13.
C OURTNEY
I glanced at the clock in the corner of my screen and bit back a sigh.
If there was ever a meeting that could have been a damn email, this was it.
I knew that the executives of the company I’d been contracted to audit were irritated at the errors I’d found, and since they couldn’t take it out on the insurance company that hired me, they wanted to rip apart the evidence I’d presented in my report.
They could bitch, moan, and whine all they wanted, but that didn’t change the facts I’d found and reported. Now it was their turn to make excuses, but from the judge’s face I could see in the box at the top right corner of my screen, it wasn’t working.
This was an audit I’d done almost a year ago that had been in litigation ever since, and it was finally coming to an end - or it would if they’d just shut up and take the slap on the wrist they were going to get for multiple billing and documentation errors that had almost cost more than one person their life.
I blocked out all thoughts of what I would definitely rather be doing, and for the next two endless hours, I concentrated on the virtual courtroom until I was finally dismissed from court.
Now that this case was out of my queue, I was going to take the rest of the day off - what was left of it, at least. On a whim, I decided to pick up Dayton for some alone time.
It had been a week since I’d found him at that house with our mother, and he’d spoken to Dr. Hamilton three times since then.
She never told me exactly what was said during their sessions.
She just gave me an overview and her opinions and went over the best plan of action to make him more comfortable with me.
I felt immeasurable relief when she explained that a lot of the emotional turmoil he was feeling was due to puberty, although his seemed to go deeper and present itself more dramatically because of how badly he wanted a relationship with our mother.
As far as I knew, he hadn’t spoken to her since that night, and there had been no signs of him sneaking out to try.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t found a way to contact her through a friend’s phone at school or even from one of the phones in the office there, but considering his behavior, Dr. Hamilton and I didn’t think that was likely.
I hoped that picking him up early and spending some time together today might help lay the foundation for rebuilding our relationship.
I missed the days when he was Alana’s age and had so much less worry and stress on his mind, but those days were long gone.
Now we just had to get through what he had going on now, probably just in time for Alana to hit puberty and create an entirely different kind of chaos.
I sent a text to Dayton’s teacher to let her know I was on my way, and right after I pulled up, he walked out of the building.
He yanked the door open and tossed his bag on the floorboard before he slid onto the seat and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to hang out with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I miss talking to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
Dayton frowned before he asked, “What are we gonna do?”
“Back in the day, we used to see who could eat more ice cream,” I reminded him. “Are you up for the challenge?”
Dayton scoffed before he said, “As if you could eat more than me.”
“We could go all out and get that gigantic bowl with all the different flavors and see if we can make it through,” I suggested as I backed out of the parking space.
“Nah. It would just be a mixed-up soup of flavors before we were even halfway done. Let’s just get banana splits like we used to.”
“I’m down for three.”
Dayton rolled his eyes, but this time, there was a smile on his face when he said, “Amateur.”
We waited for our first round of ice cream in silence, but by the time we were finished with that serving, Dayton and I were laughing about an argument Leo and Beau had gotten into this morning and discussing whether Alana would be a prosecutor or a defense attorney someday.
By the time I was halfway through my second banana split, I felt sick, but I didn’t mind at all.
I was happy that I’d found a way in with Dayton and that we were finally talking again.
Dayton was still going strong and ordered another as the server stopped by to check our progress and then started teasing me because he could tell I wasn’t going to finish my second.
“I think these used to be smaller,” I complained.
“You always fed half of everything to the boys, so you never really ate as much as you thought you did.”
“True.”
“What did you feed me when I was a baby?” Dayton asked out of the blue.
“Mashed potatoes. You loved them with a little salt and a lot of butter.”
“I still do. Did Mom teach you to feed me?” I didn’t answer right away, trying my hardest to find something to say that wouldn’t start an argument, but Dayton narrowed his eyes and said, “Just say whatever it is.”
“I was trying to . . . I guess I . . .”
