Chapter Sixteen #3
“Right, yeah, sorry.”
Jem swallowed and looked down at his hands. “At least now I know.” Even if it had been an accident, he had only himself to blame. “Fuck, what kind of twelve-year-old even has a Reddit account? I thought that was for Millennials and up.”
“Jem.”
Oh, he didn’t like that tone. He looked up and met Ivy’s eyes anyway.
“You need to tell him it was an accident. Tell him Colton looked through your phone. You can still apologize, but he deserves to know you didn’t hurt him on purpose.”
“How?” He spread his hands. “He’s got me blocked on his phone. He knows I lied about being in California. He has no reason to trust me. What do you want me to do, show up at his doorstep and beg forgiveness?”
“It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“He doesn’t want to see me. Amanda made that pretty clear.”
“So that’s it?” she asked, rosy-cheeked and angry. “I’ve literally never seen you as happy as you’ve been the past couple months and you’re just going to give up without a fight?”
“You can’t fight with someone who doesn’t want to see you! What am I supposed to do, get myself arrested?”
“Yes!” Ivy half shouted. “If that’s what it—Jesus, hold that thought, I have to pee.”
Jem watched in detached amusement as she waddled down the hall. Then, when he heard the bathroom door close, he helped himself to another cookie. He was allowed. He was the one who baked them.
He’d disposed of the evidence by the time Ivy returned. She carefully lowered herself back to the couch and put her hands in her lap. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “The hormones are getting to me, I think.”
“No, look, I basically invaded your home—”
“Shut up, Jem.” She put her tiny hand over his. “We’re perfectly capable of kicking you out if we don’t want you here.”
He swallowed. “I just don’t want to—this is supposed to be a happy, exciting time for you.”
“It is,” she assured him. “Come on. You can make me some real dinner, and then we’ll talk about how Tori’s going to take you out to cheer you up this weekend.”
“Oh, will we?” Jem heaved himself to his feet and pulled Ivy up after him. “Are we going to ask Tori about this?”
Ivy scoffed. “Are you kidding me? She has a pregnant wife. She’ll do whatever I want and ask if I want a foot rub after. Which I do.” She rolled her eyes when Jem waited for her to go up the stairs first, but she didn’t complain aloud.
Maybe getting out of the house would be good for him. A little change of scenery. Take his mind off… things.
Finally he blinked and found himself in the kitchen. “Right,” he said, focusing back on the task at hand. “What am I making?”
Ivy went to have a nap ten minutes into lasagna prep, which Jem couldn’t blame her for. At least the task consumed most of his attention, gave him something to focus on.
Tori came home just as he was taking it out of the oven.
“Oh my God. Forget my wife. I love you. Marry me,” she called from the foyer.
“Shut up!” Jem hissed down the stairs. “If she hears you and starts crying from the pregnancy hormones, you’re dealing with it. And I will not be responsible for a child growing up in a broken home.”
Tori toed off her shoes and pushed them semi-neatly against the wall. “Please. One of us marrying you was her idea. You could be our househusband.”
He winced. Tori must’ve seen it, because she sighed and pulled him into a reluctant hug. Tori wasn’t much of a hugger, so he could tell she was doing it just for him, but it was still a good hug.
“Sorry.” She released him after a few seconds. “Let me take you out on Friday, okay? Just something low-key. Board games and baked goods type stuff.”
Jem knew a setup when he saw one. “You’ve been talking to Ivy.”
“Actually we arranged it psychically.” She slapped him gently on the arm. “For the record, we are capable of having good ideas independently.”
“Good ideas like making me your houseboy?” he asked wryly as she followed him into the kitchen. Jem took down plates; Tori grabbed cutlery and napkins.
Good ideas like ‘Hey Jem, you ever try being a sugar baby’?
The thought occurred to him as he was closing the cabinet, and he accidentally slammed it.
“Good ideas like having you install no-slam drawers in the entire kitchen before the baby can crawl,” she said belatedly.
Jem huffed and let it go. “Okay, but we’re ordering takeout that day.”
After dinner, when he was banished from kitchen cleanup, he went downstairs to his refuge on the couch, where Ivy’s tablet still lay.
Before he could think better of it, Jem watched the Jimmy Fallon clip again.
He’d made River hurt like that. It was his fault. And River didn’t know it was an accident, didn’t know Jem had made a stupid mistake. He didn’t know that Jem had lied for a stupid reason, not a malicious one. He didn’t know he didn’t have to hurt.
So many people in River’s life had hurt him, and he always shrugged it off and moved on. He would do that with Jem too. Easy come, easy go.
River couldn’t fight for them. If Jem wanted to right things between them, it was up to him to do the fighting—not River, not Amanda, not Ivy and Tori. Jem had to do it himself. He couldn’t even tell anyone what he was doing. He couldn’t bear it if his friends knew he’d tried and failed.
You’re brave enough to love things out loud, he told himself. You can be brave enough to do it with people.
He reached for his phone.