Chapter 4
AJ
“Hey, Sandy,” I say as soon as the call to my oldest sister connects.
“Hello, Abraham.”
“Harsh,” I complain, though I have a smile on my face.
I really don’t like it when anyone calls me by my given name, but since she’s the oldest she gets a pass—along with Mom cause she gave me the name or whatever.
Not Dad or Julie, though. Dad can call me Jacob when he’s mad at me, and Julie only AJ or little shit if she’s feeling adventurous.
“What’s harsh is the noogie I’m going to give you when you get here next week.”
“You’re so mean,” I complain.
“That’s my job and my right.”
I snort at her haughty tone.
“I guess it is. Anyway I was just calling to ask if you, Big T, and the kiddos will be home when I’m there, but I guess you will be?”
“We’ll go for a week or so. Not long, since you know the kids have to go to school and because some people actually have real jobs and real lives.”
“I have a real job,” I complain. “And my life is very real, thank you very much.”
“Your life is the opposite of real, Abraham.”
“My life is awesome actually.”
“Yeah? Are you feeling better than last week?”
“Tons better,” I confirm. “I let myself be sad for a few days and then I had to help the other guys not feel so shitty about the loss, so I’m almost at seventy percent goodness now.”
“I’m glad to hear it, AJ.” And I can hear the amusement in her voice, so I decide I better get to it if I don’t want to start getting bullied again.
“So, I need some advice, and before you start—” I cut her off because I just know how she’s going to go nuts. “This is really the most top-secret thing I’ve ever told you, okay? You can’t tell anyone, because I don’t think I’m going to tell anyone else.”
“Well, now I really am intrigued.”
“I knew you would be. Okay.” I go through the chain of events, without giving her the details of what Cam went through in high school, and then I come to my current dilemma.
“So, I’m going over to his house in a little bit so we can call his mom and tell her we’re dating.
I know she already likes me, I’ve met her a few times when she’s come here to visit Cam, but I want her to not be concerned about this, if you know what I mean?
I don’t want to hurt her when we do the whole breakup thing at the end of the summer. ”
Sandy is like me in many ways. She can get easily distracted too, unless she’s working on one of her paintings, and I know she had a real hard time before meeting her husband’s family.
Mostly because the only reason she even met Troy is because the dumbass got on a bus to Lincoln Illinois instead of Lincoln Nebraska when she was coming back home after a weekend trip to Kansas City.
It was love at first sight for both of them, and thankfully, once they got to know her, Troy’s family quickly learned to love her weird ways too.
So I know that if anyone can help me get this call with Rosa to go perfectly, it’s going to be her.
Her long silence doesn’t bode well for me . . . or maybe it does. She could be just processing and then she’s going to get to the important stuff. I can hope.
“I think I’m going to need the not-condensed version of how all this happened when you get here, but for now the best advice I can give is to take your cues from Cam, and just be yourself. Don’t tell an outright lie, except for the we’re together thing.”
“How can I not lie?” I demand. “Everything is a lie.”
“No, you just told me about the damn social media posts, so do stuff like that. You say you think Cam’s a great person and that you’re lucky to have him, but don’t tell her you’re in love with him, want to marry him, or have his babies, you know what I mean?”
“Huh.” Who knew she was this smart?
I obviously did, since I’m smart enough to have come to her for advice.
“So is that all?” Her hard pivot has me frowning.
“Yeah,” I say slowly, dragging out the word a bit. “You in a hurry or something?”
“No, I just really have to go puke now.”
“What?” I’m instantly on alert. “You’re sick? Oh my GOD!” I shout. “You’re pregnant again?” My delight cannot be matched.
“No,” she shouts back. “Nononononono.”
“Oh.” I sound as dejected as I feel. I love all my nieces and nephews, and I’d be very happy if I had ten more than the five I already have.
“Three is more than enough, AJ.” She tries to use her mom voice on me, but she should know better.
“Oh, come on! You make such cute kids, Sandy.”
“You go ahead and have three kids and then we’ll talk,” she grumbles. “I seriously have to go. See you next week.”
She hangs up before I can even say bye, and though I pout for a second, I then send Mom a text.
AJ:
Sandy’s puking her guts out.
Not pregnant, I asked.
I add two full lines of sad emojis.
But can you send her some soup?
She also said she’ll be home with the whole gang next week in case she hadn’t told you.
And since I can see Mom hasn’t seen the texts immediately, and I know it’s going to take her a while to write back, I stop stalling from having to go to Cam’s house.
