That didn’t last long. Far too quickly I learned who Grant really was and knew I had to get out of it. But by then I was pregnant, and it snowballed into chaos. It was all so much, and before I could even take a breath, my father died. I always knew I would be the one to follow in his footsteps. I just had no idea it would come so soon. And just like that, my world fell apart. Every moment was survival mode, and I did what I had to do to get to the next one.
Now Grant was doing his best to destroy me again.
I was angry and devastated. On top of it, I was embarrassed as hell for the pity etched all over Vince’s face.
“Let Vince look over the papers,” Nick offered. “He might be able to give you some more insight.”
I nudged the papers over to Vince, and Nick wrapped his arms around me again. It was like he was doing his best to hug my worries away, and I couldn’t help but love him for it. Nick never judged me. Not from the very beginning when I told him what was going on, or when I told him about Grant and Remy, or when I had my moments of hopelessness as I tried to piece the bar back together. We weren’t as close then, but he was still there for me. And as our friendship grew deeper, I leaned more and more into his support. He was the one person who could always make me feel better.
Until that day, as hard as he was trying, I couldn’t let go of my worries. The papers now in Vince’s hands made my stomach drop and my heart fall down to my feet when I saw them. They were complicated, and I wasn’t completely sure what everything in them meant. But I got the basic gist of them. Grant wanted not just full custody, but a court order establishing no visitation rights for me. I couldn’t be calm when I was oscillating between abject misery and homicidal rage.
Vince put the papers down. “From what I can tell, a lot of this is more puff and drama than it is actual binding cause. More bark than bite, so to speak. But, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have a complete understanding of all the legal language and everything. But that’s why I emailed my attorney. He’s willing to look everything over for you. Let’s go to his office and we’ll see what he says about being able to fight this. Okay?”
All I could do was nod. I got down from the barstool, and we headed out to the truck. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nick looking at me. The expression on his face was like he was seconds away from saying he told me so. Even if I deserved it, I didn’t want to hear it. Now was not the time. I locked the bar behind me, sharply aware that I didn’t know if I would even get back there that day. I wanted to just go back to the way everything was, to have it be a normal day and not be thinking of any of this. But depending on what the lawyer said and what I needed to do next, I might have to depend on my staff to handle running the bar that night.
We drove for longer than I expected us to, but I recognized the part of town when Vince pulled into a small parking lot and stopped the truck. Grant only lived a few blocks away. In fact, I had seen this legal office many times before. My stomach twisted again, and I immediately felt on edge. But I did my best to let it go as I opened the door and climbed out. Vince and Nick were going out of their way to help me, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. I had already disrupted both of their workdays and was taking up their time and energy. The least I could do was not complain about the location of the office. Even if it did make my spine feel tight and my eyes slick back and forth waiting to see either Grant or his parents. There was no way in hell I could afford a lawyer in this part of town.
We made it into the office, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Almost as soon as we walked into the building, a short, somewhat round older man stepped out of an office in the middle of a short hallway and waved us in. We walked into the luxuriously decorated office, and Vince reached out his hand to the older man.
“Thank you for seeing us so quickly. This is Lindsey. Lindsey, this is Charlie.”