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Eight perked up. “I played football. Why’d you stop?”
A shrug, and a tiny sidelong look at Marcella. “I like playing soccer more.”
The real answer was that he’d broken his leg playing football, in a hard tackle, and the Lewis women had decided nine-year-olds should not be playing contact sports. They could revisit in a few years, maybe, but she preferred his interest in soccer. Safer.
“Ah,” Eight said. “Okay. Well, it’s good to play sports, whatever you like. Keep ya healthy.”
Another couple minutes of eating and not talking. Marcella realized that she hadn’t said a word since she’d placed her order. Should she say something? She felt like a piece of the scenery, sitting here silently while this momentous thing happened, but what was her place in it?
While her gears spun without catching, Eight said, “You any good in school?”
“Yeah, pretty good,” Ajax answered, and Marcella caught him trying not to grin as he added, “Straight As, so far.”
Eight gave that information an appreciative nod. “Really? That’s great. I never liked school too much, myself. I only got As in gym. But I got to go to college for a while because of football.”
“I’m going to go to college.”
“Yeah? You know what you want to be?”
“A lot of things. I haven’t decided yet. Maybe an archeologist. Or a doctor. Or a teacher. Or an aeronautics engineer, like my grandpa. Or maybe a musician, like my mom. She’s teaching me guitar.”
“That’s a lot of different things.”
“Yeah. My mom says it’s good to like as many things as I want. The more things I think about and try out, the more sure I’ll be when I have to decide.”
Eight caught Marcella’s gaze and held there for a beat. Two beats. “That’s some smart advice.”
“Yeah. My mom’s smart.”
Eight and Marcella were still locked in that look. Something happened between them, a shift like gears finally meshing, but she didn’t understand what it meant.
Then Ajax asked, “Is Eight Ball your real name?”
A smirk sloped up Eight’s cheek, and he shifted back to their son. “Well, that depends what you mean. There’s another name on my birth certificate, but I don’t like it. Nobody uses it. So, yeah. Eight Ball’s my real name.” He shoved some chicken into his mouth, chewed, and asked, “What about your name? You like it?”
Marcella’s back went up at once. Whatever that moment between them had been didn’t matter. If this son of a bitch made a stink about her kid’s name to Ajax’s face, she would leap across this table and gouge his pretty blue eyes out their sockets.
Ajax was nodding. “Yeah. I’m named for a great warrior of Greek mythology. Ajax the Great was one of the bravest, strongest warriors in the Trojan War.”
“Huh,” Eight mused. “Brave and strong. Those are good things to be.”
Ajax nodded seriously. “Yes, they are.”
With a jolt, Marcella realized something: Eight was reallytrying. That was what she’d sensed between them. He was really here, really in. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he was trying to do it right.
He really wanted this. He wanted to know his son. To be a part of his life.
That was absolutely fucking terrifying.
~oOo~
When she and Ajax got into the CR-V, Marcella locked the doors. It was stupid; Eight was gone, and he hadn’t done anything threatening, but she felt a little pat of calm when the locks thunked down.
She felt like she was stalled out on a country road, watching a tornado spin toward her. An F4 at least. Maybe F5.
Maybe she was wrong, maybe Eight would get distracted by something shiny and disappear again, but by the evidence of the past ninety minutes, her entire life, and Ajax’s, too, was about to get thrown wildly around by the storm that was Eight Ball Johnston.
She should want this. Ajax wanted it, so she should, too. If he could have a relationship with his father, it could fill in a gap in who he was, what he wanted. It could make him stronger, more secure.
