Chapter 1 – Mine

April 2012 – A year later

“Flash forward and we're taking on the world together...And there's a drawer of my things at your place...”

Adeline rolled her eyes at her own image in the slightly foggy bathroom mirror, looking at the reflection of herself brushing her teeth. The man in the shower singing Taylor Swift at the top of his lungs was on his daily mission to make mornings as miserable as possible – again.

“But we got bills to pay, we got nothin' figured out...”

“You're super annoying,” she said.

He went on singing, completely ignoring her. It had become his morning ritual to sing in the shower every morning in the hopes of getting her annoyed – and it usually worked.

“You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter...”

She gritted her teeth and huffed a breath as he continued to hum the rest of the song. As usual, the only way to deal with him was to return his annoyance.

“The water temperature okay there for you, baby?” she said. “Let me help you.”

She reached over to the handle of the toilet and pushed it down, letting it flush. She smiled and giggled in amusement when a couple of seconds after it started, Lance screeched.

“Hot, hot, Addy – hot!” he yelled. “Damn it, woman, you drive me crazy.”

“Why are you messin' with my mind,” she sang as best as she could with her toothbrush stuck in her mouth, mocking his morning ritual.

“Hilarious,” he said, deadpan. “I can't feel the skin on my back now.”

“You've got a couple more layers, it'll be okay,” she said after she spit into the sink. “Are you going to be ready soon? We have to be there in an hour and we probably have to deal with traffic.”

“You can't rush perfection,” he said as he turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his lower half before stepping out of the shower.

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “I should have kicked you off my doorstep when I had the chance.”

His mouth formed into a long o. “Burn,” he said. “That hurts.”

She leaned into the mirror, running her finger along the corner of her eye to fix some smeared mascara. She was focused on making sure there were no other smeared areas of her makeup when she felt him come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist. She leaned into him and he nuzzled his face into her cheek.

“And every time I look at you, it's like the first time...” he sang into her ear. “I fell in love with a careless man's careful daughter, she is the best thing that's ever been mine...”

“You're dripping water all over me,” she said, smiling slightly.

“I love you,” he whispered.

The whole morning felt rushed, with her trying to get ready and waiting for him, undressed and still standing here dripping wet. But for a moment, she rested her hand on his arm and enjoyed the affection.

It was bittersweet for both of them; today was the last day of court. The past year had been full of nothing but roadblocks for them. Marc had pulled every trick he could out of his sleeve and delayed the divorce being finalized as long as he could. In the end, she had given up almost everything – the house, her car, and especially her rights to any alimony or spousal support.

It didn't matter to her, and she had given it all up easily, because she only wanted to be done with the process as quickly as possible. She knew if she decided to fight it, it would drag on forever. And between him coming up with new ways to fight her on divisions and canceling multiple court dates, he had managed to make it feel like it already did drag on forever. It didn't escape her that maybe that was his goal all along; to make her miserable and keep her and Lance apart as long as possible, out of spite.

None of it had mattered. They had both agreed in the beginning that no matter what he took from her, and no matter how long he tried, he would never keep them apart as long as they wanted to be together. He could find ways to take away as many meaningless possessions from her as he wanted to, as long as she had shared them with him – but what he couldn't take away from her was her desire to be with Lance.

It didn't last but a few short minutes; he walked away to finish drying off and getting dressed, and she turned her attention back to her makeup and hair. He disappeared into the bedroom as she finished up, and shortly after she had made it to the living room to grab her purse and car keys, he walked in. In the few minutes he had taken to get ready, he had dressed in a gray suit and crisp white shirt, complete with a blue tie.

“Do I look okay?” he asked her.

“You clean up pretty good,” she said with a smile, throwing her purse over her shoulder.

“Was it worth the wait?”

As he stepped up to her near the door, she put her arm around his waist.

“It will always be worth the wait,” she said.

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Addy stepped out of the courthouse and finally into the sunlight, her lawyer on one side of her and Lance on the other, holding onto her hand tightly. She was drained, emotionally and physically. Three hours inside the courthouse had left her cold and tired, but relieved.

