by Max Hudson
He pulls Faith in tightly, holding her while a few cries wrack her body, and she abruptly turns and dashes off to Grace’s room.
The next thirty minutes fly by in a blur. Jenna arrives, furious and righteous, scooping up the girls while she slings harsh words at Owen. He’d said goodbye to each of his daughters before Jenna had arrived, so he remains in the background while she flies like a whirlwind around his home, herding the girls out the door without so much as letting them speak to him, slamming the door behind her as she leaves.
The room is eerily quiet when she’s gone.
Owen leans against the kitchen cabinets and sinks to the floor, putting his head on his knees as he sobs.
Chapter Fifteen
Owen wakes the next morning curled up on the kitchen floor, eyes caked with grime and body stiff. Groaning, he pushes himself off the ground, rubbing his eyes and groping for his phone. It’s still early, before seven, but there are sixteen texts and four missed calls waiting for him. Cursing, he sees the phone is on silent. He must have switched it to silent on accident the night before.
They’re not all from one person. Most of the texts and two calls are from Mason, trying to get a hold of him and making sure he’s okay. A couple texts are from Faith, checking in on him, much as Mason did.
The ones of interest to him, however, are two texts and two voicemails from Jenna. Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Owen opens the texts first, thinking that they would be easier to handle.
Answer your phone.
PICK. UP.
“Shit,” Owen mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. Before he can change his mind, he dials his voicemail.
Jenna’s shrill voice greets him almost immediately. Owen can tell she’s trying to keep her voice down and stay calm. “Owen, please answer your phone. We need to talk. Now.”
He deletes the message, moving on to the next one.
“Pick up the phone, you fucking coward!” she shrieks. Owen winces, but continues listening. “You’ve destroyed this family. You’ve scarred the girls for life. You’ve broken your contract with God, and you don’t even have the fucking decency to pick up the damn phone!” She says a few more things, most of which Owen can’t make out. She’s talking too quickly and too loudly to be clear at this point and she finally screams unintelligibly and hangs up.
Without thinking, he dials Mason’s number, oddly calm as he does so.
“Owen?” Mason says, picking up after only one ring. “Owen, are you okay? What happened?”
The calm shatters, and the tears flow free again, sobs wracking his chest. He manages to get enough control to speak.
“She took them,” he wails. “She took my girls last night.”
The line is silent. “Oh, God,” Mason breathes. “Jesus fucking Christ, okay, I’m on my way over. Don’t move. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Mason hangs up before Owen can say anything, and he lets the phone drop to the floor. As Mason instructed, Owen remains still, leaning against the cabinets and letting his mind wander.
It seems to be only a second later when Mason starts pounding on the front door. Owen hauls himself off the floor, stumbling to the door. His head swims. He feels hungover, though he didn’t have a drop of alcohol yesterday. A dull ache builds at the back of his skull, and his eyes burn and feel caked with crap.
He unlocks the door, and Mason stands on the other side, coat and scarf thrown haphazardly on his body. Before Owen can say anything, Mason leaps forward, wrapping him in a bear hug and squeezing him tightly. Tears fill Owen’s eyes, and he squeezes them shut, trying to keep them at bay.
“I’m so sorry,” Mason whispers, burying his head in Owen’s shoulder.
They stay like this for minutes on end, Mason unwilling to let go and Owen unwilling to step out of the tight embrace. Finally, though, they both realize they need to separate and talk. Mason leans back, keeping his arms on Owen’s upper arms. His eyes flit over Owen, taking stock of him, and pulls him gently over to the dining room table.
Mason folds his hands on the table, his knuckles white as he rubs his thumbs together anxiously. “Jenna took the kids?”
Owen nods numbly.
“For the night? Or…?”
He shrugs, letting his head fall into his hand.
Mason pauses for a moment. “I don’t know what you want to do here, but if…if you need me to go, to not see you anymore, I…”
Owen looks up to see Mason’s eyes flooded with tears, looking down at the table as his Adam’s apple jumps up and down. Owen reaches across the table, placing a firm hand on Mason’s clasped ones. Mason looks up, his eyes vulnerable and pained.
