"Since I am currently seventeen, which is older than sixteen, I should be able to choose not to live with Dad," Emma said, popping a blueberry cake doughnut into her mouth.
"Don't you want to see what it's like to live in a mansion?" Mom asked, her tone swimming in pools of sarcasm.
"No I don't," Emma said, either not picking up on her sarcasm or ignoring it. "Honestly, I couldn't care less what living with Dad is like."
"You can't leave me, Em," I said, giving her a desperate look. "I don't wanna be alone with Dad and Laura. Do you know how hard it'll be to win arguments?"
Emma made a face.
"Look, girls," Mom said, "why don't we just make this easier for ourselves? If your father and I both agree on a custody plan, then we don't have to drag this into court and most likely having a very successful lawyer working against us."
"She may not want us to live with her," Emma pointed out. "She could be one of those step moms who send their husbands' kids away to some boarding school in Switzerland."
"I don't think she's going to send you to Switzerland..." Mom said in an exasperated tone.
"Can we please just say with you?" I pleaded. "He walked out on us and didn't contact us for like a year."
"Don't you think it's better now than never?" Mom asked.
"Quite possibly," Emma said with a mouthful of doughnut. "But he can't just pretend he didn't talk to us for a year and expect us to want to come live with him and some lady we just met."
Mom rolled her eyes. "I'd love nothing more than to have full custody of you kids. But as your father, he does have a right to you."
"Not me!" Emma said perkily. "I'm an adult."
I broke off a piece of doughnut and ate it, grumbling.
"Yeah, but Jessa still has a year. Do you really want to make her go through that by herself?"
"Well, in a year I get to have custody of her."
"That's only if we die, Em," Mom snorted.
"That's very true...." Emma looked up at the roof of the car.
Mom pulled into the driveway. Emma and I jumped out of the car and followed her to the front door.
"Friends marathon?" Emma asked once we'd gotten upstairs and she'd changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt.
I grinned. "You're on."
YOU ARE READING
Don't Bet on It
Novela JuvenilAfter her dad left, Jessa thought that would be the end of the craziness going on in her life. But then he comes back with his new fiancee and she has to deal with him all over again. To make things more complicated, one of Jessa's best friends is a...
