Chapter 13 · He Doesn't Settle

"Move," Cade said, and his shoulder was already past my door frame before I could answer.

"I didn't say come in." I planted my palm flat on his chest. Big mistake. His heartbeat kicked under my hand, steady and way too warm through the shirt, and I pulled back like I'd touched a stove.

"You said open the door." He held up a manila folder, thick, edges sharp enough to cut. "That's an invitation where I grew up."

"Where you grew up, people ask."

"I stopped asking." He set the folder on my kitchen counter, right next to the cereal bowl I hadn't washed. "Chapter and verse, Avery. Read it or don't. It happens either way."

I didn't touch it. "What is it."

"Petition. Full custody review, filed this afternoon." He said it flat, like he was reading me a weather report. "Unfit environment. No security detail, single income, a building with a lobby door that doesn't even lock right — I checked. Judge sees that folder, you lose the room before you open your mouth."

My stomach dropped somewhere around the floorboards. "You wouldn't."

"I already did.