disappointed parent.
“Now as you both know, it is the court’s job to make a decision in the best interest of the child.
I still wish that you could’ve come to a compromise on your own.
I’ve seen nothing here to indicate that you couldn’t, other than sheer stubbornness.
As you move forward, Mom and Dad are going to have to communicate . ”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Jamie offered a meek nod as he gripped the vinyl armrests of his chair for dear life and the sweat that claimed his palms for the better part of an hour made its way to his back. When he glanced to his left, Lucy looked equally abashed, at least.
“I understand, Your Honor,” she said.
“That said, in light of the information shared today, Ms.Ewen, I cannot say that I am comfortable having Jack in your home primarily at this time,” the judge told Lucy.
“When you can show that you’re able to maintain your household without Mr.Gallagher’s financial support, I am happy to revisit this.
Until then, it is the court’s order that you will share joint legal custody of Jackson Gallagher.
Mr.Gallagher will retain physical custody, and Ms.Ewen will be allowed visitation on weekends.
Any further visits will be at Mr.Gallagher’s discretion. ”
Jamie let out the breath he’d been holding for the entire proceedings as he felt his brother’s strong hand squeeze his shoulder from behind. “Thank you, Your Honor,” he croaked out, just before the emotion could clog his throat.
Morgan, his lawyer, offered him a sparkling grin as she placed a comforting hand over his. “I told you,” she said.
“Thank you both for your appearances,” Judge Schiff said, all of the reprimand and authority suddenly gone from her tone.
As everyone rose from their seats and the judge disappeared, Jamie snuck another peek at Lucy, whose boyfriend (or more accurately, her fiancé, apparently) consoled her. Pesky remnants of regret churned in Jamie’s stomach, and he looked away in the hope of pushing it all down.
“So you’ll get the official order in the mail,” Morgan explained as they began their exit. “It’ll be probably about a week. In the meantime, she may try to fight you, but you do not have to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.”
“Wait, so there’s no paperwork he can have today?” Jamie’s brother cut in. “In case she tries to kidnap the kiddo?”
Jamie rolled his eyes at Casey’s input. “She’s not gonna do that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Go to the car,” Jamie said, handing over the keys to his truck before Casey could protest. “I’ll be right there.” As Casey took off, his typically chaotic energy dissipating, Jamie offered his lawyer his most earnest half smile. “Thank you.”
“You did most of the work. You’ve been doing most of the work, and I’m just happy the judge saw that.”
Jamie nodded, squinting at the sun high in the sky, the sudden heat wave that came with it making Nashville feel like a personal hell. More than it did already anyway. “Hopefully, I won’t need you much more after this.”
Morgan grinned at him again and left him with a conservative hug. “I hope not, too. You take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
Jamie continued to stand on the steps of the Davidson County General Sessions Court, and he wasn’t sure whether he was waiting for Lucy or for the will to keep moving, but he ended up staying until she appeared with her small entourage.
Ever the perpetual victim, she was still wiping tears as she approached Jamie.
“You waited to gloat?” Lucy asked with a hint of playfulness in her tone.
“Nothing of the sort.”
“No, I know,” she said soberly. “But congratulations to you.”
Jamie’s eye couldn’t help catching the diamond now adorning her left hand. It was small but elegant. Fitting for her thin fingers. “It’s not how I wanted it,” he said.
Lucy bit her lip. “I know that, too. But thank you for being generous anyway. There were a lot of things you could’ve said in there, and I appreciate you holding back.”
“Luce, I never wanted to go to court in the first place.”
“And when I pushed, you could’ve made it ugly, and you didn’t, so…I’m thanking you.”
“Fair enough.”
“And I’m sorry,” Lucy said, her light brown eyes studying his. “That you had to find out about the engagement this way. We wanted to tell Jack first. It all just…sort of…happened.”
Jamie grimaced at that bit of information, wondering how a proposal, complete with a ring, just happens . Ten years together, and nothing of the sort ever happened to them. “Right. Well. I’m glad you’re finally happy.”
Lucy looked pained by the statement, briefly at least. But then she went on. “I know what the judge said, but is it still okay if I have Jack this week?”
