38. Ryan
CHAPTER 38
Ryan
W hen Summer first approached me about having dinner with Jared this week, I have to admit that my first reaction wasn’t exactly kind. I know she’s quick to forgive, and I love that about her, but I tend to hold a grudge whether I like it or not.
One time in the eighth grade, while waiting in the lunch line, my friend came up to talk to me. I let him go in front of me when he asked and he ended up getting the last slice of pizza. I had to eat the questionable Cobb salad. I was starving. Later on, I learned he did it on purpose to mess with me. I didn’t speak to him for a week. Over cafeteria pizza. While I like to think I’ve grown since then, getting chummy with my girlfriend’s ex who put her through hell might be pushing it too far.
Today is the day, and I’m feeling pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. Jared hasn’t proven to be the most even-keeled, so I’m hoping tonight goes okay for Summer’s sake. Jared’s mom is watching Emma, so it will just be the adults.
I fill a glass of water from Summer’s tap and drain it. I set it in the sink when Summer pads into the kitchen on bare feet. She’s wearing a brightly patterned sundress that falls just below her knees with the hair around her face pulled back. Stunning as per usual.
She presses up on her toes to peck me on the cheek before going behind me and wrapping her arms around my middle in a hug that allows me to keep doing what I’m doing. “Hey,” she says, pressing her cheek between my shoulder blades. Even though I’m nervous about tonight, having her near gives me a sense of instant calm.
“Hey, yourself. Are you ready for tonight?” I ask as I turn to face her in the circle of her arms.
“As ready as I can be, I guess. Go get changed so we can leave.” She releases me and steps up to the counter, gently pushing me aside.
“You got it,” I say, leaning in and stealing a lingering kiss on her lips.
I throw on a casual t-shirt and shorts, reapply some deodorant, splash my face with water, and then assess myself in the mirror, hoping my apprehension isn’t as clear as it feels. To my horror, it is. I attempt to school my expression into one that says, “I know I punched you in the face a few months ago, and I know you’re kind of an asshole, but we can get along, right?” I grunt at my reflection when my face doesn’t do what I want and turn from the mirror.
We pull up outside a local diner called Pete’s Place. I take a deep breath and will myself to relax my shoulders which have crept up to my ears. Summer gives me a small smile and pops open her door. I follow her into the mostly-empty restaurant. Other than a few people sitting at the counter, the rest of the homey diner is deserted.
The walls are dark and wood-paneled, making it feel more like a cabin than a diner. Lots of fishing bits decorate the walls, old-fashioned fishing baskets hang next to quaint artwork of the local fishing hole. Each of the pendant lights above the booths have fishing lures dangling from them, creating a rustic chandelier.
“Hey, man,” Jared says when we approach, standing from the booth in the far corner and sticking his hand out. I give it a firm, but civil shake and let go. “Hey, Summer,” he says, giving her a small smile.
We exchange greetings and then sit for a while in silence that’s about as comfortable as an itch you can’t scratch in the middle of your back. We make small talk about the menu and then dwell in the collective relief when our waitress comes by. After we place our orders, Jared says, “So, um before we get talking about anything else, Ryan, I just want to apologize for being so rude to you. My therapist has helped me see that you’ve done nothing wrong and I was just taking my anger out on you.”
“And Summer,” I can’t help but add. If he was just pissed at me, I could have taken it no problem, but he’s been downright foul to her.
His eyes narrow before he takes a breath and his expression clears. He says, “And Summer. You’re right. I’ve already apologized to her and will continue to. If you had met me before all this, you would know that this isn’t who I usually am. It’s not an excuse, but it’s been a hard adjustment. Anyway, I’m sorry for how I acted and the things I said.”
I hold out my hand and say, “I forgive you, man. It's been a hard run for all of you. Clean slate?” He shakes my hand and smiles tightly. The tension surrounding our table releases slowly and we’re able to make pleasant small talk. Forgiving him is easier knowing it will make things better for Summer and Emma.