Love you, can’t wait to see you.
Yeah, I’m a momma’s boy, and I wear that badge fucking proudly, but now it’s time to put on my big boy pants and just get this conversation with Rosa out of the way so Cam and I can relax a little.
“Yeah, uh, so . . .” Cam trails off with the phone still pressed to his ear. He’s been catching up with his mom for about thirty minutes and now it’s time.
Like it does before every first snap, my body calms like it knows some shit is about to go down.
I smile at Cam, hoping he can calm the nerves I see tightening his shoulders and flattening his mouth.
“Imma put you on speakerphone, Mom.”
“Okay, honey.” I hear her clearly.
“There’s something kind of important I wanted to tell you, and AJ is here too.”
“Hi, Mrs. Jameson.”
“Oh, hi sweet AJ. How are you?” I can hear the smile in her voice and that helps me feel confident, not only calm.
“I’m real happy, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry about that game, AJ, but since the Pumas are going to the Super Bowl, then at least you know you got beat by the best this year, right?”
“That’s exactly right, ma’am. It’s how I like to look at it, at least. And we’ll get ’em next year.”
“You sure will, sweetie.”
“So, yeah, uh, Mom?” Cam interjects and he sounds so damn nervous I put an arm around his shoulders—as much as I can since he’s more than half a head taller than me.
Maybe we should be sitting down for this? But then Cam wouldn’t be able to pace the way he likes to do.
“What is it?” Rosa asks, and there’s a tense edge to her tone now too.
Sure enough, Cam pulls away and starts to pace up and down the area that divides his kitchen from his living room.
“AJ and I are together now,” he blurts out quickly, and when there’s only silence coming from the other end of the phone line, he starts to babble away.
It’s strange, seeing him this way. In the contract negotiations I’ve seen him in, he’s always so passive and mostly just stares people down.
This is . . . well, this is just a guy talking to his mom . . . telling her a lie.
“We know it might come as a surprise and that maybe you’ll need some time to get used to the idea, Mom, but—”
“Of course it’s a surprise,” she interrupts. “But I don’t need to get used to anything, honey. Are you happy?”
He turns to look at me with desperate eyes and I nod urgently for him to say yes, then wave my hands forward for good measure.
I can’t answer that for him. I can butt into their conversation at a lot of other moments, but not this one.
“Y-yeah, Mom. I’m happy.” He sounds about as convincing as one of those crappy horror movie actors. Okay, time to step in.
“I’m happy too,” I say, way too loudly, figuring it’s better if Rosa focuses on me being weird. “I’m really so grateful to have Cam in my life, I always have been, but things have changed now.” There, none of that is a lie.
“You do sound happy,” she says. “Thank you two for calling me to tell me.” She sounds like she really appreciates that.
“It was really important for us to be the ones to tell you,” I add, and leave the underlying reason unsaid—that finding out through some tabloid would honestly have been disrespectful.
“So when am I seeing you two?”
We decided not to tell her about the reunion yet, and to wait until spring for that. And since we talked about this part of the conversation, I’m happy to see Cam puts himself back together and takes this one.
“AJ’s going to go spend some time with his family this month, but how about you fly over for a week or so in April?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea, honey.”
“Can’t wait to see you again, ma’am,” I add, and I have to bring up my hand to bite down on my nails as Cam finishes the call.
Did that go as well as I think it did?
“So?” I ask Cam when he puts his phone down. “Good, right?”
“Yes,” he breathes the word out. “I think it went well.”
“And she did sound happy but not like . . . ecstatic, so that’s also a good thing.”
“Yeah, she was a bit confused, though.”
“I think that’s understandable.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he says softly and looks to the side.
“What are you worried about?”
“I’m not worried,” he protests, and I point to the little line between his eyebrows.
“That wrinkle only appears when you’re worried, so out with it.”
He lets out a big breath and hangs his head low.
“I don’t think I’m going to stop worrying about this until it’s over.”
“Well, that sucks,” I say, completely honestly. “You need to live your life, and you have a hell of a lot more to do in the next couple of months than I do.”
“I know, I know,” he grumbles and rubs a hand down his face. “It’s just so dumb.” That sounded almost like a whine, but Cam doesn’t ever whine, so I let it pass.
“It’s not dumb to want to feel your best when you’re dealing with something so awful, Cam. You’re doing your best here, and I’m going along to make sure you have a good time and to like . . . protect you.”
I wasn’t really planning on saying that, and now that I have I can’t meet his gaze.