“No,” Owen murmurs. “I don’t want that. It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. The damage is done. So, please. Stay.”
Mason gives a half-smile, wiping the trail of tears from his cheeks. “Good. Because I was talking a big game there, but I’m really not strong enough to leave you. It’d kill me. Just curl up into a ball and wither away.” He chuckles, but Owen can hear the truth in his voice. He smiles, giving Mason’s hand a squeeze.
“I love you, too,” he murmurs.
Mason sighs. “I know this doesn’t make anything better, but I’ll be here, through everything. No matter what that means. Okay?”
Owen manages a small smile. “It helps.”
They stay like that for a while, Owen simply taking strength in Mason’s presence and the feeling of their hands gripped tightly.
Chapter Sixteen
The notice comes just a few days later. A man in a tan suit strides into Owen’s workplace, scanning the room before zeroing in on Owen. He promptly walks over to Owen.
“Owen Bauer?” When Owen nods, he whips out a manila envelope, handing it to Owen. “You’ve been served.” The man smiles and walks away before Owen can say anything.
A pit grows in Owens gut as he tears open the envelope. He scans the documents, and the pit grows into a dark, deep abyss.
Full custody. Jenna wants full custody. The court date is in five weeks.
He jumps from his seat, stalking across the room and throwing the door open, still clutching the file in his hand. He speed-walks outside, across the parking lot, toward an empty corner of the lot. Once there, he stands with his hands on his hips, trying to control his breathing. A hand falls on his shoulder, startling him, and he whips around, losing all control of his breathing. He stands hyperventilating while Mason stares at him, eyes wide and concerned.
“She wants full custody,” Owen gasps, bending over at the waist. His knees buckle, and he ends up on the ground. Mason gets down with him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders while Owen gasps and sobs. Mason remains silent, simply holding Owen and trying to hold him together.
When he finally gets control over his breathing, they head back inside, but Owen cannot focus on his work. Most of the day he stares at his computer screen, absentmindedly moving the mouse or clicking on cells in the spreadsheet, not actually doing any work. As the day comes to a close, Mason asks to come over to Owen’s house, but Owen declines. More than anything, he just wants to be alone for a while.
Pulling up to his house that evening, he sees a car parked in the driveway. He narrows his eyes, unable to tell exactly what kind of car it is. As he nears, however, he inhales sharply. It’s Faith’s car. He shuts off his own car and jumps out in record time, running to the front door and throwing it open. All three girls are sitting at the table, doing homework like any other day. Owen’s throat closes up and he puts a hand to his mouth to keep the choked sob from escaping his lips.
Rebecca looks up at the sound of the door opening, grinning and running over, throwing her arms around his waist. Grace follows her lead, attaching herself to his side. He grips them tightly, kissing the tops of their heads and holding them close. Faith stays at the table, smiling at him. He smiles back, tears leaking from his eyes. Clearing his throat, he pulls back from his girls to look at them.
> “Why don’t you two go order some pizza,” he says gruffly.
“Can we get breadsticks?” Grace asks.
“Get whatever you want.” He reaches into his wallet and pulls out his credit card. Grace snatches it.
“Thanks, Dad!” She gives him a peck on the cheek. Rebecca gives him one last squeeze, and they disappear into their rooms. Owen looks back to Faith, who’s now standing and heading over to him. They embrace tightly, Owen burying his face in her hair and trying to memorize the smell.
“Why are you guys here?” he murmurs.
“Because Mom wasn’t letting us leave if we said we wanted to see you. She kept freaking out and yelling at us to go to our rooms if we even mentioned you. But we wanted to come over here. So, Mom thinks I’m at a movie and they’re with friends. I told her I’d pick them up after the movie was over. We have a couple of hours.”
Owen sighs, moving over to the table. Faith follows, sitting across from him.
“Do you know what’s going on?” he asks, praying that she doesn’t.
