Chapter 4 Lester's POV
I awoke to a dim glow in the bedroom and the sensation of fingertips scrubbing gently along my scalp. It took another moment or two as I stretched and tensed my muscles to realise that I had my head in Bobby's lap, my arms wrapped around his waist as he sat propped up on pillows against the headboard. It was normal for him to be awake before me, but it was our day off, and he usually put a little more effort into remaining in a horizontal position to catch up on rest even if he wasn't catching up on sleep.
"Time's it?" I murmured, lifting my head to peer at him in the half light and discovering that the glow I'd perceived upon first opening my eyes was coming from his iPad propped on his chest with his other hand, remarkably similar to how he'd been positioned when we went to bed last night. I pushed myself up on my arms to get a better look at him. "D'y'even sleep?"
"Course," Bobby murmured, rubbing his eyes and sending me a strained smile that wasn't fooling either one of us. He was stressed, as we both were, about the whole 'you're the father of a four-year-old you've never met' thing, and when he was stressed, he had trouble sleeping, catching even less z's than he usually did. I should have predicted it especially with where his head had ended up last night, but unlike usual, we were both dealing with the personal crisis this time around, and I'd had my head too far up my own ass to realise the support my partner needed in maintaining his status quo.
I gave him the 'tell me the truth' eyebrow to ensure my tangled morning tongue didn't screw up the message, and he sighed, setting the iPad aside on the bedside table.
"I think I got about two hours," he admitted.
"And the time is-?" I let my question trail off as I caught sight of the digital readout beside the device he'd just set down. "Bobby!" I groaned, levering myself further upright so my frown was more effective. "It's 4am! That's way too early even for you! Go back to sleep!"
"I'm worried about- WOAH!"
His attempt at an excuse was cut off on a shout as I seized his waist, hauling him down the bed so he was lying flat on his back. The pillows that had been supporting his back fell onto his face and I batted them away.
"I know what you're worried about," I assured him, holding his gaze in the half light from the iPad screen. "It's the same thing I'm worried about. But you still need to sleep. We both need to have all our brain cells functioning for this meeting with Fredericks tomor-fuck. It's already today, Bobby…" The last came out on a whine as a wave of exhaustion and apprehension for the day ahead of us washed over me.
"I know," he sighed, his hand returning to my hair when I collapsed face first onto his chest. "I'm sorry."
"'Snot your fault," I mumbled. I tightened my arms around him, squinching my eyes shut, and was rewarded when he returned the hug, dragging me closer. "But we need to sleep."
"That'd be a lot easier if you hadn't knocked my pillow to the floor," he grumbled, shifting under me.
A low growl crawled up my throat and I threw a leg over the lower half of his body, essentially pinning him to the mattress. Blindly, I reached one hand behind me, seizing a pillow from my side of the bed and thrusting it at his head. "Use mine," I instructed. "No moving."
The hint of a chuckle rumbled through Bobby's chest, vibrating against my smooshed face. "Know what I love most about these affectionate suffocation attempts of yours?" Bobby said, his voice muffled by the pillow still covering his face. He took a deep, exaggerated breath before letting it out slowly, dragging the pillow out of the way. I couldn't see his face because a) the iPad screen had timed out and we'd been plunged into complete darkness, and b) my own face was pressed firmly into his chest, but I could feel the smile he was sending me. "It smells like you."
I snorted, lightly slapping his chest. "Go to sleep, dork."
*o*
The next time I awoke, I was close to the edge of the mattress on what was usually Bobby's side of the bed, held securely in the position of 'little spoon' by Bobby's strong grip around my waist. Light was filtering in through the curtains, so without even looking at the clock, I knew that a decent amount of time had passed, and the even breaths tickling across the back of my neck told me Bobby was still asleep. Good.
I tried to lift his arm to slide off the bed, but his hold only tightened, his nose nuzzling into my shoulder. I was trapped. This almost never happened. I was the night owl, not the early bird. If someone was going to unconsciously trap the other in bed in the morning, it was usually me, because Bobby was always the one trying to get out of bed before it was decent.
My gaze drifted around the room from the unusual vantage point. What was I supposed to do now? There was absolutely no way I was going to wake him up given how considerate he always was of my need to for extra sleep time in the mornings, but what did Bobby usually do in the time between waking and me releasing him if he was too wired to force himself to snatch a few extra minutes for himself?
