Chapter Sixteen
DYLAN
Dylan: Hi. Tate?
Tate: Who is it?
Dylan: Dylan Casablancas.
Tate: How did you get past the security codes to message me?
Dylan: Row gave them to me. Hope you don’t mind.
Tate: I do.
Tate: Also, I’m not interested.
Dylan: I’m not offering, you…you…
Tate: Asshole? Bastard? Waste of oxygen?
Dylan: All three.
Tate: Glad we settled it. Have a good life.
Dylan: I need your help.
Tate: I am not in the habit of giving it for free, and there is nothing you can offer me that I don’t already have.
Dylan: If this goes sideways, Row’ll drop everything, your mutual businesses included, to come to my rescue. So technically, it IS in your interest to help me.
Tate: What do you want?
Dylan: Advice.
Tate: Have you seen my life?
Tate: I could think of 7.9 billion people better equipped to give you sound advice.
Dylan: LEGAL advice.
Tate: Shoot.
Dylan: My ex Tucker is in town. We are about to work with each other. He wants to see our mutual kid even though he’s never met her before and walked out on us. Does he have the right to see her?
Tate had passed the bar in New York sometime in the previous decade. He wasn’t a practicing lawyer, but he seemed like the kind of man to know everything about anything.
Tate: That’s a complicated question. Did he ever abuse you? Hit you? Hurt you?
I thought about my bruised wrist. I was pretty sure if I went to the police, Tucker would be able to convince them it was all a big, fat mistake. That he was swept up, excited to see me, the mother of his child, and wanted to talk. And maybe it was the truth. Emotions had been running high. He’d never physically hurt me before.
Dylan: No.
Tate: Does he have a criminal record?
Dylan: Not that I know of.
Tate: The short answer is no, there’s nothing you can do about it. He’ll end up seeing your kid, even if supervised. The long answer is that you might be able to tire him out by making him retain legal counsel and jump through hoops. But it’ll cost you time, money, and resources.
I set my phone down on the couch and closed my eyes. I was in a terrible spot. Did I want to give my daughter the chance to connect with her biological father and trust that this might bloom into a healthy relationship, or was I putting her in harm’s way with a man who’d violently grabbed me and left me in the worst possible circumstances?
Tate: Where’s my thank you?
Dylan: In the same place I keep the fucks I give about what you think about me. Good luck finding it.