“Of course. What we agreed to this summer is still fine with me.”
“Okay.”
Jamie noticed, again, Lucy’s fiancé waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. “So…I’ll drop off Jack around six?”
“Oh…”
“What?”
“Well, I was hoping I could pick him up from camp today.”
“I’d actually…I’d rather have him for a couple of hours,” Jamie said. “If that’s okay with you.”
“You already won, Jamie. Can’t you just give me this?”
“Lucy.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, brushing her wispy brown bangs from her eyes. “I know you’re being kind. I just—”
“Can’t we both just enjoy that this is finally over?” he asked, and he knew it sounded like begging. That was all he’d done for the past six months, beg her to be civil.
“Yes, I know how you hate fighting.”
Jamie caught the sarcasm but ignored it, because he couldn’t stand in front of her and that ring much longer. “I’ll see you at six, Lucy.”
Separately, the two of them descended the steps, Lucy heading to the left with Tyler, while Jamie went to the right, toward his car and his brother.
And when a tear slipped down his cheek, he wiped it as quickly as he could, happy to pretend it was more sweat rather than whatever feelings he had left for this woman.
When he reached his old pine-green Silverado and saw Casey propped against it looking like a rebel without a cause, he reminded himself that despite everything, he’d had a good day.
“What did the Wicked Witch of Middle Tennessee have to say for herself?” Casey asked.
Jamie shook his head, suppressing a laugh as he hopped into the driver’s side. “I got a couple more hours with Jack, mostly for your benefit, and then she has him the rest of the week.”
“That’s cool. I’m just here for the day anyway.”
Jamie gazed at his younger brother in search of something meaningful to say, something to express how grateful he was that he flew into town just to support him through the inanity of this custody battle.
But Casey already knew. He’d watched Jamie go through hell for the better part of a year, in this entanglement with Lucy and Tyler, all while trying to hold on to his sanity for Jack’s sake.
When another tear trickled down his cheek, Jamie didn’t bother hiding it this time.
“Hey.” Casey reached out, gently wiping Jamie’s face. “You did everything right, dude.”
Jamie let out a quiet sigh. “Not everything.”
“It truly wounds my soul that you don’t know what a catch you are.”
“Stop.”
“If you could just be, like, a little bit gay, I have someone who’d be perfect for you,” Casey joked. “He works with Jelani, but he’s nice . He shares your brand of nontoxic masculinity. Great with kids. He pays his own bills…”
Jamie let out an unexpected, genuine laugh at the fact that his brother and brother-in-law never tired of trying to indoctrinate him. “Sometimes, I wish I was.”
“No matter. I’m gonna find you someone. Someone who’s gonna make you forget you ever knew Lucy fucking Ewen.”
Jamie looked at him. “That’s obviously not gonna happen.”
“I mean, yeah, Jack. Of course. But besides that…”
“Right.” Try as he might, Jamie couldn’t hide his amusement with his brother. Because quietly, he wanted nothing more than to forget he ever knew, or loved, Lucy fucking Ewen.
—
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, bud?” Jamie glanced at his eight-year-old in the back seat, bracing himself for whatever might be on the other end of his query.
With Jack, it could be anything from a request for a napkin to a deep dive into existentialism.
After the day he’d had, Jamie prayed for the former, but he would give his best if it were the latter.
“Would it be okay if you take me to camp in the mornings and Mom picks me up?”
Jamie chuckled uneasily. “You don’t want your mom to take you to camp?”
“It’s not that I don’t want her to. It’s just…we’re always late when she takes me, and I miss out on breakfast and then I get the worst seat in class, away from all my friends.”
“I see.”
“And they don’t let them save seats. You know Riley would save a seat for me if she could.”
“Of course…”
“So if you could take me and Mom picks me up, that would just be a better start to my day, I think.”
Jamie paused to deliberate, to devise the correct combination of words to share the big news with his son.
In the process, he grabbed a napkin from the glove compartment for Jack before his ice cream could melt all over his hand.
“Your mom and I discussed things, and you’re actually gonna spend more time with her during the summer,” he said.