A silent notification lit up the iPad screen, and I immediately knew the solution, reaching out slowly so as not to jostle my sleeping beauty captor. "Candy Crush here I come," I mumbled under my breath as I tapped in Bobby's passcode and the device unlocked. As the screen came to life, opening to whatever Bobby had been looking at at four in the morning, though, thoughts of the game were stolen from my head.
Death of a Parent: supporting children 3-8 years
It was just like Bobby to be thinking ten steps ahead and preparing for all possible outcomes. He'd always been a methodical planner and thrived on having as much information as possible. Probably, he'd been opening tabs in his brain with lists of questions he needed to google since the second Denise announced that Winnie had a child that was supposedly ours.
And on the topic of opening tabs, I quickly tapped through to the other half dozen he had opened in the browser, noting that while a couple went along a similar vein, others were looking into paternal rights, step-parent adoption, and child-proofing among other things. Tapping on a new tab of my own, I signed into my note-keeping app and saved the links to look at later, then navigated back to the paternal rights article to begin reading. Maybe if I did some homework it would make the meeting with Fredericks later go smoother.
*o*
"Bobby, Lester, thanks for reaching out," John Fredericks said, shaking each of our hands enthusiastically as we entered the meeting room on the second floor of the Rangeman Building. I always forgot how much of a beanpole he was, six feet eight inches tall and skinny. He had a shock of salt and pepper hair that was always styled perfectly into that default side-parted semi-slicked-back way that corporate professionals favoured, and the gold band on his left ring finger suggested he was married, but I'd never had cause to ask about his personal life. Probably didn't help that we usually only saw him when things weren't going well. "I'm sorry for all the stress you must be dealing with right now, but hopefully I can answer some of your questions today to ease your minds."
"Thanks for acting so quickly," Bobby said. "Did you get the file Steph prepared?"
"I did," he nodded, indicating for us to take a seat at the table while he did the same on the adjacent side. "But I haven't had a chance for more than a quick glance through. Is there anything noteworthy you'd like to bring up?"
We'd poured through it over a late breakfast this morning, cross checking the information Steph pinpointed in her notes with our own experiences of the time, not that there was much to note down. We'd met Winnie at the club where she apparently worked on the Friday, had a weekend of wild sex and not much else, parting ways on Sunday afternoon never to cross paths again. The only significant detail was the length of time we'd spent with her. Usually if Bobby and I were inviting someone to share our bed (my which I mean our hotel room bed) it lasted no more than a few hours and we all parted ways the next morning. Something about Winnie, though, had compelled us to round after round. She was intoxicating and addictive, fitting between us in a way we'd never experienced before. Most trysts were quickly forgotten after they ended, but with Winnie, we always said that if we ever felt the need to add a third person to our relationship she would be the ideal candidate.
We never felt the need, though. When it was done and dusted, we were always best as just the two of us.
I shook my head and Bobby did the same.
Fredericks inclined his head to show his understanding and flipped open the manilla folder in front of him. "As I'm sure you've probably guessed," he started. "Your first step would be establishing paternity. You can order a DNA test through the department of _, or you can arrange it privately. Bobby, I assume you have some contacts, so provided the temporary guardian is cooperative, I'd recommend going private. It's likely to be quicker and then we can proceed with next steps depending on the results."
"Can you give us an overview of what those next steps might be?" I asked, thinking of the reading I'd done this morning and hoping he could shed some light on what it all meant for us.
"Like I said, it would depend on the results of the DNA test," Fredericks reiterated. "If the results do not return a positive match, then that is essentially the end of the story. You have no obligations legal or otherwise to provide care of any form for the child."
My gaze cut to the corners of Bobby's mouth as they tightened, silently broadcasting that he wasn't so sure he agreed with that statement. I had a feeling that even if Larissa wasn't related to either of us, he would find some way to support her to satisfy his bleeding heart. He'd never been able to turn a blind eye to any kind of suffering, least of all that's a child.
Fredericks carried on talking, oblivious to the thoughts and decisions taking shape in our heads. "If there is a positive DNA match, and you decide to declare legal paternity, there are obviously obligations involved in that, but it doesn't guarantee any advantage when it comes to custody of the child," he explained. "When it comes to custody, more weight is given to what's best for the child than to genetics or even established relationships with the child."
"Would we need to go to court?" Bobby asked.
"Yes." It was a short answer, but straight to the point. "And we can go over more of what to expect on that front if it eventuates, and I'm happy to stay with you through that journey, or I can put you in touch with a colleague with more experience in the area."
