Jay
Chase surprised me. He wasn’t completely worthless on the skateboard like the rest of us. Monty was showing him a trick that involved a one-eighty turn, and Chase only fell on his ass every other time.
The day was getting hot, and I sat on a bench in the shade of a maple tree while Chase sweated in the sun. When he offered to go buy us something to drink from a kiosk on the other side of the skatepark, Monty came shuffling to the bench.
He sat next to me and rolled the skateboard back and forth with his feet.
“It’s getting hot, huh?” I said. I could tell something was on his mind, but if I pushed, he’d only clamp up on me.
“Uh-huh.” He glanced to where Chase was standing in the queue in front of the kiosk, then back at his feet.
“Do you want to head home soon?” I asked.
“In a bit.”
“Okay.”
A minute of silent shuffling followed.
“I like him,” Monty mumbled.
Oh Lord.I swallowed against the lump in my throat. I needed to keep my cool.
“Chase?”
“Yeah. He’s okay.”
I stared ahead at nothing in particular, all my senses on my kid. “He’s nice. I like him too.”
“So he’s your boyfriend?”
“Yes. Are you okay with that?”
He shrugged. “Not my business, right?”
“If he spends time with us, then it’s a little your business too.”
“I guess.”
I took a slow breath. Monty seemed way too careful, which made me apprehensive. “Would you be okay with him being around now and then?” I asked.
“How often?”
“I don’t know. Maybe once every other week?”
He seemed to mull that over. “But you’re meeting him more often than that. You go on dates with him when I’m with Hugh and Kirby.”
“I do.”
“He can come here with us again.”
“You’d like that?”
Another shrug. “It’s a little weird.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not bad weird. Just…he doesn’t look like a dad.”
