Chapter 8 #4
“Mmm, no,” he said after a moment with that same time stream breaking grin. “Well, I was a lot more careful after that, and I learned which animals and bugs shouldn’t be touched, but I didn’t stop hunting them.”
“I suppose that counts as a lesson,” I said with a shake of my head. “Probably not the one your mom would have appreciated, though.”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head.
Marc though? If he ever found out that was the lesson his son had taken, would have given that same world-weary sigh and waved Jude off.
I had noted, even back then, Marc was more hands-off with Jude when he thought it was necessary, letting the world and consequences be a teacher where words and scolding might not be enough.
And perhaps the former businessman would have watched his son learn to be careful rather than to stop and wearily respect the determination and willingness to learn in his own way.
“So…how’s he been?” Jude asked, and I looked up, frowning in confusion.
He took the cue immediately and shrugged.
“I mean, it’s my dad. If I ask him how he’s been, he’s going to give me a bog-standard answer.
And if I push, he gives me a little more, but it’s not like…
I don’t know how he actually is. If he’s allowed, he’ll just make everyone think everything is okay. ”
“You have a good understanding of your dad,” I said with a snort.
“Right, and I mean, you already said I’m like him in that regard.
I mean, like knows like, so I know he’s holding back, but I don’t know how badly,” Jude said, and his troubled expression tugged at my chest. I remembered when he was twelve and I had broken one of my fingers.
Not only had he done his best to look up ways to treat a broken finger before I got it looked at, but he had asked after it repeatedly for weeks. “I’m just—”
“Worried about your dad,” I said gently. “And there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when you know your dad isn’t the sharing type.”
“So?” he asked, looking at me expectantly. “I mean, does he share more with you?”
“I mean, we share a ‘business,’ if that counts.”
“Reggie.”
I chuckled. God, he sounded like his dad. “Well, I can’t say he’s been the sharing type, but…he does share sometimes. And when he doesn’t, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading between the lines to see what he’s not saying.”
“So, he’s okay? Even just okay? Not good, just okay?”
Now, there was a loaded question, and I had to be careful not to set off with too much information.
Marc was…okay, I’d even say he was a lot better than okay.
He had been in a bad spot between his divorce and Malcolm’s death, but he had powered through, and I thought the opening of Arete was the beginning of Marc’s true arc toward being in a better mental place.
Each year he improved, and this last season and the shockingly positive outcome had helped bring him to an even better place.
He still didn’t take great care of himself; he drank more than I liked, though rarely to excess, and he could be so closed off that sometimes I was afraid he was locking himself out of his own heart.
There were just some things Jude didn’t need to know, because there was no need to worry someone who was getting ready to step into the adult world in a few months, and because some people’s secrets didn’t need to be shared.
“I’d say he’s better than okay; I’d say he’s good bordering on great, actually,” I told Jude.
“Really?” Jude asked doubtfully, and I could see he wanted to believe me, but perhaps eighteen years of dealing with his father made him hesitant to believe that someone else had the answer to the mystery that was Marc and his inner world.
“I said good going on great, not wonderful,” I said with a snort.
“He’s…I won’t say there aren’t problems, and that he hasn’t a care in the world.
Things weigh on him; he frets and stresses, though he tries to hide it even from me, and sometimes I worry but never to the point of being panicked.
Your dad is doing well, Jude. I’ve been keeping an eye on him and doing my best to make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. ”
“Somehow I don’t see you keeping someone out of trouble,” he said with a grin. “But…maybe my dad needs a bit of trouble in his life, the kind of trouble you probably bring all the time.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment,” I told him wryly.
“It was…mostly,” he said with a sly look that, while I couldn’t be certain, I was pretty sure came from his mother. “But I’m glad he has you. Shit, even Mom has said that before.”
“Really? I was under the impression your mom had some respect for me, but as a person? I’m barely tolerated,” I admitted. Which wasn’t a new concept in my life; I’d run into it more than once. Sometimes it stung, and sometimes it didn’t. With Marc’s unfaithful ex-wife? I would not take it to heart.
“Oh God, yeah, sorry, she thinks you’re annoying as hell,” Jude said with an apologetic wince. “But that didn’t stop her from saying Dad needed someone like you, if only to make sure he didn’t ‘get lost up his own ass’. She, uh…was drinking when she added that last comment.”
“Hmmm,” I said, because it was taking all my willpower to bite back the observation that it was rich for her to judge someone for getting lost up their own ass considering the selfishness she’d shown at the end of their marriage.
I would not speak ill of a kid’s mother in front of him, however.
“Well, it’s nice to see she has some faith in me at least. For something. ”
Okay, Marc could sometimes get so lost in his thoughts that you could conceivably see it as getting lost up his own ass, but damn, she had some gall.
“Sorry,” Jude added again. “I shouldn’t have said that. I do that sometimes.”
“Don’t be sorry for reporting what someone else had to say,” I told him with a shake of my head.
“And he definitely won’t tell me about anything in his life other than being here and something you did that made him laugh,” Jude said with a snort. “And I mean…has he been seeing anyone? Like, at all since Mom?”
Well, we had shared mutual blowjobs the night before, but I didn’t think that was what he meant, or something he needed to know.
“Not as far as I know,” I said with a shrug because it was the truth; I didn’t know anyone he’d seen since his divorce.
“Shit, at least he’s getting laid, right?”
“You really want me to go into your father’s sex life with you?” I asked, choosing an evasive maneuver rather than something that was technically true.
“No,” he admitted with a sigh. Then he gave me a strange look. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I asked, my heart tripping over itself, but I kept my face neutral.
“I mean, have you at least been dating? You know,” he said with a shrug and a sudden uneasy look.
I realized what was going on and smirked. “You can say since Malcolm, and yes, I’ve taken a shot at dating a few times. And please don’t ask if I’m getting laid. You might be eighteen, but there are just some things you don’t need to know about.”
“Fine,” he said, and I’d swear there was a note of disappointment in his voice. “But it’s good that you’ve tried. I bet you haven’t done too much looking in the past few years. I know how busy you make yourself; Dad told me.”
“Your dad is a snitch,” I told him with a wrinkle of my nose. “And fine, yes, I haven’t exactly been searching for romantic prospects. Things have grown busy around here, and then there were budget issues that came with the growth and…well, those are finally resolved. But yes, I’ve been busy.”
We were going to leave out the fact that I may or may not have been eyeballing his dad in ways that were definitely sexual, but were spinning into consideration of something…
deeper. That, of course, was something I was going to need to discuss with Marc, but serious conversations with him were…
tricky. You had to find the right time to catch the chink in his armor to make him open up.
It was annoying, but it was Marc, who I had long since accepted was just like that.
So that was a new thing I was going to have to deal with, because I doubted Marc was going to do it on his own.
Which meant it was time for me to journey away from this conversation before I fucked up and blabbed something not meant for his ears. “Have you seen the courtyard yet?”
“No,” he said, looking disappointed. “But you’d know that because you didn’t take me there.”
“Valid point,” I said with a snort. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
That, at least, was one hurdle over; just a few hundred more to go.