Chapter 34 #2
“Yeah.” He huffs something like amazement, like disbelief. “It looks like a bean.”
“I keep thinking of it as a comma.” I stare at the dark yard until it climbs into focus.
He makes a face like he doesn’t want to agree with me on anything and can’t help it. “Paige said you went to the appointment.”
“Yeah, there’s another one soon,” I say.
He tips his head, considering me. “You going to keep showing up like that?”
“Yes,” I say, and the word is definitive. “Every appointment. Anything she wants or needs. Not crowding or overbearing, but there.”
He rolls his tongue against his teeth. “And what about the rest?” he asks. “When it’s 3:00 in the morning and the baby has a fever and you had a slammed bar and you’re dragging ass. When it’s money. When it’s time. When it’s the part where you can’t hand the baby back and clock out.”
“I’m not clocking out,” I say. “On any of it. And I don’t want to.”
“Your dad did,” he shoots back.
“Yeah,” I say. “He did.” I let the hurt at that, hearing those words out of my best friend’s mouth, pass through me, so it doesn’t poison me forever. “I’m not him. I thought you’d figured that out by now.”
He glances at the faint bloom on my eye. “He left you standing in front of that condo with a key that didn’t work,” he says. “I don’t—I can’t—watch that happen to her. To the kid.”
“I know,” I say. “You won’t.”
His jaw works. He’s fighting with himself in there. I can see it in the way his shoulders hold tight, the way his hands flex once, then still like he’s coaching his own body to stay in place.
“What do you feel for her?” he asks, bluntly. “Is this some passing thing because my sister grew up pretty?”
“I don’t know what to call it yet,” I answer simply. “I know it’s not nothing. I know I want her safe, and I want her happy, and I want to be worthy of both.”
“And the kid?” he says. “Don’t give me a slogan.”
“I won’t.” I look out at the yard so I don’t look away from him.
“I’ll put my time where my mouth is. Money where it needs to be.
Hands where they’re useful. I will be there.
If I’m bad at parts of it, I’ll get better.
If I don’t know how, I’ll learn. If I need help, I’ll ask.
If I start to act like my father, shoot me dead. It’s better than abandoning my kid.”
I think about the line I wrote in my head. “More than that, it’s not just obligation. That’s my child she’s carrying. I may not know a damn thing about it yet, but I do know that I love it with everything I have.”
He scrubs a palm down his face. “I hate you a little right now.”
“I know,” I say.
“And I hate that I don’t hate you a lot.”
“I know that too,” I say, softer.
He stares at the top stair. “She said you two were going to tell me together.”
“We were,” I say. “We were trying to figure out how to do it without setting a bomb off.”
He snorts. “You failed.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Spectacularly.”
The corner of his mouth twitches and then goes flat again.
“What now?” I ask quietly.
“That’s it for now,” he says. “I can’t do dinner right now. Or hanging out, or anything else. I can’t even look at you yet.”
“That’s fair,” I say. It hurts, but I understand. “I won’t show up where you are.”
He looks up fast, like he heard coward in that and didn’t like it. “I’m not asking you to hide.”
“I’m saying I won’t push,” I answer. “But if Paige needs me for anything, it overrides that. You’ll have to deal.”
We’re both quiet again, and the quiet is different this time. Not peace. Not even a truce. Just… not the same as it’s been.
He hooks his thumbs in his back pockets, a stance I remember from when he was seventeen and trying to play it cool in front of girls who were too smart to fall for him.
“Mom…” He clears his throat. “Mom is… Mom. She’s crying and baking and collecting patches for a quilt.”
I huff a laugh. “Yeah, I know about that one.”
“Yeah.” He shifts, looks at me sidelong. “She told me to come talk to you.”
I blink. “Gwen did?”
He nods once. “Said—and I quote—‘You can be angry and still be kind.’ Then she gave me a plate to bring to you.”
“You have food?” I hear myself ask, and it comes out brighter than intended because Gwen’s food is a religion, and I am a devout man.
Jason huffs. “Of course I have food. She didn’t give me a choice. Said—” he drops his voice into a passable Gwen, “‘If you’re going over there to glower at him, at least take him dinner so he doesn’t pass out.’”
Against my will, a laugh gets loose. “That sounds right.”
“It’s in the car, but it should still be warm.”
He walks over to it, opens the passenger door, and pulls out a plate that smells like lemon and rosemary. I take it and set it on the table between the chairs.
Jason clears his throat. “I’m going to go now,” he says.
I just nod.
He starts across the lawn toward his truck. Halfway there, he turns around and says, “Make Paige take it easy if you can,” he mutters. “Apparently, she’s been feeling sick all the time, and I don’t think working for fourteen hours like a lunatic is good for her or the baby.”
“I’m on her about breaks,” I say. “Compression socks, water, snacks. I’ve got crackers and ginger and lemon here if she drops by. I stop over there during the day to make her eat real food. I’m doing whatever I can.”
He nods like that’s the right answer and continues walking to his truck. I watch as he gets in and starts the engine. The headlights sweep the porch, blinding me for a second, then slide off as he backs into the street. He doesn’t wave.
But the fact that he came at all feels like the smallest door cracking open.
Once he’s gone, I sit down in the chair on the porch and peel away the foil on the plate.
Steam rolls up, carrying the best things I can name: roast chicken glossed with pan juices, green beans with slivered almonds, a drift of mashed potatoes smoothed flat like a pond. There’s a wax-paper parcel tucked in the corner. Lemon bar. Powdered sugar clinging to the paper.
Taped to the foil is a square of Gwen’s stationery, her tidy block letters bossing me around: If cold, heat 300° / 12 min. Eat. Drink water. Ice your eye (again). —G
I can’t help it; I smile at the instructions.
“Eat,” I mumble. “Like I need instructions for that.”
I grin like an idiot at the note before putting it down and doing what Gwen instructed.