We dig into our meals and chat, feeling out this new dynamic with tentative hands. Honestly, when Jared’s not being a dick, I can see why people seem to like the guy. He mostly talks about his daughter (with a glowing reverence reserved only for goddesses and Emma apparently), and briefly mentions football with an eye to Summer who checks out the moment we start comparing team affiliations.
We’re all leaning back, pleasantly stuffed with greasy diner food and sipping on our sodas when Jared’s phone rings. He scowls at the screen, silences it, and places it facedown on the table. A few seconds later, it kicks up again. He releases a long-suffering sigh and answers it. “What’s up, Duncan?” I catch Summer glaring down at the condensation ring her Coke leaves on the table and lean into her a bit so she knows I’m here with her. She nudges me back in acknowledgement.
“What? I can’t hear you, dude.” He looks around the diner, clearly not wanting to disturb anyone. Jared’s frustration is written in the angry slash between his brows as he stabs at a button on his phone.
Suddenly, Duncan’s voice is loud and clear when he says, “Bro. I got so shitfaced—” and with that, Jared slides out of the booth and strides across the diner towards the exit. Summer looks even more pissed, but I’m absolutely frozen.
She nudges my foot. “Ryan? You okay?”
I turn my rounded eyes from the table to her, and her eyes widen in response. “That's the voice,” I all but whisper.
“Huh?”
“The one who told me to pick up Emma,” I say quietly. Her face pales and her eyes get impossibly wider.
She hisses, “Are you sure? That’s the voice?”
“Almost positive. It was a little hard to make out, like I said, but it sounded the same.”
Summer stands, breaks into a light jog across the restaurant, and yanks a bewildered-looking Jared back towards our booth. He plops down in his seat across from me and shoots her an incredulous look when she wrestles the phone from him. All the while, Duncan is bragging about grabbing some poor serving girl’s ass, describing it in excruciating detail .
“This is the voice you heard?” Summer quietly clarifies one last time.
I wrinkle my nose in disgust and nod. Jared looks between the two of us, and says, “Sounds good, Dunc. I’ll call you back,” before ending the phone call.
“What did you say?” he asks me, brows drawn into a confused pucker.
“I said, that’s the voice I heard last week telling me to go pick up Emma,” I say, looking him in the eye.
His whole body recoils. “No. There’s no way in hell that Duncan would do something like that. I know he’s had some issues lately—”Summer’s scoff cuts him off, but he continues,“but you have to have gotten it wrong.”
“I told you it was him. I had a bad feeling,” Summer says, looking at Jared wearily.
I shake my head adamantly. I would know that voice anywhere because I’ve replayed it in my mind a thousand times since then. “No, I don’t think I’m wrong. I swear, other than some of the stuff I’ve heard about him and Summer, I don’t have any bad blood with him. He was annoying at the bar, but it’s not like it went anywhere. I have no reason to lie to you.”
“Didn’t you say the call sounded like whoever made it had bad service? You probably just didn’t hear it clearly enough,” he reasons, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.
Summer throws her hands up and hisses, “Why are you always so prepared to defend that asshole?” I wince as two of the older men sitting at the bar turn their heads to look at us.
Jared fixes her with a hard stare. “Because he’s like a brother to me. You know that! We’ve been friends since preschool. Like I said, I know he’s been struggling with getting his drinking under control, but he would never do anything that would jeopardize Emma.”
I speak up at that. “But this didn’t jeopardize Emma. As much as you may not have liked me, I think you knew that I would never harm your child. I’m sure if you and Duncan are as close as you say you are, he knows that too.”
Suddenly, Summer sits straight up. She covers her mouth with her hand and says, “Jared. Oh my god. Don’t you remember back in high school, when we first started dating, Duncan and some of your other friends prank called me? Duncan pretended to be you on the phone. I can’t even remember what he said, but I know it was something dumb and I was sure it was you. You spent the next few days convincing me it wasn’t. Remember? You even had him call me on the phone while you were next to me. That’s the only reason I believed you.”