She had signed her name to the bottom of a paper for the last time, at least for this case. It had gone exactly like she expected it to – most of the time they spent inside today was waiting around for other people. She would have signed her soul over to the devil today if it meant being done with lawyers and court rooms and her husband.

Finally, he was her ex-husband. She could officially say that she was through with him. A year and a half ago, she had resisted the thought of divorce, thinking only that she wasn't ready to give up and that if it could be saved, she wanted to try. Clear-headed for the first time in the past few years, she now realized that they couldn't have saved it.

She had once blamed it on her miscarriage, that it had put a drift between them that neither of them could overcome. It was only after she looked back on the past five years of her life and realized when her depression and anxiety had escalated over that time that she had been unhappy in the marriage before. The only thing the miscarriage had done to contribute was open her eyes to what little was left. It had set the ball in motion for the events that followed; it was the catalyst for most of the decisions she had made over the past two years.

There would never be a day that she would say it was a blessing in disguise, because she would never call it a blessing in any form. There was no way she could; it was and always would be the worst day of her life. It would never be for the best, despite what any well-meaning person told her. It would never be “in God's plan”. It would never comfort her to hear that she could always try again. She would never get used to hearing about people taking their living children for granted.

But, to some degree, she had come to terms with it enough to realize that she was a new person because of it – and even if she didn't like the situation that had brought her here, she liked the new person.

She smiled and sighed deeply, feeling the sun on her face as her lawyer turned to her.

“I guess my work here is done,” he said with a smile.

“It sure is,” she said. “You won't be offended if I say I'm glad I'll never have to see your face again, right Brian?”

Brian Elliot was a young man, around Lance's age, that she had become well-accustomed to over the past year. Too well-accustomed – they were on a first name basis because it got tired calling each other “Mr. Elliot” and “Miss James” week after week. She had visited his law office so many times that sometimes it felt more like home than her own rented apartment.

He smiled. “Of course not. I'm glad it's over for you, Adeline. I wish it hadn't been such a long process.”

“I wouldn't say it was your fault,” Lance said. She turned to look at him and noticed him looking to his left – at the other side of the steps stood Marc with his lawyer, a much older man. “Or that you could have controlled it.”

“He is persistent, isn't he?” Brian said, and she smiled at the slight distaste she picked up in his voice.

“With Marc, it's always been about what he wants,” she said. “And when he wants something, he gets it.”

“Well he succeeded in taking everything from you that he wanted,” Lance said with a sigh.

She noticed that he looked at Marc carefully. The process hadn't been easy for him either. He had been there for her every step of the way, coming to court with her whenever he was able. She couldn't imagine what he had felt the first time he had set foot in the same room with Marc, since he had never been before it all started. Marc looked down upon him with disgust, not only because he was the new man in her life, but because of his career. Lance himself didn't exactly look upon Marc with admiration.

“He didn't take any of that from me, I gave it to him,” she said, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “The only thing I refused to give him is the one thing he can't take away from me.”

She succeeded in taking away his attention, him looking at her and smiling.

“No matter how hard he tries,” she continued.

“I still don't like it,” Lance said. “It feels like you should have gotten something out of it, for the year that he made our lives miserable.”

“He gave me something,” she said, finally turning to look at her now ex-husband, who was smiling and chumming with his lawyer. “He gave me the desire to never want to be with him again. And that's probably the most valuable thing I could take out of this marriage.”

Brian gathered his briefcase and said his goodbyes before leaving the two of them on the steps alone. They were about to leave themselves when she felt a presence behind her and she turned around swiftly.

“Are you happy that you got what you wanted?” Marc said, squinting against the sun.

“Happy that I'm away from you? Yes,” she said. “I am.”

She felt Lance squeeze her hand protectively and slightly pull him towards her. She could tell that he didn't like it at all. He had kept his own opinion out of the proceedings for the most part, recognizing that it was neither his business nor did it benefit her for him to get involved.

“It's always a good day for Addy when she wrecks a family, isn't it?” he said with a smug smile.

“Oh, I wrecked our family, did I?” she asked. “Exactly how many women did you sleep with on the side in five years, Marc?”

