Chapter 37
thirty-seven
Tristyn
Uncle Vince is very excited to hang out with you today.” I pull into a parking spot outside of Vince’s complex. “You know how he feels about taking you back to school shopping.”
“I started school last week.”
“Yeah, well, school came a little quicker than usual.”
“I always start at the end of August.”
“I know, baby. I just mean time got away from us this summer.”
We get out of the car and head to Vince’s place. I dig in my bag for my key.
“Where is it?”
I knew I should’ve put it on my key ring. Every time I throw the key to his place in my bag, I tell myself it makes sense to just put it on my ring.
“I’ll knock.”
Henry knocks on the door, but I continue to search my bag anyway. The door opens aggressively, but only enough for Vince to peek his head out.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” He glances over his shoulder and then back at me.
“You’re hanging out with Henry today.” I remind him. “Clothes shopping.”
“That’s today?” He looks at Henry. “I mean, I know it’s today, but it’s right now?”
“We talked about it the other day. You chose the time.”
“Right. Right.”
“Can we come in?” I chuckle. “Why do you have us—”
“And why don’t you have a shirt on?” Henry tilts his head, and that’s when I take in Vince’s full appearance.
His hair is messy and slept on, he’s wearing just underwear that sits awkwardly on his hips as if—
“Oh, my god.” I cover my mouth with my hands. “Oh. We should go. Um, I’ll take Henry to, I can, we will—”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll get cleaned up, and uh, then we can go.”
“You have company.” I mouth.
“You wait here, okay. I’ll be right out.”
“That’s okay, we’ll wait on the couch.” Henry smiles, pushing by Vince, causing the door to swing open the rest of the way.
“Hen—” I follow him in. “I’m so sorry, he doesn’t know… what I know.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry, I forgot. Or lost track of time is the better excuse.”
“I’ll let you get back to it.” I freeze. “Well, not back to it, but—”
“Hey.” I turn to see a guy walking out of Vince’s room with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t make full eye contact with me, but he doesn’t need to.
“Marcus, right?” I put my hands on my hips and side-eye Vince.
“Yeah.” Marcus stops beside Vince. “I should go. I’ll call you?”
Vince gives him a small nod.
“It was nice to see you again.” Marcus waves and then sneaks out of Vince’s place.
“That was fast.”
“Yeah, probably the last time it’ll happen now because the two of you had to barge in.”
“Not my fault you forgot plans.”
“Uncle Vince, who was that guy?”
“A friend, buddy.” Vince says at the same time, I say, “Just a friend.”
“I’m going to go get dressed.” He sighs.
“Alright.” I sit down on the couch next to Henry. “We’ll be right here.”
Vince and Marcus?” Jeremy sits down next to me on the couch, and I curl into him.
“Yup. Now I know how uncomfortable Cam felt when he walked in on Ember and Declan, and we didn’t even walk in on them in any compromising positions.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just happy Henry didn’t understand what was going on.”
I grab a handful of popcorn as Jeremy presses play on the movie.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of setting them up in the first place.” Jeremy doesn’t look at me as he says it; his eyes stay glued to the TV. “Honestly, it makes a lot of sense.”
“Maybe, doesn’t mean I want to be aware of when they’re going at it.”
He chuckles. “That’s fair.”
“How’s your back?”
Even though he denied it, I could tell he was in a lot of pain the night of his party. I think he overdid it a little bit, but it makes me feel better that he’s been taking the time to rest since then.
“It’s good. A little achy, but I’ll take that over those phantom pains any day.”
“Are you ready for classes to start?”
Rockford University classes start back up this week, thankfully, he only has class on Tuesday and Thursday, so it doesn't mess with his PT schedule too much.
“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it, I guess.
” He pauses the movie. “Okay, that’s a lie.
I’ve been thinking about it for the last couple of weeks.
I haven’t seen most of these people since the accident.
There are a lot of people on campus who probably have no idea.
And I’m going to be running around campus trying to get to classes on time, and I don’t know if I can do that. ”
“Have you talked to your professors?”
“No. I don’t want to be asking for favors, especially before the semester has even started.”
“It’s not a favor if you need the support, Jere. I think your professors would understand if you need to leave class a little early to make sure you make it to your next class on time.”
“I’ll think about it. Honestly, I’m probably just overthinking the whole situation.”
He squeezes my shoulder, but he doesn’t play the movie.
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“You have your appointment this week to see if you can officially be done with your brace.” He smiles. “That’s exciting.”
“I guess. I think it’ll be weird not needing to wear it all day, every day. I don’t even want to think about the tan line.”
It probably won’t be too harsh because I would take the brace off to tan when possible, and I spent a lot of the summer indoors, but I know it still won’t be pretty.
“I get that. I know some day I won’t need to wear this back brace when I walk around, and I don’t know how I’ll feel. It’ll be like losing a part of me.”
“Any word on when that day will be?”
“No. I know they don’t want to get my hopes up by telling me a timeframe and then me not getting rid of it within that timeframe, so I just take it day by day.”
“Well, I don’t mean to boost your ego, but you’re pretty much crushing it.”
“Even though you’ll deny it, a large part of that is because of you.”
“No, Jere. It’s all you.” I lean up and kiss his cheek. “Now play this movie before I fall asleep.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He kisses the top of my head and presses play on the movie. “Have I told you I like you? A lot.”
I scrunch my nose, smiling up at him.
“Ditto.”