“Stop being sweet,” she whispered.
Never, he thought, caught in her crystal blue eyes.
He pulled her up so they were face to face.
Then he offered her an out.
“You want something to think of, not the vast pile of shit that all of this is?”
“Please,” she answered softly.
“I don’t know his story. I don’t know who his people are. How he got where he is and how he is. I also don’t care. We gotta think about how we’re gonna engineer this situation so he goes from where he is now to somethin’ good. I don’t mean possibly well meaning foster carers because there could be a ‘possibly’ in that. I mean somethin’ good. That goes without saying that if CPS gets him and can’t place him in foster care, he doesn’t go to a f**kin’ home for boys.”
Her entire face brightened and she stated immediately, “I’ll take care of him.”
Chace knew he’d get that.
So carefully, gently, he told her, “That isn’t going to happen.”
“Chace –”
“Faye,” he cut her off, “I’m a cop on a recently cleaned up local police force. I can finesse this but I gotta use that finesse above-board in a way questions won’t be asked and that kid gets what he needs. And, baby, I know you’d give him what he needs but right now you do not have the ability to do that since you live in a one room apartment over a flower shop.”
Her nose scrunched up because this point was valid but she didn’t like it.
She still gave into it.
“Right.”
“I got room but I’m also a single man who’s got a girlfriend who spends the night and, I’ll repeat, the finesse I gotta use has gotta be above-board so I can’t just take a kid under my wing without goin’ through certain motions. And my sleepover girlfriend might be frowned upon if I do.”
“Mom and Dad,” she said immediately.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Or Krystal and Bubba or Tate and Laurie.”
“Or Boyd and Liza,” she threw in.
“Right, or Sunny and Shambles,” he suggested.
“We need to make calls,” she whispered.
“We need to make calls.”
“Who first?” she asked.
“Your Mom and Dad.”
She grinned, the sorrow shifting totally out of her face. “They’ll say yes.”
He already knew that.
“Yeah,” he murmured.
Her grin turned into a smile. “They’ll be great with him and we can see him all the time.”
He knew that too.
“Yeah,” he repeated.