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The rest of dinner is a lot less intense as the conversation turns from grilling James to getting to know one another. Dad seems to take a particular interest in James’s game nights, though I’ve never seen him play any sort of board game beyond the standard Monopoly and Scrabble. Delight tugs Dad’s lips into a smile when James invites him to their next game night that Isaiah is hosting at his house. The thought of them becoming friends warms my heart.
The four of us take turns holding Lainey, and Dad takes a shine to Grayson after he asks if he can hold him. He gives a great big belly-aching laugh when Grayson grabs onto Dad’s finger, screws up his face, and makes the most disgusting sound as he fills his diaper with a stink that would bowl most men over.
As I’m walking back to the table after Grayson blew out his diaper and I had to wash him as best as I could in the bathroom sink, I stop short at the scene in front of me. Mom and Dad are standing at the table talking to a man I know all too well, and my gut sours.
“Mr. Heart? How do you know my parents?”
Mr. Heart rears back at my voice, and his top lip curls, though his eyes flare slightly, panic lacing the edges of his expression.
James is out of his seat and standing at my side in an instant. “This is the teacher who keeps trying to flunk you ever since he found out you had a baby?”
Dad, who had just been smiling as he introduced Mr. Heart to my daughter, turns a sharp, critical eye on him. “Excuse me? You have a problem with my daughter?”
Mr. Heart’s face blanches. “Sherman, n-no. I—”
“How do you two know each other?” I ask again as I step closer to James’s side and fist the back of his sweater. He’s looking at Mr. Heart the same way he looked at Tyler when he wanted to go after him in the grocery store. So is Dad.
“This here is Barbara’s son.” Dad’s face turns a mottled shade of red, and he clenches his jaw. “Are you telling me that Barbara—the kind-hearted woman who’s been working for me for the past twenty-five years—has a son who’s been mistreating my daughter? I’d sure like to know what she thinks about that, considering she has a soft spot for my granddaughter. Hell, she even came to Shayla’s baby shower.”
I’ve known Barbara all my life, so I know she has a different last name from Mr. Heart, and thus, I never made the connection between the two of them. They don’t share many physical similarities, either, since Barbara is a taller-than-average red-headed woman, and Mr. Heart is shorter than her with sandy brown hair. I knew she had a son and two daughters, and I knew their first names, but they’d all gone off to college by the time I was in kindergarten.
Mom sidles up to Dad and places a hand on his shoulder, seemingly holding him back the same as I’m doing with James.
“I should go,” Mr. Heart says with a slight tremor as he starts backing away. He seems to reconsider and asks, “You’re not going to fire my mother, are you?”
“Now, why in the hell would I do that? She’s a good woman, even if she did somehow raise a bad apple.” He huffs and shakes his head. “Actually, that has more to do with your father and the pathetic way he treated your mother when they were married, yeah? Because I know Barbara would tear a stripe off you if she knew what you were doing. Which she will,” he threatens.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Mr. Heart repeats several times, first to my parents, then to me. Or at least he tries to, but James moves in front of me with his hands clenched at his sides, blocking his view of me.
“There won’t be any more problems at school from now on, will there?” James asks with malice as I peek around him.
Mr. Heart, who is a head shorter than both men, is quick to shake his head and takes a few steps back. “No, no problems.”
I step around James, though he pulls me into his side, positioning me between him and my dad. “Not with me and not with any of the other moms, isn’t that right?” There are two other girls at school, one of whom is currently pregnant, and the other has a son a little older than Lainey, though I’m not sure either of them are his students. I sure hope not. “I don’t know what you have against young moms, but that’s done and over with now, isn’t it? For good.”
Mr. Heart looks ready to piss himself. He nods, apologizes again, then tucks his tail and exits the restaurant quickly.
Chapter 26
Shayla
After the upset with Mr. Heart and my parents’ admonishment for not telling them about his behavior before, they invited us back to their house after getting our desserts to go. I look longingly out the front window at James’s house across the street, more than ready to get him home alone so we can talk about what he revealed so nonchalantly back at the restaurant. I tried broaching the subject in the car, but he squeezed my hand and mumbled, “Later.”
After a quick introduction to my sisters, Bailey and Autumn, and my baby brother, Brady, Mom shoos the girls off to their room and puts Brady to sleep in his nursery. It’s past Grayson’s and Lainey’s bedtime, too, and I’m grateful that I’ll soon have the excuse we need to leave.
Dad settles into his brown leather recliner in the living room—the one no one is allowed to sit in, or so he says, since all he does is grumble when he finds one of us curled up in it. I smile as he tucks Lainey into his side with a board book.
The conversation turns to what James does for work. My smile falters when Dad asks him point blank what his salary is and what kinds of debts he has. Since Dad is in finance and can be just as nosy as Mom, I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s interested in James’s personal finances. But damn, this is the first time they’re officially meeting, and why in the world does he want or need to know?
To his credit, James doesn’t balk at Dad’s line of questioning. I know he does well for himself, but I’ve never pried or given any kind of impression that money has anything to do with why I want to be with him, as his sister, Alice, had disgustingly implied.
I send Mom a pleading look to steer the conversation away, but she just raises an eyebrow and fixes her attention on James. With that having failed, I cut James off before he can answer, completely mortified.
“Daddy, I love you, but couldn’t this conversation have waited until, I don’t know, never?”
Dad doesn’t look the least bit put out by my question. “Absolutely not. If you’re going to be together, then I need to know that you and my granddaughter will be taken care of.”
“Daddy, seriously. It’s the twenty-first century. Women aren’t relegated to being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. You know how important it is to me that I go to college and get a good job afterward to support us. James’s finances are irrelevant.”
