Chapter 12
Moore
"Hey," Jordy grunted.
Watching his son climb into the car at the beginning of a visit was always a thrill.
"Hey, yourself."
Jordy tossed his backpack in the backseat, climbed into the passenger seat, then frowned, brown hair flopping in his eyes as if it passive-aggressively grew longer on purpose just to make Jordy look more sullen.
"Where's Colleen?" As he spoke the words, a flash of his silver on his teeth appeared.
Moore chuckled. "She's not allowed to pick people up at the airport anymore."
The half grin Jordy gave him felt like winning an Oscar, more metal showing.
He snorted. "Yeah. I can see that."
As Jordy closed the passenger door, Moore waited until he clicked the seatbelt in place. It had only been a handful of weeks, but it had always amazed him how quickly his child changed.
The man-boy in his front seat was all long bones and sharp angles. The little boy was gone. A lump formed in Moore's throat, pushed there by years of never feeling like he was doing enough. Fifty days a year was all he had, but he relished every single one of them.
As he lifted his foot off the brake and pressed the accelerator, his vehicle lurched forward. Jordy's eyes took in the dashboard.
"You know," he said slowly, "I'm a year away from driver's ed."
That lump in Moore's throat grew bigger. The size of a car, even.
"That's right. A year, huh?"
Normally, when he picked Jordy up at the airport, he was greeted with grunts, zero eye contact, and a general contempt that Moore had to brace himself against. He took it all, not so much in stride, but he worked hard not to take it personally.
Jordy was an angry young soul, and Moore viewed his role in his son's life as a person who cared. Even if Jordy didn't like it, he had to acknowledge that Moore showed up, was there, was part of his life–but this was different.
This time felt like a turning point.
“Yeah.”
"You know," Moore said, smiling as the words came out, knowing what Jordy would say in return, "while you're back here, I could take you out for some driving lessons."
Joy was not an expression that Moore saw on his child’s face very often, not since he was a preschooler.
"Really?" Jordy's voice cracked in half, going higher. "You'd let me?"
"Sure, on some of the back roads. No problem."
"Dad, really?" His heart sang to hear the earnestness in his son's voice.
"Absolutely."
"Wow. Cool." Jordy sat back in the front seat, as if he realized his own exuberance was violating some internal policy. His eyes cut over to Moore. "Colleen okay?”
“You talk to her more than I do, on Discord. What do you think?"
"I don't know. We don't talk about her broken wrist on the gaming channel. We talk about the game we're playing."
"You don't talk about your lives?"
"Why would we?"
"What do you talk about when you game together?"
"The game, duh."
Moore deserved that.
"She's fine. Her wrist was in a cast but it’s off now. Her shoulder's messed up. Other than that, she's recovering nicely."
A rush of warmth ran through him, his muscles tightening at the thought of what he and Colleen were preparing to unveil. Telling his son about his relationships had always been rocky ground.
For whatever reason, that had never been a problem for Cammie. She just dumped the truth out on poor Jordy. Whether it was Mike the baseball player, Dave the accountant, or Locke the baseball player, Cammie just told Jordy what life was, and their son was forced to accept it.
With Moore, though, it had been different. Always. No woman was allowed access to his son unless Moore thought it was serious, which meant that the only people he’d dated that Jordy had ever met were Gia and Hannah.
"You still dating Tissue Lady?" Jordy asked, as if reading Moore's mind.
“Tissue Lady?”
“Hannah. She always had one tucked in her shirt sleeve.” Jordy made a nasty face. “Kept offering me one. My nose was fine.”
“She did?”
“One time she had an entire packet of tissues tucked under her sweater cuff, Dad. You have really bad taste in women.”
Moore did not point out that was quite the insult to his own mother.
"No. No more Tissue Lady. She dumped me."
From tight shoulders to a relaxed sigh, Jordy changed. Going casual, he seemed to open up instantly.
This version of his son was new. What was going on?
"Good," Jordy spat out, as if relieved to speak his mind. "It's nice to have a parent who isn’t forcing a stepparent on me for once."
"What does that mean?"
"You know Mom's marrying Locke, right?"
"Yeah."
"Now she's all lovey-dovey and it's all about her and the baby and Locke, and once in a while, she remembers Soria and I exist."
“That sounds hard," Moore said carefully. This was completely new territory.
For years, Cammie, Jordy, Soria, and Cammie’s last boyfriend, Dave, had lived together. Moore and Dave got along on a surface level, which had seemed to bother Cammie. When Moore came to pick up Jordy, she hid her daughter from him, but Dave was there for a handshake and a few sentences exchanged.