“I told you Adeline, those were friends,” he said. “I didn't sleep with anyone until I found out that you were whoring yourself out to half of the teen pop unemployment line.”

“Sticking with that story still,” she said, blatantly ignoring Marc's insult towards Lance. She felt him tense up and knew that it bothered him.

“It's the truth,” he said. “Something you wouldn't know anything about.”

“You had me followed, Marc,” she said. “For months. You should be the last person talking about truth.”

“I had a gut feeling about you, Addy. I had a right to keep tabs on what was rightfully mine.”

“I was never yours,” she said. “I'm not an object that can be owned.”

“That's right,” he said. “A whore can't be owned; only borrowed before she's handed off to the next man who's willing to pay for her.”

She felt a firm hand grab her from the back of her arm and pull her backwards. All of a sudden Lance stepped in front of her, pushing her behind him.

“I think you're done here, right? Why don't you move along and get back to your own business, Marc,” he said. She was slightly shocked that Lance held his head high, looking Marc straight in the eyes.

“Funny coming from a man who can't seem to mind his own business,” Marc said, that same grin on his face.

“You know what's even funnier?” Lance said lowly, matching his grin. “She is my business now.”

She watched, holding her breath as the two men stared at each other. Both smiled at each other, but you could cut the tension in the space they occupied outside the steps with a knife. Testosterone was on a complete overload, and she only hoped that neither man decided to throw a punch and cause a scene.

They remained staring at each other, but Addy's eyes moved to Marc's lawyer, who was walking up behind him. He reached up and grabbed Marc's shoulder, and she could tell by the way his eyes changed that he felt the hand on his shoulder but he didn't move his gaze from Lance.

“Marcus,” the lawyer said. “Come with me. I have some papers back at my office you need to sign. You can ride with me and then I'll bring you back to your car.”

Marc stood stone-cold and silent, his lawyer's hand still on his shoulder for several seconds. Lance, no longer grinning, stood his ground in front of him, his head held high. She was taken back when Marc's smile widened and he chuckled.

“Have a nice life together,” he said, looking Lance directly in the eye, “pop star.”

His exaggerated pronunciation that caused the smack of his lips when he said “pop” made her jump, and it was only then that she released the breath she had been holding in. Her grip on Lance's arm tightened as he turned and walked away, his lawyer in tow, all the way down the steps of the courthouse. Lance's eyes never broke away from Marc, even as he shifted his body.

“Come on,” he said as he grabbed her hand tightly. “Let's leave before he decides to come back and break my nose.”

“That was...amazing,” she said as he led her off.

“Don't be too amazed,” he said. “I may have looked tough, but that guy scares the hell out of me.”

They walked completely silently all the way down the steps, both of them only slowing down and relaxing when they were sure they were several feet in the opposite direction of Marc. She jangled the keys as they walked toward her car in the empty parking garage, and when she looked up and saw the yellow car a few parking spaces from theirs, she let a smile creep across her face.

“Hey Lance, you see that car over there?” she asked him, pointing directly in front of her.

“The yellow Jaguar?” he asked.

“Yep.”

She walked ahead of him and over to the car, running a finger over the smooth surface of the back.

“This is his car,” she said. “Isn't it a beauty?”

“Sure is.” Typical of a guy, she watched his eyes travel over the surface of the car as if he was looking at a busty woman. Even though he hated Marc, it was a car that attracted a man's eyes to it. “What year is this?”

“2012,” she said. “Just bought it, I hear.”

He whistled. “Nice,” he said.

“Yep.”

She shifted the keys in her hand as she walked to the driver's side of the car. The next thing he knew, he heard a loud screech noise and looked up to see her scratching the car with a key from the fuel tank door to the rearview mirror.

She turned and smiled at him.

“Oops,” she said.

His eyes had widened, but the smile on his face was huge.

“Do you realize you destroyed the paint job on a hundred thousand dollar car?” he asked.

“A little gift for calling you an unemployed teen pop star...and me a whore,” she said.

“God, I love you,” he said in awe as she walked away towards her car.