Afterwards, Carmen and Shane went home for a little while. As soon as they got through the door, Carmen began rubbing her hands over Shane’s button down and pulled her in close for a kiss.

“I’m so glad you took off work. We have three whole hours all to ourselves. I can’t wait to fuck your brains out.” She pulled her girlfriend to the couch and they made out for a while, but soon Shane pulled away.

“Wait. No we can’t do this.”

“Baby, why not? I don’t understand. I thought this is why you took off— ”

“It is—I wanted to spend time with you alone. It’s just, I need to tell you something.”

A lump formed in Carmen’s throat.

Shane told herself to calm down and forced her eyes to look at Carmen’s.

“I went to see Julie from DCF today. I went to talk to her about what my options were with Shay—I, I’m thinking about adoption. When I was there she told me that Gabe got arrested this weekend for aggravated assault and attempted rape. She told me I need to find Carla and get a lawyer. I, I don’t want to get my hopes up—or yours—but if Gabe is convicted, I may be able to get his rights terminated, especially if we can offer a reduced sentence time. That just leaves Carla. I have an appointment with a lawyer tomorrow. He specializes in this stuff. I don’t know if anything will actually happen so I don’t want to tell Shay, but I figure I need to at least try.”

Carmen sat in shock—there was so much information to process. For once she was speechless.

“Carmen?” Shane whispered.

Carmen shook herself out of it and looked straight at her girlfriend.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay. You are going to adopt Shay. Okay. I’m going to do everything I can to support you through this.”

“Yeah? You aren’t mad I didn’t tell you earlier?”

Carmen sighed. “Of course I wish you told me earlier, but that doesn’t matter. You told me now and that’s all there is to it.”

Shane smiled and pulled her girlfriend in close as they cuddled on the couch.