I watch as the color slowly drains out of Jared’s face and then returns, turning him nearly purple. “That motherfucker,” he growls. He narrows his eyes at me, “He did this because of your run-in at his apartment. He called me afterward all up in arms because he said you were being a dick.”
“I wasn’t! I just told him that maybe he should lay off the drinking because he was stumbling around drunk in the middle of the day. How does that man even work a job? It seems like he’s always drunk,” I say, shaking my head in exasperation.
“He works with me,” Jared says uncomfortably. “I let him sleep it off in my office if he seems too out of it.”
“That is so beyond dangerous. For both of you!” Summer explodes.
“I know! Okay? Save the lecture. Can we get back to the more important thing?” Jared shoots a furtive glance at the old men who are now conspicuously turned with an ear towards us.
“What, that he tried to get me arrested for kidnapping?” I scoff.
“I wouldn’t say that. I bet he was just trying to make you break the custody agreement. He probably just wanted you two to have to jump through more hoops for me. His twisted way of helping me get some revenge,” Jared says.
“I don’t think it was that innocent,” Summer retorts leaning forward, “He didn’t know the sign-out procedure for Emma’s gymnastics, and even if he did, he couldn’t have known that Ryan was on the approved list because not even you knew. I only put him on there because I wanted to make sure Emma would always have someone who was able to pick her up. My car has been acting up so much and you’ve been out of range pretty often with the new job site, so I wanted to make sure she had someone with a reliable car on there. I wasn’t going to actually ask him to pick her up unless it was an emergency.”
Jared’s mouth pinches and he visibly deflates. “I really don’t think he meant to hurt Emma,” he reiterates weakly, scrubbing his hands over his hair.
“No, I don’t think he did. As screwed up as he is, I don’t think he would ever try to hurt her. But, I could see him trying to hurt Ryan if he thought it would help you, and if he felt that Ryan belittled him,” Summer says gently. “I know you care about him, but this is more than a step too far. I’m not going to tell you what to do about your friendship with him, but you also have to think about the fact that he impersonated you, called me to see if I would answer, and then messed with our kid. That’s not right, and it shows a level of premeditation that tells me this wasn’t random. I really think you need to confront him and see if you can convince him to get some help. There’s something seriously wrong with him, and I don’t want him anywhere near Emma.”
“Okay, that’s fair. Let me talk to him, please,” Jared says, looking hollowed out.
Summer nods, then tilts her head to the side in consideration. “Maybe we both should, since it’s about Emma and my boyfriend,” she says. He nods his agreement and sighs, looking like he just aged a few years in a matter of minutes.
After a beat of silence, I ask “What I’m not getting is how did he know you were going to be late to pick up Emma?”
“I was with him before then. I spent some time watching Emma at class, but since it was a couple of hours long, I went to check in on him for a bit. I’ve been worried lately and I hoped that if he had someone popping in on him, he would shape up. He’s not close with any of his family, so I’m kind of all he’s got,” Jared closes his eyes briefly and then continues, “I was with him when they called me into work. I told him about it because he saw me take the call. He even asked if I thought I would be back in time to get Emma. I thought he was just being a concerned friend.” He huffs an unamused laugh. I incline my head in acknowledgment because I don’t know what to say. How do you respond to that kind of betrayal?
“I’m really sorry, Jared,” Summer mumbles.
“Yeah,” he replies, “Me too. I had no idea he would ever do something like this.” He rubs a hand over his mouth. “Okay, well I should probably get Emma from my parents so I can get her in bed. I’ll give you a call tomorrow Summer, okay? We’ll get with Duncan soon. Whenever my parents are good to watch her again, I guess.” With that, he stands from the table and slouches toward the door. I’ve never seen a man look so much like a kicked dog before in my life.