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“Not without sunscreen, you’re not.” I lean down to grab the sunscreen from my bag. My dad has brought him home with far too many sunburns. I toss the bottle to him, which he catches. “I understand you’re mad at me still, but you’re not taking it out on his skin.”
My dad turns around and leaves without another word. Lucas stays behind.
“What?” I ask him, annoyed.
“I’m just wondering, when do you want to break the news to him?”
“To Jadon? I don’t know. How about never?” Lucas gives me a pointed look. “Fine, how about we have dinner at our house and you can spend some time with him? After he’s comfortable with you, we can tell him.”
Lucas smiles and nods, but it appears genuine and I see too much of Jadon right there in that face. “That sounds great. Can I bring him something, like a toy?”
“Uh, yeah? He likes cars, dinosaurs, and trains. Nothing he can easily stick in his nose or ear. Nothing sharp, no weapons, and nothing that makes noise. He never stops with the toys that make noise and they drive me up the wall.”
Lucas smiles. That same one that got me to go outside with him at that stupid party.
He turns to leave, but then stops. “What time are we going to take that tour?”
“I’m leaving at one.” Oh right.Great.
“Okay, is it alright that I leave with you guys?”
No. Absolutely not. “Sure.”
I hate myself.
With that, he leaves, taking that stupid man scent with him and I can breathe again.
I know about psychology. I know if I tell myself enough times that I don’t like it, I will eventually believe it. It worked telling myself I hated him all these years, so that stupid Lucas-brand cologne will soon become something that makes me nauseous or maybe give me a much-needed migraine.
I’ll give him one thing, though. He’s making it on day one. We’ll see what he does when he realizes how much daycare is. I know he’s not making it rain with money yet and probably has a lot of school loans to pay off. He won’t want to pay for childcare on top of everything else.
When one o’clock rolls around, I head over to my dad’s office to get Jadon and Lucas. When I walk in, I see my dad is nowhere to be found, and Lucas is sitting across a desk from Jadon.
Coloring.
Talking to Jadon, andJadon talking back to him.
Great. I was hoping this wouldn’t be easy on him, considering how hard everything has been on me these past few years.
“Ready to go?” I ask the two of them.
“Yeah!” Jadon runs over to me with a piece of paper in hand. He holds it up to me. “This is you, me, and Ted, and here’s Grampa swimming in the lake behind us,” he points to a picture of the usual quality of a four-year-old. Without the interpretation, no one could have guessed what it was.
That stupid lake will forever be the bane of my existence every time I think about it. I always stay far, far away from that glass lake house where I met Lucas.
“Wow! This is great. Okay, did you tell Lucas thank you for coloring with you?”
“Thank you, Lucas,” he says.
“Hey buddy, it was great! We had fun, right?”
“Yeah,” Jadon leans into me, shying away from Lucas suddenly, while wrapping himself around my thigh.
“Okay then, let’s get going.” I pick up Jadon, and we all walk out to the car. Lucas tried to help with getting Jadon into his seat, but I’m not having it. He needs to take a few steps back before he just jumps right in trying to be a freaking super dad. I know he doesn’t want to piss me off, knowing he’s on thin ice with my dad and I hold the metaphorical key to Jadon.
We get to the daycare, and I will say that I am much more impressed with this one. It has all the necessities and they start with language learning early on. This is, technically, the most expensive one on my list.
Jadon immediately took to the kids playing and some teachers while the director gave us a tour. I glanced at Lucas a few times to see how he was taking it. For just having found out he had a kid, he either has the perfect poker face or he doesn’t realize this is an unnerving experience.
