Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
Jory
“Don’t look at me like that,” Gus says from across the table. His brows are pulled together, his face redder than usual. We’ve been at this table working on the same problem for thirty minutes, and we’re no closer to solving it than we were when we sat down. “I hate this.”
I get ya, kid. Math pisses me off, too.
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” I say, loosening my grip on the pencil in my hand. “You’re just mad.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re looking at me like something you said should’ve sunk into my brain by now. But nothing you’re saying is what my teacher said last year. The bells aren’t going off, if you follow me.”
I bite back a sigh. I don’t know where to go from here. Hell, I didn’t know where to start. But I told Deidre I’d do this, and I honestly thought I could. In my head, we’d sit down, pull out the packets his mother sent for him to do, and bond while working on fractions.
That was delusional. No one warned me that math could quite possibly be a relationship ender.
I take a long breath, filling my senses with the smell of garlic and spices.
I’m not much of a cook, and dinner might barely be edible, but until we busted out the math packet, tonight had been great.
We fried some hamburger together and mixed it with jarred sauce.
Popped open some garlic bread from the freezer section of Miller’s and shoved it into the oven.
Boiled some pasta, too. We did it all with music playing in the background and our laughter playing in the forefront.
Then I brought out the math homework. What a way to ruin the night.
“Let’s start over again and use different numbers,” I say, standing. I need to put some distance between us—for both our sakes. “You sit here and work on it while I check on our pasta.”
“We’ve started over three times,” Gus says, tossing his pencil in front of him. “It’s not the numbers that are the problem.” He leans forward, staring me in the eyeballs. “The problem is that I don’t understand math, and if we’re being honest, I don’t think you do, either.”
My arms cross over my chest. “I passed sixth-grade math, so I know a little something.”
“I’d like to call Gran and see your report card.”
“Are you calling me a fraud?” I ask, lifting a brow. Typically, his cheekiness is fun, but there’s cockiness to it that prickles me the wrong way.
“Not outright. But your math skills haven’t been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“My math skills aren’t on trial here.” I give him a strained smile and head toward the stove. Don’t fight with a kid. Let it go. “There are a couple of different ways to attack that problem. Pick one and go for it.”
He groans loudly, as if I’m not picking up on the preteen dramatics.
“Simplify eighteen twenty-fourths,” I say, straining the pasta. “Are both numbers divisible by two?”
“I have no idea.”
“Gus.” I pour the pasta into the sauce on the stove and then turn off the burner. We’ve been over this. So. Many. Times. “Come on, man.”
“Dad.” He mocks before sighing. “This makes no sense. Who cares if you can simplify it? It’s the same thing. I think.” His forehead hits the table in frustration. “I hate this.”
I check on the garlic bread in the oven and then make my way back to the table. Gus hasn’t moved. He definitely hasn’t attempted the problem again.
My spirits sink as I imagine doing this every night all summer. I’d rather sit in the saunas with the forwards at the facility. It’s sad to say, but listening to them moan about their bruises and rip farts while sitting in a small room sounds more fun than fighting with Gus over fractions.
God, help me. I don’t know how Deidre does this for days on end.
I take a deep breath, ready to start again, because we have to at least get one page done before we quit. But before I can speak, the doorbell rings through the house.
Gus wastes no time springing to his feet. “I’ll get it.”
My eyes close as I plead with the pain flirting with my eyes to go away. A migraine isn’t going to help anything.
“You’re my guardian angel,” Gus says, the words causing my eyes to fling open again.
Who’s he talking to? I sit up straight as footsteps grow closer. “Gus?”
“Hey, Dad,” he says, mischief in his tone. “Look who’s here.”
Rounding the corner beside my son is Markie, and I’m pretty sure my jaw smashes against the table.
She pauses in the doorway with a smug smile painted on her lips. A pair of tight gray shorts hug her thick thighs, while a Tennessee Arrows tank top showcases her tits. Her hair is messy like she just crawled out of bed, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything sexier in my fucking life.
“Hey,” she says, grinning.
“Hey.” I hope it doesn’t sound as tight as I feel. My hand goes between my legs to adjust myself under the table. “What’s going on?”
She drops a key onto the table. “Miles asked me to bring this to you. It’s for the mechanical room.”
Mechanical room? Oh, right. “Thanks. I didn’t realize you had it.”
“Yeah, well, consider me my brother’s unpaid and underappreciated rental manager. The former tenant left everything in a very tidy binder. So if you need anything else, I probably have it,” she says, her gaze dropping to my lips for a split second.
