Chapter 240
Howard was still bristling like a feral cat, but he hesitated, eyes on Simon’s face. “I’m starting to think you’re telling the truth,” he said. “If your deal is a postponement and visitation, CPS is the wrong move. You’re not that dumb.”
“Thank you for noticing,” Simon said. “I have not even spoken of this with my parents. Something for which you should be grateful: as Stahl will tell you, what my father claims as his own, he keeps. Believe me, I embrace the thought of his involvement as much as you might. I wish…I wish only to have the opportunity to get to know her. To decide how best to proceed. For her sake.”
Stahl did not look convinced, but much as Simon was the intelligent one of his family, Howard led the group on the other side. “If you’re so damn smart, how’d you knock Mace up in the first place?”
Howard rubbed at his face in a not-entirely-successful effort to cover a smirk and an eyeroll. “I’ll explain it when you’re older, honey.”
“I didn’t realize the details of my affair with Mace were of interest to you,” Simon said, tone frosty. Not that he was intending to sharethem. He waved a hand as if dismissing both Stahl and his concerns. “As it happened, we did have a child together and now we three must deal with that situation. My brother tells that once it gets dark, the park will be showing a family film, open to the public. I had some small hope to be permitted as part of the outing, to spend it with my daughter. Is this something you will still allow, or shall I fetch my brother and return home?”
Stahl was still breathing hard, like he’d run a race, hands fisted at his side. Simon refrained from rolling his eyes. “It’s a movie, Stahl. You won’t have to sit next to me or speak, I promise.”
Stahl glared. “Pompous ass,” he snapped. “‘M gonna go have a smoke. She can stay for the movie.”
Simon reached out and touched Howard’s wrist before he followed his husband. His only chance, Simon thought, for an ally at all. “Andrew, please,” Simon said, soft.
“It really wasn’t you?” he said, dark eyes intent on Simon’s. He sighed then, and sagged tiredly. “But then who…It’s been…You see how we could reach that conclusion, don’t you?”
“I would not overplay my hand in such a manner,” Simon said. “I would not have control of the situation. CPS is…a wild card.”
Howard nodded, and looked toward Stahl, who was standing with his back to them, spine almost painfully straight. “I’ll talk to him,” Howard promised. “We all want what’s best for Billie.”
The movie was typical family drivel, a rescued princess and a daring adventurer, happily ever after. Simon had a hard time taking it seriously. Life didn’t work like that. But the child—his daughter—seemed to enjoy it. The animal sidekick was her favorite. She launched into a description of other movies, comparing and contrasting. She was quick and clever, talking with his brother and with her other uncles with animation.
Simon had little to contribute; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a cartoon. Near the end of Billie’s exhaustive rundown of various Disney princesses, she turned on Simon with the suddenness of a pouncing kitten. “Did you love my mom?”
Simon discovered just how fast a child could reach in and tear one’s heart right out. And while he was coping with that unexpected agony, the look in Stahl’s eyes was oddly sympathetic. “I wanted to,” he said at last. His relationship with Mace had been volatile, exciting. Spontaneous. The first time—and maybe the last—that he’d done something truly impulsive, with no thoughts for consequences. Not quite three days, and then he’d opened his mouth and ruined it. “Your mother was special to me. I did not have nearly the time with her that I would have wished, and I will miss her.”
His daughter suddenly burst into tears and Simon found himself with an armful of warm daughter, patting her back and cupping the back of her head to cradle her against his chest. And if he wept with her, no one said anything 20
Scooter had just gotten off the phone with Southern Sunshine, a webzine that wanted to do a feature on Dockside, and was headed into the kitchen to grab some lunch when Christian Sharpe put a large, warm hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him back into his own office. Sharpe locked the door behind them.
“Before you start,” Chris said, voice low and husky. Seductive. “You want to hear me out.”
“Can’t imagine anythin’ you want to say that I need to listen to,” Scooter said, heart already going a mile a minute. What the hell even, why couldn’t Chris just leave him alone? What was he even doing here? Scooter had never seen Chris in Sandbridge outside of the Memorial Day week. He had a big house up in West Side Richmond.