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“Yeah.”
What the fuck am I supposed to do? She’s probably going to cry in the car and she freaked out when she touched my leg. It’s not like I can give her a hug. We slowly leave after she turns a few times to catch one last glimpse of him.
When we finally get to the car, things are uncomfortably silent. She sniffles a few times and checks her phone after it pings with a new text and she finally smiles.
Must be Ted.
I wonder where he’s taking her and if they’ve gone on trips alone before. I’m not jealous, I am just curious how she’s doing with some guy that she probably doesn’t treat like the devil.
“So Ted…” I say, trying to spark some kind of conversation with this girl. I know only a handful of things about her and even less about him.
“What about him?” she asks, not even looking at me.
“Jadon seems to like him. Are they close?” Jadon wouldn’t shut up about the guy yesterday when Tom left us alone in his office “to bond.” He mostly rambled about how Ted’s “awesome.” I doubt it. Allie is straight and narrow. She would date a no-personality pencil-pusher. I know about fun, so Jadon is in for a reality check, here, real soon.
Not that it’s a competition.
“Jadon loves Ted and yeah, they’re close. Ted is kind of like this big brother to him. He plays with him a lot and helps calm Jadon down if he has a bad dream or thinks there’s something in his closet watching him.”
“How often does he have bad dreams?” I ask. Also, Ted sleeps over? In her room?
She sighs, “Umm, not too often, but when he does, it’s usually on the nights when Ted is over, so sometimes I think it’s more to get attention from him.”
“Why would he want Ted over you? I mean, you’re his mother.”
“I spoke to a counselor who thinks it’s Jadon’s way of developing a paternal relationship with someone who takes an interest in him as a father or other parent would. I think it’s because Ted brings him cookies and reads him extra stories to fall back asleep.”
That hurts. Jadon wants Ted to be his dad so he can fill that void. Jadon doesn’t exactly hate me, but how am I supposed to compete with the guy who has been in his life since he was born?
“Does your girlfriend know about Jadon yet?” she asks, interrupting my string of uncomfortable thoughts. “My dad mentioned you were in a relationship.”
“Umm, no. She doesn’t do well with a lot of change in her life and likes things the way she likes them. She’s going through something at the moment, and I am waiting for the right time to tell her.”Like which color interior she wants in this season’s car and which shade of whatever she wants in her hair. Oh, and she’s supposed to be looking for a job, too.
She rolls her eyes and looks out the window. “Well, I’d say he can come over to your house after you’ve told her, and she’s fine with it.”
“Well, she doesn’t technically live with me, so it’s not like I need her permission to bring my son home.”
“Yeah, but you’ll need mine and I will not have him caught up in your girlfriend not wanting him around if she wants to be the center of attention. Jadon doesn’t compete for it in our home, and won’t compete for it in yours. If he senses something is wrong, he will shut down. And I’m not saying this to be a jerk, Lucas. It’s a warning that comes from experience.”
“Okay, I get it, but he’s my son, too, and Katrina is an adult. She won’t stoop so low as to compete with a four-year-old.”
“Katrina, as in Katrina Vandenburg?” she asks.
“Uh, yeah? You know her?” I wouldn’t be surprised since we met at Kat’s house.
“Not personally, but I know of her and her family. If you didn’t tell my dad, you should wait because he hates that family.”
“Noted.” Hard to imagine Tom hating someone, but okay. I’ll work him up to it. “She and I got together a few times in high school and then reconnected about two years ago.” Reconnected makes it sound formal. Like we weren’t both crowned at prom together and shipped in the yearbook as the cutest couple or whatever.
Kat and I saw one another off and on when she showed up at school and between her flings with guys on the various teams until she just stuck around one day.
Yeah, not the romantic story of the ages at all.
“You getting married soon, or just waiting to toss her out of your car, too?” she asks in what I’m assuming is a joke, but considering how sensitive Allie is, I won’t joke about it.
“I guess. I mean, she wants to get married and we probably will, eventually.”
Allie doesn’t respond, so I decide to move away from the Katrina conversation. “You going to marry Ted if he asks you?”
