Chapter 36 · Joint Custody

"Sign it," Cade said, and dropped the folder on my kitchen counter like it weighed nothing. It weighed everything. JOINT CUSTODY PETITION, stamped, filed, done before I even knew he'd walked into a courthouse.

"You filed?" My voice cracked on the second word. "Without telling me?"

"I told you I would. Tuesday. You didn't answer your phone."

"I was in depositions, Cade, I wasn't ignoring—" I stopped. Because that was exactly what I'd been doing. Three days of silence, hoping the video would blow over, hoping his lawyers would forget my address.

They didn't forget.

He pulled a chair out, didn't sit, just gripped the back of it with both hands like he needed something to hold that wasn't me. "Fifty-fifty, Avery. That's what it says. Alternating weeks once she starts kindergarten. My name goes on the birth certificate this time, not a blank line."

"You don't get to rewrite five years because a stranger filmed her at the park."

"I don't need to rewrite anything. I need my daughter's last name to match mine before some tabloid does the math for her." He tapped the folder. "This isn't punishment. This is me not disappearing twice.