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“So, Felix said you broke the school record for skating a lap,” Jim encouraged, after exhausting movies, school, and the weather. He probably thought hockey was a safe subject, but not even that got Felix to talk. If anything, Felix went quieter as he picked at his dinner and avoided looking at me.
Mom was using that high-pitched laugh of hers, the one that sounded forced, trying to be bright and fun and over-the-top vivacious. Jim was clearly nervous, but he was also forcing jollity, raising his glass in a toast at the drop of the hat. “Here’s to friends. Here’s to family. Here’s to mashed potatoes.” I could feel the worry in both him and my mom, the way Felix wasn’t joining in, and I didn’t know how to fix things. It was clear that Mom had fallen for Jim, and that they were happy together, after all, I’d just seen them in the kitchen, laughing and hugging as she cut up pie. They didn’t know I’d seen them, and I backed out right away, hands still full of condiments, straight into Felix, who apologized, sidestepped me, and then scampered back to the table in double time.
This was ridiculous. Even more so when Jim and Mom came back out and placed the slices on the table along with a shit ton of other sweet treats, one at a time.
“Your mom said you like chocolate, right?” he said. “So, I got a cheesecake, some of those nutty bar things, banoffee pie, which isn’t strictly chocolate, but it has all the shavings on top. And of course, pumpkin pie. Hmmm. What else…” He peered at the enormous collection of diabetes-inducing candy-based desserts he’d laid out. “Oh, and I have three kinds of chocolate sprinkles, not that you have to have them, but Felix likes them, and I thought you might… not that I’m assuming what you like… or assuming…” He sat down after running out of things to say, and everyone was silent.
“Okay,” I said, and Mom glanced at me, because that was not a kindokay,it was an okay filled with warning. “Mr. Maxwell-Sinclair?”
“You can call me Jim,” he said immediately.
“Jim.” I inclined my head even though it was weird to use his first name. “I love chocolate. I love that you went to this much trouble, and if it’s okay with you, Iwillwant to take home a portion of everything.”
He blinked at me. “Sure thing, Tyler.”
“And I want to apologize for what I said at the school.” There was more blinking, and my mom reached over the table past a tub of whipped cream for my hand and squeezed it tight. I didn’t know if it was a warning, or encouragement, but either way, I wasn’t stopping now. “You’re not my dad, and you won’t ever be my dad, because my dad was evil and hateful, and he made my mom cry every single day.”
Mom gasped. “Tyler—”
“No, Mom. It’s true. And, Jim, if you make my mom happy, then as far as I’m concerned, we’re family, and I hope Felix isn’t being a moody ass because he has an issue with you dating my mom?”
Felix glanced at me in shock. “Of course, I don’t,” he mumbled. “I love your mom being with Dad.” He tilted his chin. “They’re happy, and I want that for my dad.”
Opposite me, Mom was all teary.
“So, please, I didn’t mean to snap at you, Jim, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Also, sometimes, I might want a dad’s advice, and maybe you can be there when I do, if that’s okay with Felix.”
At least Felix nodded, which was something.
Jim’s mouth opened, and his eyes were as bright as my mom’s. “Always.”
“And Felix?”
Felix jumped as if I’d thrown water at him, his eyes widening. “What?” he asked cautiously. “I said it was okay.”
“Not about that. I mean, what is your freaking problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” he defended, but after having so much of him getting in my face, I’d learned to read Felix.
“If this is the bullying thing, then we all do things to survive high school, and I trust that you won’t hurt me now. Or let anyone else hurt me. But if we can’t get past this thing where you won’t even look at me, then I don’t know what to do.”
Jeez. Where was all this bravery coming from?
“I’m sorry,” Felix muttered, then stood so fast his chair slid on the wooden floor and hit a side table. “I’m sorry!” he shouted, and then he left the room.
Now what? I glanced at Jim, who stared at my mom, then after an unspoken discussion, stood.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ll go after him.”
Jim immediately picked up a plate and slid pie onto it. “He likes the pumpkin one,” he said, then added a chocolate slice. I pocketed two forks, then wasn’t sure where to go. “Yard, at the back past the vegetables.”
I headed through the kitchen, slipped out of the back door, and found Felix faster than I would have at his last house with its sprawl of manicured gardens. He was standing by a bench, his back to me, talking on his phone. Man, it was cold out here. I should have grabbed my coat.
“… I don’t know. What if Jonah tells him some of the things I said? What if all I’ve done has messed up my dad being happy. How do I tell Tyler …” He listened to whatever the other person was saying. “But babe…”