Cammie was constantly trying to trigger drama between the two men, but thank goodness, Dave was stable and steady.
Locke, on the other hand, was a preener.
Moore hated preeners.
He would do whatever it took to get along with Jordy's new stepfather, of course.
Maybe he wouldn't need to put out as much effort as he had in the past, though, because if he could get Jordy to move in with him and finish high school here in Maine, it would change their entire relationship for the good.
And change the power balance with Cammie forever.
"I'm sick of my parents trying to tell me who I have to have a relationship with. I love that you’re a confirmed bachelor, Dad."
"A confirmed what?" Moore said, confused.
"Hannah dumped you?"
"Yeah.”
“Why?”
Moore was not about to tell Jordy that he was, in part, the reason why Hannah ghosted.
“She wanted to spend more time with me than I had.”
“Oooo, a clinger?”
Moore just sighed.
“That sucks. People suck. Why have a relationship with them when they're just going to be cruel to you?"
"That's not quite how it all worked.”
“She dumped you," Jordy interrupted. "How did she dump you, Dad?"
A growing unease centered in Moore's gut.
"What do you mean, how did she dump me?"
"It was by text, wasn’t it?"
"Uh..."
Jordy used his hand to brush his hair off his forehead, a choreographed move designed to look cool.
"Oh my God, Dad, she did! She actually dumped you by text. When? You were still dating her when you came to Minnesota last time."
"Well," Moore pondered, buying time as he let his foot off the brake and merged into traffic. "On the plane."
"She dumped you while you were in mid-air?"
"Yeah."
"That's so cringe."
This entire conversation was cringe.
"I don't know if it's cringe, but it does suck."
Jordy made a noncommittal sound.
“People suck,” he repeated. “Why does everything about people have to be so hard?”
“Hard?” Normally, Jordy climbed into the car, groaned when he realized Moore was alone, and buried his head in his phone.
Actual talking was rare.
Talking about feelings was unheard of.
As he merged onto the highway headed north, he fumbled. As Jordy's dad, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. This wasn't just unfamiliar to him.
It was as if Jordy had teleported him to an alien planet.
His kid was openly talking about his emotional state. Suddenly, all the stakes were higher and Moore was left with the sense that he was operating in the twenty-first century with Paleolithic parenting tools.
"It's hard," Jordy mumbled. "But Locke's cool."
"He is?" Moore asked.
Jordy shrugged.
"I mean, he's okay, I guess."
"He's a baseball player," Moore said, trying to draw Jordy out.
Jordy let out a huff.
"Minor league baseball. He's stressed. Locke thinks he's big shit."
"Hey!" Moore interrupted him. "Language."
"I can't say that word around you? Really?"
Regret flooded through Moore's veins instantly. His own child was finally pouring his guts out to him, treating Moore like a father rather than some object of contempt, and he was policing the kid's language.
"Go ahead. Tell me about Locke," Moore said, regrouping.
"He's... I don't know," Jordy struggled to find the right words.
It was clear to Moore that his son had changed even over the last few weeks. Whatever was going on at home with Cammie wasn't good. A protective streak rose up in him.
"He's not bad." Jordy's dismissive tone was so teenager that Moore almost laughed, but he knew it would be strategically wrong to do so. "He's just so full of himself. You know the type?"
"Yes," Moore said.
"He thinks he's going to hit the major leagues. There's no way. I give him advice sometimes, but he thinks I'm just some punk kid."
Jordy didn't actually play baseball – he just watched a lot of it. Like plenty of hobbyists, he thought he knew better than the people actually in the arena. Nothing wrong with that, but people who were the doers generally didn't listen to the critics.
"Is he excited about the baby?" Moore asked.
Jordy stiffened. Uh oh. Wrong move.
"Mom's fine," Jordy said, a veil falling over his face. "Baby's fine. Soria’s super excited, but she gets excited by Paw Patrol, so..."
Hand reaching into his pocket, Jordy went for his phone.
"I didn't ask about the baby, or your mom," Moore ventured. "I asked what Locke thinks about the baby."
"I don't know," Jordy said, leaning away in his seat, his head resting against the window. "He seems fine about it. It's his second kid."
"Second?" Moore sat up so quickly while driving that he almost banged his head on the roof. "Locke has another kid?"
"Yeah," Jordy said with a huff. "He's eleven. Key. I've never met him."
An ominous chord vibrated through Moore, as if an unseen phantom of the opera were playing on a creepy organ, each note chosen to provoke the highest level of emotion. How had no one told him Locke had another child?