Now was now, Chace holding Faye in his arms while she struggled against tears.
He tipped his chin down and against her hair told her, “Honey, let it go. Nothin’ wrong with tears.”
“If he wakes up, I don’t want him to see my eyes red and face blotchy,” she replied, her voice still thick which meant her throat was still clogged.
“When he wakes up, Faye, all he’s gonna see is pretty. Trust me, he’s a guy, I’m a guy, that’s all we see.”
She shook her head as best she could seeing as her face was in his chest then she tilted her head back and caught his eyes with her brightened ones.
“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 fuckin’ 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.
“I’ll call them now.”
He twisted his neck, looked at her alarm clock then looked at her.
“It’s just going six thirty.”
“They’ll be up.”
“Will they be up and in the disposition to discuss takin’ on a kid when they not too long ago got their house all to themselves?”
“Yes,” she replied immediately.
He figured that was true too.
“Give me a kiss then grab the phone.”
She smiled even bigger so he felt it on her lips when she gave him her mouth.
When he broke the kiss, she moved in to give him another light one before she rolled out of his arms and reached for the phone.
Chace rolled out of bed and moved to the bathroom.
By the time he walked out, she was sitting at the side of her bed, off the phone, her dancing eyes came direct to him and her mouth moved.
“They said yes.”
Then she smiled big.
Chace smiled back.
Then he walked to the kitchen and made his girl breakfast.
*
“Chace, I get you but I haven’t had time to assess the situation fully yet. What I already know –” Karena Papadakis started.
She was a Child Welfare Officer and she was standing with Chace outside the Critical Care Ward.
“He’s a deacon at the church,” Chace cut her off to say. “She designs the Sunday programs. He mows the church lawn. Seriously, Karena, Sondra Goodknight won’t even let her twenty-nine year old daughter say ‘frak’, a made up curse word from a Sci-Fi TV show. They’ll do good by this kid.”
He’d already told her he wanted her to place Malachi with the Goodknights and she was rightly and not surprisingly balking due to procedure.
“They’re older,” Karena replied quietly.
“Yeah. They are. Which means they’ve already raised three kids so they know what they’re doin’. One of those kids is the Mom of two boys. One’s the town librarian who has a Master’s Degree. The last one’s in the Army serving our country,” Chace returned.
“They don’t have foster certification,” she told him.