Jodee

Chapter 40 - Tomorrow

CALEB POV

I was so rudely woken up at an ungodly hour with someone shaking my shoulder. And hard.

The first thoughts running through my mind was, where am I and who is this person, as I always wake up super disoriented and have since I was a kid. But quickly my memories came back to me and I knew I was sleeping in my bed and the only two people allowed in my room or even the house for that matter without permission are Ace and Jodee, so it had to be one of them.

My next thoughts was that I was going to tell this mysterious person to "fuck off" or I was gong to beat their ass for taking me away from my such precious sleep.

But I also knew I couldn't do that. I couldn't do either of those to Ace because he would beat my ass for touching him or speaking to him in that way. And I could never do either of those things to my sweet little Jodee. So both of those weren't an option.

What I chose to do next was just to ignore whoever this was ... and go back to sleep.

"Get up." A voice grunted.

Ace.

I should have known it was my best friend attempting to wake me up because Ace's little sister is too sweet and kind to shake me awake as he is doing this morning. Jodee usually just pokes me a couple times and then asks me in a very nice voice to wake up because she needs something.

I smashed my face further into the pillow, trying so desperately to go back to sleep, but the hands of my best friend kept pulling me back out into reality.

What a dick.

Even though I worked on the November Shipment from pretty early on in the day — due to Ace riding me about doing it — I was still forced to work tirelessly into the night. Turns out, when you don't do the work that usually takes someone at least a month until a week before it has to be done, you have a lot to catch up on. So when Ace got to be downstairs hanging out with our sister, which I would much rather be doing, I was forced to stay in my office and work.

"Go away. Ace." I growled at him, the bitter side of me coming out, due to my sleep deprivation and the small grudge I was still holding against him for not letting me finish Jodee and I's movie.

"Important." This is important, he insisted.

I groaned, but nonetheless sat up in my bed, finding my best friend standing next to it, fully dressed in a suit and tie already. One quick look at the clock on my nightstand told me it was 4am, so I got 2 hours of sleep total last night, great.

"What?" I asked, irritated, rubbing the sleep out of my left eye.

"Phone." Check your phone, Ace said, running a hand through his hair as his nostrils continued to flare out and in.

My best friend never showed that he was worried or angry or really any emotions to other people because if people know how you feel then they have power over you. But right now he was looking extremely stressed, telling me that this really was important.

I opened my phone, obediently, finally tearing my eyes away from Ace to find a new email in my inbox from Richard Stephens. A quick scan of what was enclosed in the email had me jumping out of bed, my heart rate spiking and then continuing to rate as stress ran through my body, feeling the exact same emotions as Ace was displaying.

"Fuck! What the fuck are we going to do?" I breathed, locking eyes with Ace.

The email was about a possible court date for Ace and Tobias's custody dispute. Turns out, the only child custody judge in our area has a very packed schedule. So our only options for a court hearing would be tomorrow or on Christmas Eve this year, because the court isn't open on Christmas day.