We discussed a couple more minor things that Bobby had put on his list before thanking Fredericks and parting ways. It was our day off, so we slouched over to the elevator, pleasantly surprised when it opened mere seconds after I'd jabbed my thumb against the call button. And then extra pleasantly surprised when Steph's head snapped up from her phone, her startled expression morphing into a welcoming smile when she noticed it was us.
"I thought you were off today," she said, tucking the phone away with one hand while she accepted my hug with the other.
"We are," I replied, squeezing her briefly before letting go to lean against the back wall beside her. "That's why we're taking the elevator."
Her nose screwed up in that way she had before she says something funny, and I wasn't disappointed by the words that followed. "You come to Rangeman on your days off just to ride the elevator?"
I don't know if she was aware of our residual tension from the meeting with Fredericks and had said it deliberately in an effort to help us loosen up, but that's definitely the effect she had on Bobby and I as we both let out snorts of laughter.
"Yeah, it's Lester's favourite activity," Bobby said, grinning with that mischievous glint in his eye that had been wholly absent since yesterday afternoon. "When he's been really good I take him to Ocean Resort Casino in Atlantic City and we ride the elevator all the way, bottom to top."
Unable to resist, I added more details to his fable. "I press all the buttons so it has to stop at every floor. Fifty-Seven stops, up and down. It's a good day."
We all took a moment to appreciate the joke, shaking heads and grinning stupidly until the doors popped open revealing the parking garage beyond and I watched Steph's expression change instantly.
"What's wrong?" I asked, stepping out with her, Bobby close behind. "Going to visit your parents again?" I hadn't seen her come back happy from spending time with Helen Plum in… well, I don't think I'd ever seen that. In recent years she'd cut down her visits from weekly to monthly and her mental health had benefited greatly from it. She still saw her dad more often, but they tended to meet up outside of her childhood home to avoid Helen's toxicity. I could totally understand her expression change if she suddenly remembered where she was headed: HELL-en.
Steph shook her head and made an effort to mask the expression I'd identified. "No, I'm meeting Mary Lou at the mall for some girl time, but…" Her pause felt loaded as she eyed us both. "I hope you don't mind, but when I was running the search on Winnifred I also took a look at your files and I couldn't help but notice you both had vasectomies before having that weekend with her. Like, way before."
Her words were like a lightning strike in the dry grass field of my mind, sparking a wildfire of thoughts scrambling this way and that, but all I could manage to do was look to Bobby. Medical stuff was his area of expertise, but if it wasn't, my first instinct would have been to gauge his reaction, because Steph was right. We'd had our vasectomies before we'd invited any women into our bed. It was a necessary precaution to avoid the exact situation we were currently in.
We'd scheduled our procedures a couple weeks apart and went through all the necessary follow up tests to confirm that it had taken before even beginning our search for a female form to fit between us. We didn't have any swimmers left, so it should have been cut and dry that Larissa isn't ours even without a DNA test. I blamed the shock of the situation for why we'd forgotten that particular detail, but the way Bobby's blank mask slammed down on his face, hiding his thoughts from me, but clearly not relieved by this news, gave me pause.
"Bobby," I asked, reaching out to him.
"I need a second," he said hollowly, giving my hand a brief squeeze before letting it go and stepping away, seizing his phone off his hip and tapping at it determinedly. The longer he stared at the screen, the more the hint of a frown edged through his locked down expression. Maybe things weren't as cut and dry as I'd thought.
"Sorry," Steph mumbled, looking from me to Bobby as she scrunched the hem of her skirt in her fist. "I didn't mean to-"
"Hey, no," I interrupted her. "Thank you for picking up on it. We've both just been a little -" unable to find the right words to explain our mental states at the current moment, I opted for a vague, swishing gesture and a sound that one might use to half-assedly imitate someone throwing up. "- since we found out about the kid. We're just finding it hard to keep adding in new factors to consider is all. Bobby'll be fine once he has a moment to think." I hoped.
She made a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat and gave me a tight hug, letting go only when her phone let out a little chime. "I've gotta go," she said. "But let me know if there's anything else I can do to help."
"Always," I confirmed and watched as she hurried over to give Bobby the same treatment, receiving a tight smile and nod and a kiss on the temple before she was dashing across the garage to her second-hand-but-still-in-better-condition-than-what-she-used-to-drive car.