“You were going to say something bad about Mom. I know.”
“Actually, I was going to say that I started feeding you mashed potatoes when we got low on formula and I worried about you going hungry. I wasn’t going to mention Mom at all.”
Dayton was quiet as he finished his ice cream, and then he leaned back as the server took away the empty bowl and put his third down. He picked up his spoon and asked, “How old was I the first time she left?”
“She disappeared when you were about five months old. We ran out of formula and money, so I called Grandma to come get us. We didn’t see her again until she showed up with Alana, probably three or four years later.”
“I remember when she lived at Grandma’s with us.”
“That makes sense. You were Leo and Beau’s age.”
“I remember when she left again too. The cops arrested her in the front yard.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“You didn’t do anything,” Dayton said with a shrug. There were tears in his eyes when he said, “I always thought she was innocent. She said that people were just picking on her, and I bought into it.”
“Because you’re her son and you really wanted to see the good in her.”
“And you don’t see the good in her.”
“I’ve known her a lot longer than you, Dayton.”
“Do you hate her?”
“Sometimes, but then I realize that I wouldn’t have all of you without her. My life would be so boring, don’t you agree?”
“Dawson said I should be nicer to you because you really want to adopt me and make it official.”
“I do, but you said that you didn’t want me to adopt you.”
“Mom said you were only keeping me because of the money you get.”
I burst out laughing and said, “Not sure where she got that idea, but it’s wrong. I want you with me because I love you, Dayton. That’s the only reason.”
“But I’m not your kid.”
“You’re about as close to it as a kid can get.”
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why do you take care of us? Why don’t you just let us go back to Mom so you can have your own life?”
“Because I want to make sure that you have a better life than I did when I was your age. I’ll fight to the death to make sure that happens.”
“I haven’t talked to Mom since that night.”
“Good.”
“Is she still . . . out there somewhere?”
“As far as I know,” I said with a dismissive shrug.
His ice cream forgotten, Dayton stared out the window, giving me an opportunity to study his profile.
It made my breath hitch to see how quickly he was changing.
The boyish shape of his face was fading fast as a stronger jawline developed that reminded me of our brother Liam.
His furrowed brow made him look so much like our brother Ben that it was uncanny.
“There’s Zane!”
“I think that’s the garage he was talking about.”
“Can we go see him?”
“He’s probably working. I’ll send him a text to see if he’s got a minute.”
I pulled my phone out of my purse, thankful that I’d remembered to slip it into the side pocket, for once, instead of dropping it into the abyss of junk I carried around.
I sent a message to Zane, letting him know we were across the street.
I watched him look at his phone and smile before he looked our way, and then I received a text that said he’d be at the garage for a while and would love to see us.
“Are you finished with your ice cream?” I asked Dayton.
“I ate more than you.”
“Maybe, but there’s always next time.”
“I bet I can eat more than Zane.”
“You should challenge him,” I suggested as we slid out of the booth and started walking toward the register. The woman behind the counter ran my card, and I added a hefty tip for the server, who had been so attentive, before I followed Dayton outside to the sidewalk.
It had only been a little more than a week since I first spoke to Zane at the restaurant that evening, but since then, we hadn’t gone a day without seeing each other - which meant that the kids had gotten to know him too.
It was impossible for me to be away from home very often, which meant that the men I dated inevitably got to know the whole brood fairly quickly.
I had always been careful to keep any relationship very chaste when the kids were around, and the few men I’d dated who weren’t okay with that didn’t last long.
However, Zane had never had to be told that was a hard and fast rule for me.
He had never made any physical overtures in front of the kids and seemed to find it just as exciting as I did to sneak kisses while the kids weren’t in the room and to wait until they were all safely in bed before we let things heat up.
That was yet another mark in the positive column for the man. At this point, there were too many to count. As we waited for a few cars to pass, I tried to tally up his negative attributes but couldn’t recall a single one.