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Then shoved his chair back and exclaimed, “I can’t do this here.” Then left.
Cue Blake calling him five million times.
Jacob parked the car and pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head. He wondered if his brother would now demand to know who his own father was. In his shoes, Jacob would.
But then again, Blake was about to become a father and had always looked more to the future than the past. Jacob tended to be more sentimental. He was always reminding everyone in the family about things.
“Remember when Amelia decided her doll needed dessert that one holiday, and Aunt Christine found her in the bedroom drunk from the adults’ eggnog?” Jacob had asked a few years back.
“That was an accident!” Amelia cried. “The cup was too full, and my doll was going to spill it...so I drank it.”
Logan and Aidan snorted.
“No one told me it had rum in it!” she mumbled in defense.
“You were seven,” Christine said, shaking her head. “And we were very embarrassed to let our child get so tipsy.”
“Fast forward a few years and she was stealing the rum from the liquor cabinet.” Aidan chortled.
“That was you,” Uncle Andrew said, shooting his son a dark look.
“Oh yeah. My bad.”
“Stop reminiscing before we all end up in the doghouse.” Logan threw a cushion at Jacob.
“He does it every year. You were too young to remember all of that, Jacob. But he loves telling stories.” His mom had scoffed.
He’d insisted that he did remember the memory, but now it was hard to know. Who knew, maybe it was just a tale he had rehashed, but the fact remained, Jacob seemed to be more emotionally driven than his brother.
Which was probably why he was having trouble figuring out what to do with the news about his father.
The truth was, he would’ve liked to be told the life-changing news in private. Somewhere the three of them could’ve talked and asked questions. But oh no, his mother announced it at peak Dufort family time.
Jacob was becoming more and more aware of just how thoughtless, or rather selfish, his mother was. Had she done it on purpose? Clearly, she had no intention of explaining or apologizing to him.
And likely never would.
Jacob lay his wrist on the steering wheel and glanced out across the sculptured laws.
Perhaps him being more sensitive was why he’d fallen in love so young. At least to him, it had felt like love.
What did he know?
No one spoke to him and Blake about the birds and the bees or how to manage their emotions with girls.
No one.
So at thirteen, Jacob fell in love.
Jesus, why am I thinking about this now?
Jenny Winthrop.
He and Jenny had hung out at every recess. Jacob walked her to school and home again every day. He went to her house when she invited him and sat listening to her favorite music. Jenny went to all his basketball games.
One afternoon, just before both of them turned fifteen, they made love. He was sure she was the girl he would spend his life with. Mentally he was planning what that looked like and even got her a, albeit cheap, little ring.
Then suddenly, out of the blue, Jenny dumped him, saying he was too nice.
