My Loser Daddy is a Big Shot novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Courthouse
Posy is the witness at a glitter-ring wedding while Anders mocks the tow-truck husband, and an inspector orders a residence check tonight.
The courthouse smelled like floor wax and old coffee.
Ingrid stood at the top of the steps in a white suit, holding a bouquet of grocery store tulips.
She looked at her watch four times in one minute.
"He's not coming," she said.
"He's parking," Posy said. "Daddy always parks far away so nobody dents the car. Then he forgets and the car gets dented anyway."
Posy wore a purple dress and a crown of folded paper stars.
In one hand she held two rings made of twisted pipe cleaner and glitter glue.
Cavan came up the steps at a jog, in the only suit he owned.
It was black, a size too wide in the shoulders.
He stopped in front of Ingrid.
For a moment he forgot to breathe, and he did not know why.
"You look fine," he said.
"Fine?"
"I meant good. I meant you look very good."
"You look like you're going to testify," Ingrid said.
But her mouth twitched, and she took his arm.
Behind them, the heavy doors opened.
Two men in tailored coats walked in out of the cold.
The older one carried a leather folder.
The younger one had a gym tan and a laugh that arrived before he did.
"Anders," Ingrid said. "I didn't invite you."
"Family doesn't need an invitation, cousin," Anders Sandvik said.
He looked Cavan up and down.
"So this is him? The groom?"
"This is my husband in ten minutes."
"What does he do?"
"I drive nights," Cavan said.
Anders put a hand to his chest. "A driver. Ingrid. You've married the help."
"I haven't married him yet."
"Does he deliver pizza?"
"Rideshare," Cavan said. "And weekends on a tow dispatch."
"Tow dispatch," Anders repeated, delighted. He turned to the man with the folder. "Did you get that? Tow truck man. Put it in your notes."
The lawyer wrote it down.
Posy stepped between them, with her paper crown tilted.
"My dad's a very good tow man," she said. "Last week he pulled a bus out of a ditch."
"A bus!" said Anders.
"A school bus," Posy said. "With all the kids still in it."
Anders laughed so hard that people stopped in the hallway.
Ingrid's eyes had gone to ice.
"Anders," she said, very quietly. "You can leave, or you can say that again to my face."
"Say what?"
"Whatever you were about to call him."
Anders glanced at her, then at Cavan, who had not moved.
Cavan's hands hung loose, and his expression was pleasant.
Something in the pleasantness made Anders step back first.
"I'll save it for the reception," Anders said.
"There isn't a reception."
"Then I'll save it for the funeral."
He walked away laughing, and the lawyer followed him to a bench at the end of the hall.
A third person had come in with them, a quiet woman in a grey blazer with a lanyard and a tablet.
She had been standing against the wall the whole time.
"And you are?" Cavan asked her.
"I'm the inspector," the woman said. "Appointed by the trust's trustee, to confirm the marriage is genuine."
"Torsten's," Ingrid said.
"The trustee," the inspector said, without any expression at all.
The clerk opened a door.
"Sandvik and Keegan?" he called. "Room two."
The room had a flag, a window and a desk with a small brass lamp.
The clerk read the vows in the tone of a man reading a parking ticket.
Posy stood at the front with her stars shining.
"Do you take this woman," the clerk said.
Cavan looked at Ingrid.
She was looking at the window.
"I do," Cavan said.
Her head turned.
"Do you take this man?"
Ingrid took a breath.
She looked at the little girl with glitter on her hands and a paper crown.
Posy was biting her lower lip so hard it had gone white.
"I do," Ingrid said.
"Rings?"
Posy stepped forward and held out the pipe cleaner rings on her open palm.
Cavan slid a green one onto Ingrid's finger.
Her hand was cold, and it shook very slightly.
Ingrid pushed a blue one over his knuckle.
"By the power vested in me," the clerk said, "you're married. You may kiss your bride."
Neither of them moved.
The inspector's pen hovered over her tablet.
Ingrid leaned up, put her hand on his chest, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth, firm and brief.
It was a very small kiss.
Cavan felt it in the soles of his shoes.
"Congratulations," said the inspector, writing.
"Thank you," Ingrid said, and her voice was not quite steady.
Posy signed the witness line with a flourish that took up half the page.
On the way out, the inspector fell into step behind them.
"One more thing, Mrs. Keegan," she said.
"Sandvik."
"Mrs. Keegan, for the purposes of the trust. The terms require a shared residence." She tapped the tablet. "I'll be doing a residence check tonight."
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