She nods, though, and his stomach drops. “Mom’s suing for sole custody. She told us in so many words. She kind of danced around it, saying that we’d be staying with her from now on and stuff like that. But we’re not stupid, even Rebecca understood what was going on right away. It’s not like we all don’t have friends who have been through this before.”
Owen stares at the table, wringing his hands out of Faith’s sight. “You know I love you girls,” he murmurs. “More than anything, and I’ll fight tooth and nail for you. But…but if you’d rather be with your mother, if you’d rather not see me anymore, I’d understand.”
She reaches across the table, touching his arm. “Dad, it doesn’t matter to us if you’re dating a man or a woman. We love you.”
“Grace and Rebecca know?”
She nods. “Mom wouldn’t say why she picked us up the other night and wouldn’t explain why we might not get to stay with you anymore. They were asking questions, so I told them. They’re just as upset as I am with the way Mom’s acting and neither one of them cares about you being gay. I mean, they asked questions, sure, and they were a little confused, but they weren’t angry or anything. They just want to see you happy. I do, too.”
Owen smiles, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. He sighs. “I’m so happy to see you right now, but you can’t do this again. You can’t lie to your mother so you can come see me.” She starts to protest and Owen holds up a finger. “We have to do everything by the books the next few weeks, okay? She can’t make you not see me. Legally, she can’t. We still have shared custody, and I’ll make sure to talk to her about it. But we’ve got to do it that way, okay? If you guys are sneaking off over here and I let you, it could get used against me.”
Faith’s eyes drop to the table. “Okay, Dad,” she mutters, sighing deeply.
He reaches up and cups her face. She glances up at him, her eyes wet and glimmering. “Hey, no tears, sweetheart. We still have a pizza to eat tonight.”
“And breadsticks,” she murmurs. She gives him a half-smile, grabbing the hand on her face and giving it a squeeze.
Chapter Seventeen
The next few weeks fly by for Owen. It all jumbles up in a blur of meetings with his lawyer, tense and silent stares from Jenna when they trade taking the girls, and supportive embraces from Mason. Owen feels scrambled, rushed, unprepared for the hearing, and his lawyer assures him that it won’t be pretty.
“Custody battles never are,” she says, “but ones where the kids are old enough to speak are the worst. All your girls are, and they’ll be asked to choose.”
“Choose? We can’t just keep shared custody?”
“No. One way or the other, one of you will have sole custody of these girls.”
Owen’s stomach drops. He doesn’t want to put his kids through this. While Jenna is the one who brought this on, he doesn’t want to make his children suffer for what she’s decided to do.
A thought occurs to Owen and a spike of panic hits him. “They won’t have to stand up in court like Jenna and I will, right?”
“No, they won’t. Trust me, this whole process is about what’s best for the girls, not traumatizing them any more than they already are. They’ll each have video interviews with the judge in private. It’s less invasive and less frightening that way.”
The panic lessens in Owen’s chest, but he still is unhappy that his daughters will have to answer questions about their parents. He knows they love them both, and it’s unfair to ask them to choose.
The days continue to speed by until Owen finds himself curled up on the couch with Mason the night before the hearing, stressed and tense.
“Where are the girls tonight? With Jenna?” Mason asks.
“No, they’re with their grandmother. Neither of us will see them until this mess is over. We thought it was fairest that way.”
Mason nods, running his fingers through Owen’s hair and staring at the television.
A few moments pass by in silence before Owen feels like he’s going to burst. “What am I going to do if I lose them?” Owen breathes.
Mason rubs his hand on Owen’s back. “You won’t. There’s no way that this will fall on Jenna’s side. You’re a wonderful parent.”
“Plenty of wonderful parents lose their children in custody battles. Sometimes both parents are great, but one has to lose, right?”
“Jenna certainly isn’t behaving like a good mother,” Mason spits.
Owen doesn’t respond. Mason’s right. She isn’t right now but she isn’t like this all the time, and Owen knows it. She’s been to every soccer game, every recital, every play. No matter what their relationship was like, she was always there for her daughters, and the girls love her. She’s freaking out, yes, but only because she sees her children as being in danger, whether that danger is real or not. Though Mason doesn’t realize it, Owen knows that Jenna has every chance—perhaps even more of a chance as their mother—of gaining sole custody of their children.