“So the only time I’ll be taking you to camp is on Monday mornings. ”
Jack scrunched his face at the unusual arrangement. “Oh.”
“Is that all right with you?”
“I guess,” Jack said. “So I’ll be at Mom’s all week?”
“For the most part. ’Til school starts again.”
Jack continued to eat his ice cream with a thoughtful look on his freckled face. “And what are you gonna do?”
Jamie wished he knew. “I’m gonna work. Rest. Maybe do some traveling.”
“Yeah, right, Dad.”
“Oh, you think I can’t go anywhere without you?”
“You never have before,” Jack retorted coolly as he bit into his cone. “Where would you even go?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie said, laughing at his kid as he turned in to Lucy’s subdivision. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know.”
“Tyler says that, too.”
Jamie didn’t respond, beyond his grip tightening on the steering wheel, always working not to let on how much he hated that guy. “I’ll talk to your mom about getting you to camp on time. I don’t want you worrying about that.”
“Thanks, Dad.” As they pulled up to Lucy’s Brentwood home, Jack brightened at the sight of the gold SUV at the top of the driveway. “Cool, Tyler’s here.”
Jamie felt inclined to tell his son that Tyler would always be there, as the guy was now moving into this home he was still paying for, but that wasn’t his information to share, and he didn’t want to burst Lucy’s engagement bubble.
Instead, he retrieved Jack and Jack’s things and they headed up to the front door, where Lucy was there to greet them before Jack could ring the bell.
“Well, look at you,” she said, grinning warmly. She cupped his face, which was covered in chocolate ice cream, and kissed his forehead. “Run inside and let me talk to your dad for a minute, okay?”
Jack turned to say his goodbye, wrapping his little arms around Jamie’s waist. “See you later, Dad. Tell Uncle Casey bye for me.”
“I will,” Jamie said, ruffling his dark brown locks. “Be good. And I’ll see you next Friday.”
“Don’t get too lonely without me.”
Jamie watched Jack scamper off while he waited for Lucy to find some new way to ruin his day.
She started off gingerly. “Tyler and I have been talking and…we’re going to need a little more time before we can take on this mortgage. Is there any way we can—”
“It’s fine,” Jamie said. He didn’t want to talk anymore, not to Lucy, and not about this.
They’d spent hours upon hours, with lawyers, trying to come to compromises, and he was exhausted from the conversation.
Even when they were together, money seemed to be an unending discussion.
He was glad those days were over. “I got it,” he said. “How’s December?”
Lucy grinned, her hazel eyes gleaming with gratitude. “Thank you.” She reached out to affectionately touch his arm. “Thank you, Jamie.”
“It’s nothin’.” He averted his eyes, looking down at the threshold between them; he noticed her bare feet and the fresh French pedicure that decorated her toes. “I’m, um, probably gonna be at the cabin in Gatlinburg for the week. In case you need anything.”
Lucy offered another genuine smile. “I think that’ll be good for you. You never take time for yourself.”
“Hard to do that when you have a kid to raise.”
“Well. Now you get to have a life, too. You deserve that.”
Jamie chewed the inside of his cheek, hating the way her Southern lilt still calmed him sometimes. He hated that he had anything left for her at all, after…everything. “I’m gonna get going,” he said. “I’ve gotta take Casey to the airport, and then it’s a long drive.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, by the way, Jack would like it if you could get him to camp on time.”
“I’m trying. I keep forgetting there’s traffic.”
“Right.” Jamie could hear Jack laughing in the background with Tyler, and that was his explicit cue to leave.
He loved the sound, of course, and Jack was generous with it, happy to share his joy with anyone who’d take it.
But a small, petty part of Jamie hated that it had nothing to do with him, that some stranger was getting to experience it. It made him ache.
If there was a bright side, at least Tyler sounded entertained by him.
He was invested in Jack, which was probably the most Jamie could hope for in this situation.
If Lucy had to be with someone else, he was relieved it was someone who treated their son well.
If that laughter meant Jack was okay, Jamie could deal with the heartache.
But maybe, hopefully, some time away from the city (and from Lucy) would dull the pain.
Jamie looked forward to trying to be happy again.