Officially Over It - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,22

to harvest her eggs.” I winced. “For some stupid reason, I fell for it. Though she did have cancer, she could’ve just as easily gotten a sperm donor through a sperm bank. Except I was dumb and gave in. It was about six months later that she was presumed cancer free, and I decided that those eggs that she had fertilized with my sperm and frozen wasn’t a good idea. So I asked the sperm bank what to do, and they said that with the contract that Eerie and I signed, if one person wasn’t comfortable with the agreement anymore, then there was no legal leg for Eerie to stand on. She couldn’t use the eggs. And they would be destroyed.”

“Fast forward about six months, I’m playing professional baseball, and I get this letter from her lawyer saying that she wanted to use the eggs. I told them that I wasn’t comfortable with it, and that I wouldn’t consent. Then I went to Vegas for my dad’s birthday, Reggie’s parents had come, too. And when I told her what was going on with Eerie, she jokingly said that we should get married because Eerie would hate it and probably stay away from me after that. I’m not saying that it was the smartest or most thought out marriage seeing as we were both very, very drunk at the time, but it’s legitimate.”

The lawyer nodded.

“I can work with that.” She grinned. “Do you have a copy of the signed contract with the sperm bank?” she asked curiously.

I pointed to the document that I’d thankfully managed to unearth in my father’s safe at his place before coming to the lawyer’s office. It was thankfully on the way. Souls Chapel was only a few minutes away from Uncertain, Texas where my father lived and I’d grown up.

“Right there,” I insisted.

She nodded her head. “Okay. Let me see what I can work with. I’ll call you as soon as I do some digging on my own. Oh, and for now, I’ve filed a temporary injunction with a judge. As of right now, Eerie won’t be able to move your child to another hospital. And you have just as much right to visit him as she does.”

I felt bile rise in my stomach.

“That woman isn’t getting this kid,” I said stoically. “I will fight tooth and nail for him. I don’t know why she went against my wishes. I don’t know who the hell fucked up. But when this is all said and done, that kid better be in my sole custody, Eerie better be in fucking prison, and I want to sue the fucking pants off of that sperm bank, Eerie, and anyone else that had any hand in this.”

The lawyer’s shark-like grin filled her face.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she said. “I don’t charge this much, or have this much of a reputation, for nothing.”

I was just about to walk out when a thought occurred to me. “That baby needs to have my last name. Also, we need to change the first name because she knows how much I fuckin’ hate it.”

Swayze frowned. “Why?”

I swallowed hard. “Because that’s the name of the man that killed my biological father, mother, and unborn baby brother. And she knows it.”

Turns out, I somewhat liked Swayze Jensen quite a fucking bit. Upon first impression I thought she was quite young. Too young, in fact.

But it was more than obvious that she knew quite a bit about criminal law, and she was going to fight for me tooth and nail.

***

“So what happened?”

Reggie had been waiting at my place for me the moment I’d ridden up on my bike.

I got off the bike and walked up to her, helmet in hand.

“What happened was a bunch of nothing,” I admitted. “She was filing an emergency petition with the court to get me a DNA test ordered, which is what is going to be required, she says, for me to see the baby. I should have that by the end of the day. Meaning that depending on however long it’ll take with the lab, it’ll give me access to get into the NICU, because you damn well know that she’s going to say it’s not my kid.”

Reggie grimaced.

“She’s also going to work on the custody thing. She says that the baby being in the NICU will work in our favor. The baby won’t be able to go home to anyone’s house, giving her time to get shit done that’ll hopefully be in