Cheat [MxM] (Carter Brothers Book 1)

Chapter 29

A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter to you. Writer's block hit me like a train and I was too caught up on formulating the perfect court day chapter that I got overwhelmed and couldn't write it. Now, I've decided to skip way past the details and continue on where we left off. I may come back to it and eventually write the court scene, but for now, to stop you waiting any longer, I'm going to move past it! Hope you all understand, even though it was a huge plot point. My mind is not co-cooperating.

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EZRA • POV

Relief was a powerful emotion and when it hit me, it slammed into me like a semi-truck. I felt the fear and the anguish and the soul crushing anxiety that had been haunting me ever since my baby Ollie had been born, leave me in a rush. It felt like a rollercoaster drop after a burst of adrenaline. My body tingled, my heart was pounding against my rib cage and I could hardly breathe through my nose and mouth.

"WE DID IT! YOU DID IT! HOLY SHIT EZRA! AHHH!"

Jae was screaming, his excited hollers bouncing off the fancy walls and high ceilings as he jumped up and down on the spot, clapping his hands and throwing his fists up in the air. The horrified looks of other court goers and law enforcement officers didn't perturb him in the slightest as he barrelled into me, almost knocking us both into the little water barrel beside the door of the courtroom we had just triumphantly left.

I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tightly to me, feeling tears of overwhelming joy blur my vision and wet my cheeks. "We did it, sweetheart. I couldn't have done any of this without you," I raspeed, squeezing him tighter to me and he laughed, burying in against my neck, his fingertips clawing at my suit jacket. "I fucking love you."

"I love you too, Ezra, so much! Even if I wasn't here, you would've won, I have no doubt about it. You're so much stronger than you give yourself credit for," Jae pulled back, those dark, almost black, mono-lidded eyes shimmering under the lights as he smiled at me, pressing our foreheads together. "It's over," he whispered intimately against my lips and I tugged him to me, impossibly closer, pressing my mouth over his for a kiss. It was the only way, other than words, that I could think of to thank him.

Jae kissed me back, feverishly, our tears mixing, salt on our lips and tongues. Eventually, when we both couldn't breathe, I pulled away, pressing tender pecks to the side of his mouth and then eventually his nose as I distanced myself enough to speak. "Let's go get our baby. Then, we celebrate." I could think of one million other things and places I wanted to do and be right now instead of wearing this stuffy suit, five steps away from my scowling ex, our parents and this depressing courthouse.

"Damn fucking right we do! Drinks are on me!" Evan hollered, before his large arms came around Jae and I, crushing us to him. I didn't dare fight him, letting him kiss my forehead aggressively and then Jae's. Jae was giggling so loudly that security were closing in, but all three of us didn't give a fuck. Because we'd won. We'd actually won.

I'd entered that courtroom terrified that I'd lose my baby, that Renee's lies would spread like poison, corrupting the minds of the judge who listened to her and then eventually my life when she took Ollie away. But that hadn't happened. The judge had ruled joint custody over Ollie as Renee's so-called 'evidence' of domestic violence had been severely lacking. I'd been publicly reprimanded for my temper and was ordered to take part in parenting and anger management programmes, but aside from that, the judge hadn't found any reason substantial enough to stop me from having joint custody of my boy.

It turned out that Renee had also hired a private investigator to scope me out and well, things had gotten messy when cheating on both our sides had come to light. But I'd refused to feel reprimanded for finding Jae and for falling in love with him while I still had that dang wedding band on my finger. The silver meant nothing other than a contract I had been coerced into and therefore my affairs with other men and women, then eventually monogamously with Jae, hadn't stained my conscience at all. No matter how frowned upon it had been viewed in court.