Fifteen minutes later Tessa was staring across the table from him, clutching her cup of tea as though for reassurance. “You want to what? I mean, why would you do something like that, Peter? It’s not like you and I are – well, you know.”

“Dating. Involved. Yeah, I know, Tess. And there are things you’d need to know about me if we decide to go through with this. But for now all I can tell you is that we wouldn’t be doing this for the usual reasons. It would just be to get you out of this mess. And then, a year from now when you turn eighteen, it would all be over with. We could get a quick annulment and go our separate ways.”

Tessa shook her head in disbelief. “You would actually marry me so that I didn’t have to go into foster care? I mean, would they even let us do that? And would it work? Would my case worker accept that you’d be legally responsible for me?”

Peter shrugged. “Why not? We wouldn’t be the first couple to get married where the bride isn’t eighteen yet. What we would need, however, is for Michelle’s mother to sign this form giving her consent. She is considered your legal guardian, isn’t she? Able to sign papers and such for you?”

“I guess so.” Tessa glanced at the marriage license application that Peter had quickly printed on the office computer back at the store. “But I’m guessing as of tomorrow that will all change.”

“That’s why we need to go see her tonight,” Peter declared. “Now, in fact. Give Michelle a call and have her find out if Debbie is home. You and I will pay Debbie a little visit, get her signature on this. And then bright and early tomorrow morning we can stop by the courthouse and apply for the license and then make an appointment to, well, get married.”

Tessa tried very hard not to feel dazed at how quickly all of this seemed to be unfolding. “What if Debbie gives me a hard time about signing the form? Not that she gives a damn about me, but she’s probably pretty mad about everything that’s happened.”

Peter shrugged. “She shouldn’t be mad at you. After all, you kept her little secret for these past couple of months, let her keep receiving those checks. And that will be our bargaining chip. We tell her that if she signs the form without any fuss, that you’ll assure your case worker that you just moved in with me a couple of nights ago. Not a couple of months ago. That way Debbie doesn’t have to pay back the money.”

Tessa shuddered at the very thought of confronting Debbie again, but decided it had to be better than being sent to an unknown group home. “You really think she’ll cooperate?”

Peter gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Leave it to me, okay? I guarantee that when we leave there in a little while she’ll be willing to sign anything we put in front of her.”

She stared down into her cup of tea for long seconds, the unsettled feeling deep down in her belly growing in intensity with each passing minute. “Why are you so willing to do all of this for me, Peter?” she asked quietly. “This – what you’re offering to do – goes way beyond friendship. I can’t believe you’d actually go to such lengths just to help me out.”

“I would, Tessa,” he assured her, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “I understand what it’s like to be alone and afraid with no one else to turn to. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially not someone like you who’s been so nice to me. And, well, there might just be a hidden benefit to all of this for me.”

Tessa glanced up at him curiously. “Like what?”

Peter took a sip of his coffee, seeming more than a little hesitant to continue their discussion. “Remember how I told you that I came real close to moving out of the house about a year ago?” At her nod, he continued. “Well, there was more to it than not being of legal age to sign a lease. I’m pretty sure that if I’d looked hard enough I could have found someone willing to rent to me, or at least sublet. But the real reason I didn’t move out – couldn’t move out – was because my mother found my checkbook one day and pretty much wiped out my account. Everything I’d worked to save for a whole year she just wrote herself a check and left me to start over again.”

She stared across the table at him, aghast. “Oh, my, God. How could she do something like that to her own son? You – you didn’t report her to the bank or anything?”

He shook his head. “To answer your first question, if you knew my mother – which, fortunately, you’ll never have to do – you’d realize that raiding my checking account is the least of the sins she’s committed against me. And second, well, in spite of everything she is still my mom. Blowing the whistle on her just wasn’t something I could bring myself to do. Besides, if she’d been arrested or charged with a crime there was a strong possibility I would have been put in a foster home myself. And as bad as my life with her has been, at least I knew what I had to deal with.”

“So what does all of this have to do with your offer to marry me? It seems pretty one-sided to me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” corrected Peter. “I figure if we pool our resources we’d have more than enough to rent a room together someplace. I know I don’t have quite enough saved, and I figured you’d been saving some money these past few months.”

“Yes.” Tessa told him the approximate amount in her checking account, and a look of relief crossed his features.

“That’s more than enough,” he assured her. “I mean, assuming that you’d be okay with an arrangement like that? We don’t have enough to get an apartment of our own, given the amount we’d have to fork over for a security deposit and two months rent, but I figured you wouldn’t mind living in a shared rental.”

“Not at all,” she replied quickly. “And I know there are vacancies available since classes ended at the university a couple of weeks back.”

“I’ve already made a couple of phone calls,” replied Peter. At her look of surprise, he gave a sheepish shrug. “If we’re going to convince your case worker that this is all for real, we have to be prepared, have a plan. If we can show her that we’ve already started looking for a room to rent, she’ll be more likely to believe us.”

Tessa heaved a sigh. “Sorry, but I don’t have a real good feeling about all of this. I mean, today’s a Wednesday, after all.”