I smirk. “Then I should totally take your number.”
Gus’s hands clasp together at his chest, and he looks toward the ceiling. “Thank you for listening, God.”
Markie and I laugh as I stand.
“Gus … enough,” I say, motioning toward the papers. “Sit down and get back to work.”
He plops down into his chair. “I don’t understand. You can tell me to sit and to get to work, but I can’t work if I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do,” I say, my jaw growing tight. “Start with two. Start with nine, if you want. Just start somewhere and if that doesn’t work, go to the next number.”
“But how do I know what number to start with? Or is this a wild goose chase?”
I narrow my gaze. “Pick a number, Gus.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Whoa,” Markie says, laughing. “You,” she says, pointing at me, “aren’t helping.”
Gus beams at her. “Thanks, buddy.”
“And you,” she says, shaking her head. “You aren’t trying.”
“How do you know?” Gus asks, lifting a brow.
“Because I’ve seen you in action. You’re a smart kid.” She leans over his shoulder. “Let me see the problem.”
I throw up my hands as the oven timer goes off. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“Simplify eighteen twenty-fourths,” Markie says as I take the bread out of the oven. “You can do this.” She flips the paper upside down. “Forget the fraction for a second. Draw me a cheese pizza instead.”
I glance at her over my shoulder, but she’s focused on my son. The sight of them together pulls at my chest. It’s such an ordinary moment, one that families have all over the world in the evening … and that’s exactly why it’s so extraordinary.
Rugby has been my entire life, and I hadn’t given a ton of thought to what I wanted for myself after I retired.
Then Gus came into my life. But I’m still getting used to that—still trying to wrap my head around what my world looks like in another year.
I haven’t even gotten around to imagining him at the table with a woman while dinner’s being served.
It’s a mindfuck for sure.
“Have you had dinner?” I ask.
“What?” She looks up, her doe eyes wide. “Me? No. I’ve been playing pickleball.”
“Hungry?”
Gus bumps her with his shoulder. “Please, say yes. Don’t leave me here alone with him and fractions.”
A laugh topples from her lips. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“Grab a seat, and I’ll fix you a plate,” I say. “I’ll even make dessert if you can figure out how to get him to understand this shit.”
Her cheeks flush as her amusement softens. “Okay, I guess. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Gus says. “And of course, he’s sure. You’re hot.”
“Gus!” I say, giving him a look to behave.
Markie doesn’t make eye contact with me as she sits beside my kid.
I make three plates and pour three glasses of water as they get to work behind me. I take my time getting it all to the table because there’s no sense in rushing things.
“Let’s look at your pizza,” she says, moving the paper so they can both see it.
“I added pepperoni,” Gus says, grinning.
She returns his smile. “What we’re trying to do is to find other fractions that mean the same thing. Do you understand that?”
“Kind of.”
She draws lines through the circle. “I just cut this pizza into four equal slices. If your dad eats two of them, he ate two-fourths of the pizza, right? Because two of the four are gone.”
“Okay,” Gus says, watching her color them in.
“But look at this. Once we color them in, we realize that it’s the same thing as half of the pizza, right?”
“Yup.”
“So, two-fourths is the same thing as one-half. They mean the same thing, just in different ways. We say that one-half is simpler because we’d have to cut the pizza fewer times.”
Gus sits up in his seat. “That makes sense.”
Thank God.
I deliver the food and drinks to the table, then take my seat as Markie continues her lesson. The tension that filled the room when I was trying to teach him is now filled with laughter. Instead of pretending to be too dense to understand, Gus now seems determined to impress.
I can’t help but smile. .
“Boom!” Gus says, lifting his chin. “Three-fourths. Eighteen twenty-fourths simplifies to three-fourths.”
“See?” Markie asks, patting him on the shoulder. “You can do this. Now, let’s eat before this gets cold.” She turns to me. “This looks pretty great, Jory.”
I study her, wondering what else there is to know about this fascinating woman. Instead of looking away, she holds my attention. For a moment, she’s not here to deliver a key or to help with math. She’s here as a woman having dinner with my son and me.
Finally, I look away and focus on my food. “Thanks. So, are you a math whiz or something? You just jumped right in and got him to understand something that we’d gone over a million times.”
She shrugs, placing a napkin on her lap. “Not exactly. But I am pretty good at it. I tutor kids, mostly during the school year.”