After a moment of silence, Mason speaks up again. “Owen…you’re not…are we going to be okay? After all of this is over?”
Owen’s brows furrow as he looks at Mason. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
Mason runs his hand through his hair and glances away. “Well, you might hate me. If I’m the reason you lose your kids.”
The thought had crossed Owen’s mind, weeks before. For a few days, though he had vehemently denied it to Mason’s face, he had been seething, furious with Mason for causing this mess. He had vowed that, should he lose his girls, he wouldn’t ever see or talk to Mason again.
But he soon realized that it wasn’t Mason’s fault at all. He didn’t force Owen to go on dates with him. He didn’t force Owen to have sex with him or be with him or love him. In fact, Mason had been very careful to make sure that, at every step of the way, Owen was comfortable and ready to move on to the next step. Owen had done everything on his own, and though Mason was the one that Owen loved, he wasn’t the reason that Owen was in this position. It was a mixture of Owen’s own actions and Jenna’s beliefs that had caused this, not Mason.
“No,” Owen finally murmurs. “I wouldn’t hate you.”
Mason nods, visibly relaxing as he stands up. He holds out a hand to Owen. “C’mon,” he says, flicking his head toward the bedroom. “You need a back rub.”
Owen gives him a half-smile, takes his hand, and lets Mason pull him up off the couch. They head to the bedroom, and Mason promptly pushes on Owen’s shoulders to make him sit on the edge of the bed.
“Arms up,” he says, motioning with his hands toward the ceiling.
Owen smirks and obeys, holding his arms up as high as they’ll go. Mason rolls his eyes, but grabs the hem of Owen’s shirt and slips it over his head. He runs to the bathroom, quickly grabbing a bottle of lotion, and seats himself behind Owen. He wears sweatpants, and Owen can feel the beginnings of an erection on his back. His own penis responds in kind, and he takes a d
eep breath to calm himself. For now, it’s just a back rub.
Mason squeezes lotion onto his hands and gets to work on Owen’s back. The second Mason starts kneading into his muscles, Owen groans, shocked at how tight and knotted his back actually is. Mason lets up a little, moving in strong, smooth motions across Owen’s skin. Owen melts under his touch, letting himself relax as Mason unknots his tense muscles. He goes all over Owen’s back, from the base of his neck, across his shoulders, and down to the small of his back.
Owen could have sat there forever, letting Mason rub him down, but after about twenty minutes, Mason’s hands start to drift more toward the front of Owen’s body, grazing his pecs, his stomach, the waistline of his pants. Owen leans into the touch and starts getting excited, yearning for Mason’s hand to dip just a little lower.
As though reading his mind, Mason does, barely brushing the tip of Owen’s penis. Owen inhales sharply, and Mason leans against Owen’s back, kissing his neck and nibbling lightly at his ear. Owen arches his neck, letting Mason get a better angle at it, and pushes his hips forward slightly into Mason’s hand. He feels Mason grin against his skin, and he presses his hand more firmly against Owen’s member. Owen moans and tilts his head back, locking lips with Mason.
He turns around, pushing Mason back onto the bed and pressing his body down on Mason’s. Mason’s hands clutch Owen’s back, pulling him closer, and their tongues twist together in each other’s mouths. Owen rubs his penis against Mason, pleasure washing through him, and feels Mason do the same. He slides his hand under Mason’s shirt, running his fingers along his abs and sides. Mason abruptly sits up, whipping his shirt over his head and pulling Owen’s face back to his.
A thrill runs through Owen. Though it had started gently, they were being more abrupt and rougher with each other than they had been previously. So far, they’d always been gentle and slow, not pushing one another too hard and making sure to stay within each other’s known limits. Now, though, it feels to Owen as though boundaries might be pushed tonight, that they might explore each other a little bit more. Though it frightens him a little, excitement outweighs the fear and he waits in tense anticipation for what will come next.