“Fine,” he answers, his attention on the laptop between us.
“Good. That’s… good.” I take a sip of scalding coffee, nearly burning my tongue.I’m failing.This whole experiment in fatherhood is a catastrophic failure. “You still enjoying engineering?”
“Bio,” he corrects. “Bioengineering.”
“Right.”I knew that. Or I should’ve.
He gives me a look that’s not quite annoyed, but close. Like he’s trying to figure out what I’m doing here. “You didn’t come here to talk about my major,” he grouses.
“No,” I admit. “I was in the area. Thought I’d stop by.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
“How’s your mom?”
He shrugs again. “Same.”
“That good or bad?”
“Depends on the day.”
Fair.
I dip my head, not pushing further, already knowing exactly how she’s doing.
Isabella and I didn’t divorce on poor terms. We still talk several times a month, mostly about Gabriel. The two of us were barely eighteen when we were surprised with her pregnancy, and we had no business getting married. But we did. While our marriage barely lasted two years, joining the military to give my family a better life forced me to turn my life around. Had I not joined the army, I’m certain I’d be exactly where the guys of the gang I used to run with are—dead or behind bars.
His fingers tap lightly—and restlessly—against his cup, like he’s waiting for something.Likely for this to be over.I shift slightly, trying to find a better angle into the conversation. “How’s… uh…” My mind blanks. He’s mentioned her name before.It starts with an M.Macey? Madison?“Mikayla,” I guess, stepping onto thin ice.
He glances up at me, and I catch a glimmer of raw pain before it shuts down behind a wall of cold indifference. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think we’re going to work out.”
“You okay?” I ask.
His gaze meets mine, and he looks at me,reallylooks at me, like he’s weighing whether or not that question deserves an honest answer.
“Yeah,” he says after a second. “I’m fine.”
Yeah… Fine…The two words that make up his half of almost every conversation we have, not actually sharing anything with me. He’s so much like me, it hurts. Same walls and same instinct to retreat when things get close. I gave him the best and worst parts of me, and somehow skipped everything in between.
I lean forward slightly, resting my forearms on the table. “You can tell me if you’re not.”
“That’s kind of the problem, though, right?” He huffs out a breath, shaking his head. “You show up every once in a while and act like we’re going to have this deep conversation, and then you disappear again.”
“I’m here now,” I insist softly.
“Yeah, but for how long?”
I don’t answer right away because my answer is shit.
Five minutes… Maybe ten… With no definitive return date.
His eyes flick to his laptop again, then back up at me.
“I’ve got class in a few minutes,” he mumbles, shutting the lid. “So… I appreciate the coffee, but I have to get going.”
“Right. Of course.” I push back slightly as he stands abruptly, slinging the strap of his book bag over his shoulder. For a second, it looks like he might say something else, but he doesn’t. “See you around, Gabriel.”
“Yeah.” He turns and walks out, disappearing into the flow of students outside without glancing back.
