“Lead the way.”
Chapter45
Jack
I’d been hyping myself up for this conversation so much that I was actually shocked when I walked in on my parents snogging in the kitchen.
“Please you two,” I said, and they jumped apart, Mum wiping her mouth whilst Dad just strode directly out of the room. He was clearly as uncomfortable with me having witnessed it as I was. I wasn’t exactly surprised – it certainly wasn’t the first time – but I was possibly abitsensitive to displays of affection, even from Mum and Dad.
“Jack,” Mum said, smoothing her top, “so good to see you.”
“Is it?” I asked, raising an eyebrow to her. “Seems like I may have interrupted.”
“Never,” she said, walking over to me and leaning in for a kiss on the cheek, but I dodged it.
“No thank you,” I said. “Given the circumstances.”
Mum shrugged. I leaned against the counter as she put the kettle on.
“Dad?” I called, angling my head as if that would help me see around the corner in the hallway he’d disappeared down.
“Yes, son?” he called back; he’d got all the way upstairs.
“You got a minute?”
“Just a sec.” I heard his heavy tread on the stairs, clearly exaggerated, and a moment later, he was back in the kitchen, opening the fridge for a beer as if he hadn’t just been in here.
“Alrighty then,” I said, clutching my course booklet between my hands. Now that they were both here, it was showtime.
But I couldn’t quite manage to start.
“What do you need, son?” Dad asked, cracking open a can. “I’ve got some emails to send, as you well know.”
I nodded. I did know, though I was pretty sure his little make-out session hadn’t been helping, either. “Yes, well, sorry,” I said, “but this is a tough conversation to have.”
That got his attention. And Mum’s; she immediately waved both Dad and me into the lounge. I sat down on the armchair, whilst they settled on the sofa. Though settled was a strong word; they were perched on the edge clinging onto one another as if I were telling them I was dying. Hell, for all they knew, that was what I was going to say.And I still might, I thought,depending on Dad’s reaction.
“So I’ve been thinking about my future,” I said, and I saw Dad’s eyes narrow. But I took a deep breath and pushed forward. Technically I’d already done what I was telling them about, so avoiding the conversation really wasn’t really an option.
“What’s this about?” Dad asked, using his boss voice.
“It’s about work, Dad.” I leaned forward and put the booklet I’d been clutching down on the coffee table, then spun it around so it would face them.
“What’s this?” he asked, picking it up and bringing it close to his face, as if he didn’t have better than twenty-twenty vision.
“It’s a course catalogue,” Mum said, looking up at me, confused. “For Oxford?”
I shook my head. “Oxford Brookes. It’s where the RIBA certification courses are.”
“RIBA?” Dad looked up at me. As a contractor, he didn’t just know who RIBA were. He interacted with them all the time. Hell, our building contracts were a RIBA template.
“Yeah, Dad.”
“The architecture dickheads.”
“One and the same,” I said, pressing my mouth into a line as I watched him grasp at understanding. “I want to be one of them, actually.”
Dad sighed. “Look, Jackie. I know you like this stuff. But it’s not just drawing all the time. It’s a lot of admin still. You never get away from that.”
