Chapter Nine #4
He rubbed the back of his neck again. “Not gonna lie, I was really confused he wouldn’t let me return the favor.
And then the next day he invites me over to just hang out.
Who does that, Tori? Like yes, twelve hours ago I had my hand on your dick in some indie movie producer’s bathroom.
Would you like to come over and listen to Taylor Swift and do a lesson plan while I play guitar? ”
“I am really not seeing a problem here.”
“I was starting to think maybe he wasn’t, like, into orgasms!
Weirder shit has happened.” Not to Jem, but still.
“But it turns out he just didn’t want me to feel obligated.
So he gave me a car because he knows that’s why I took the gig in the first place, that I needed to fix the Prius, and he said I could quit whenever I wanted. ”
“So on a scale of one to ten, what are the odds of you walking funny on your way into work tomorrow?”
“Oh, like, fourteen.” Jem gave an incredulous laugh. “He gave me a car, so I’m going to drive it over there and—yeah.”
Tori held out her hand for a fistbump. “Get it, Jem.”
The conversation didn’t get any further, as the warning bell went, so Jem had to book it across the school to get to his classroom.
Somehow the morning passed quickly. Sometimes kindergarten was like that. This morning’s letter was C, so they spent some time brainstorming words that started with the C sound, like car and cat and clock, which Jem misheard as cock and therefore almost resulted in disaster.
At lunch, he couldn’t resume his conversation with Tori—partly because she was on the phone with Ivy, who was hyperventilating about the nursery not being finished even though she wasn’t due for another four months, and partly because Jem’s own phone was blowing up.
He shoved a bite of sandwich into his mouth and pressed his thumb to the screen, hoping it was River.
Nope. It was Andrew.
Jem’s stomach tied itself in a knot. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about his mom giving Andrew his number and address. The wedding invitation was still sitting on top of his fridge, where he didn’t have to think about it.
Okay, where he didn’t have to look at it, at least, because the stupid thing had been sitting at the back of his conscious mind, irritating him like a grain of sand in an oyster, ever since it arrived.
Jem was well aware the RSVP date—and the wedding itself—was fast approaching. But dealing with that right now felt impossible.
Unfortunately, he was going to end up dealing with it by default if he didn’t reach out or at least answer Andrew’s texts.
Sadly, with Tori preoccupied, he had no one to whine to and no excuse to put off the inevitable. If he didn’t make himself look busy, someone would come by and ask him about his new watch. Or his new boyfriend. Chances were that word would get around the school by the end of the day.
Jem opened the text message.
Hey, Jem. I know you need time to think, and I get it. I’ll be in LA Wednesday through Sunday for work. I’d love to meet up and apologize in person. Let me know.
Fuck.
The thing was, Jem did want to meet him. The worst that could happen was he still wouldn’t talk to Andrew, but he’d have closure about it. Best case, he’d have his childhood best friend back and maybe stop feeling like shit about how things had gone down between them senior year.
There were also some muddy middle-of-the-road scenarios, including ones where they repaired their relationship and Jem felt like shit about his present instead of his past. On his good days, Jem knew being a kindergarten teacher was important, knew he was damned good at it.
He knew being a sugar baby didn’t make him less of a person, and he believed River genuinely liked him and wanted him around.
But sometimes he found it hard to remember all that when he thought about Andrew, their father’s legitimate son.
The heir. The successful businessman with the beautiful fiancée.
He’d made a name for himself in the software world.
After his DUI, he turned his life around.
And just like he had when they were teens, Jem was still dressing up in fancy clothes to get by.
Only now it was River and not his father who was footing the bills.
“Jem, man, your sandwich doesn’t deserve that. If you’re not gonna eat it, I will.”
Jem blinked himself out of his funk and realized he’d plucked the crust off his bread crumb by crumb. He glanced up. “Hey, Frank.”
Frank nodded at him. “You good? Gremlins didn’t riot on you again, did they?”
You read Click, Clack, Moo one too many times and your kindergarteners would unionize and your coworkers would never let you forget it. “No strike this week,” Jem said. “Just family stuff.”
Frank gave him a sympathetic grimace. “I hear that. My wife’s sister’s being a real you-know-what. I keep telling Susan she doesn’t have to pick up the phone, but….”
The whole lunch room had been subjected to the woes of poor Susan, Frank’s wife, who was the middle child and peacekeeper of a family of seven siblings. Personally Jem thought she should block the sister’s number. “What’s her problem this time?”
“After the fiasco at Christmas, her husband was disinvited from Easter dinner for being an asshole, and she’s taking it as a personal slight.”
Frank and Susan always hosted big get-togethers for the holidays.
Jem’s first year working at the school, Frank had let him know he was always welcome if he didn’t have other plans.
Anyone who could be mean to Susan deserved lifelong suffering.
“Maybe you guys should take a trip over the long weekend instead.”
“Ha! Maybe.” He shook his head. “You know what she’s like, though.
Stubborn as anything. Convinced family’s all you’ve ever really got.
And she’s right, sure, but I think she forgets sometimes family’s not just about blood relations.
” He paused. “Hey, did you get a new watch? That’s nice.
I’ve been thinking I need a new one. You know Susan’s niece is getting married in a couple months and I should update the fit with some new accessories. Where’d you get that?”
Jem absently ran his thumb over the watch face. Unless Susan had come into a serious sum of money lately, he was pretty sure the watch was out of Frank’s budget, but it would be rude to say so. “Oh, uh, it was a gift, actually. I can ask where he got it, though?”
Frank whistled under his breath. “Nah. Thanks, but if someone’s giving you presents like that, you don’t ask those questions. Looking a gift horse in the mouth. I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”
“It’s, uh. It’s new. Just a couple weeks.”
“And he’s already giving you pretty toys like that?” He shook his head. “Guy knows a good thing when he sees one, I guess.”
Jem’s cheeks heated. “I guess.”
By the time the conversation with Frank wrapped, Jem had three minutes to cram his sandwich into his face. He did so while texting Andrew, determined not to overthink this further.
We could do dinner Thursday. Jem had to eat either way, and if it was awful, he could beg off and go home early because he had to get up for work the next day.
He didn’t expect to get an answer right away. Work dinner that night. Andrew followed this with an upside-down happy face. Friday?
Normally Jem hated doing anything on Friday, but this week River’s band had a small concert, sort of a warm-up for the bigger show in early June, at the end of their tour. Plans, he answered. Lunch Saturday?
Done. Thanks, Jem.
Don’t thank me yet, Jem thought, and then he had to book it to his classroom.