Preston
“Dammit. Would you sit still, Jameson?” Becca snaps when he reaches for her orange juice again.
“He wants some of your OJ,” I inform her, even though that’s fucking obvious to anyone with half a brain.
Her eyes narrow. “It has way too much sugar and he’s hyper enough already.” Sighing, she looks down at him. “Fine. If you want some juice, then you need to use your words and tell Mommy.”
Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
Tamping down my annoyance with her—because she knows damn well that pushing him to speak when he doesn’t want to only makes things worse—I signal the waitress. However, I’m too late because Jameson reaches for the juice again…this time knocking it over in the process.
“Goddammit,” Becca shouts as she reaches for some napkins. “That’s it. You’re going in a highchair.”
I quickly get up from the table and scoop up Jameson who’s making grabby arms for me. “Come on, buddy. You can sit by me.”
Unlike his mother, my tolerance for the three-year-old is much higher.
I order two orange juices from the waitress when she appears, much to Becca’s dismay.
“We can take him to the park after so he can burn off the sugar high.” Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the plastic dragon figurine I picked up at the toy store earlier and hand it to him. “Look what I found in my pocket.”
His eyes go wide as he pretends to make it fly around the table.
“Say thank you,” Becca utters.
I start to tell her he doesn’t have to, but the waitress comes back with their juices.
Another long sigh leaves her. “I’m gonna book an appointment with a specialist soon.”
I take a bite of my burger. “For what?”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “For Jameson.” Her eyes close. “There’s something wrong with him, Preston. He should have started speaking by now.”
Irritation prickles along the back of my neck. Not only because she’s talking about this stuff in front of him, but there are times when he speaks.
Granted he doesn’t say much, and it only happens when he and I are alone…but it’s something.
Which means he’s capable of talking. He just doesn’t want to.
“He’s fine. He probably just hates people.”
And who the fuck could blame him? Society fucking blows.
She rolls her eyes. “Maybe, but I need to make sure he isn’t retard—”
“Becca,” I grit out, my voice low and lethal.
Not only do I not want Jameson hearing his own mother calling him that, the word sets my teeth on edge since my father used it frequently.
I can feel Jameson’s big brown eyes staring up at me curiously, so I relax my features. “Eat your chicken nuggets so we can go to the park.”
He debates this for a moment before scrunching his face and pushing his plate away.
I can tell Becca wants to yell at him, but I hold up a hand. The kid practically lives off chicken nuggets, meatballs, and pancakes, so the fact that he hasn’t taken more than a nibble out of one means something is wrong.
I grab a nugget off his plate and bring it to my mouth. Almost immediately, an off-putting taste hits my tongue and I spit the remnants into a napkin. No wonder he doesn’t want any.
I signal for the waitress again. “These taste like ass.”
“I’m sorry about that,” the waitress says when she comes back to our table. “I’ll bring the little man a new plate.”
It won’t matter. His experience has already been tainted so he won’t trust that the new ones won’t taste like shit, too.
Jameson might not be mine, but he’s so much like me it’s uncanny.
I turn to him. “How about some pancakes instead?”
He mulls this over for a bit before giving me a small nod.
Becca makes an irritated noise in her throat as the waitress walks off. “I wish you would have just told me you didn’t like them.”
A frown mars his face, almost like he’s disappointed with himself for not being able to speak and upsetting his mom.
But he shouldn’t be. He’ll talk when he’s ready.
Or not.
Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it and figure out a way for him to communicate his needs and wants.
I motion to the toy dragon. “He’s cool, huh?”
The smile he gives me chips away at the ice around my heart.
“Where are you staying this weekend?” Becca questions suddenly, catching me off guard.
I used to crash on her couch during the weekends I visited Jameson, but since she’s been even more persistent about getting into my pants, I’d been staying at a nearby motel.
However, seeing as I’ll be stuck in Connecticut for the foreseeable future now, I have to come up with a story that will pacify her and explain my presence.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
She stops picking at her bowl of cottage cheese. “What’s up?”
The one benefit of me living here again is that I’ll get to see Jameson a lot more.
As long as Becca never finds out about Kit. The muscles in my chest draw tight. And Kit never finds out about Becca.
“I’ll be staying in Connecticut for a while.”
“Okay.” She arches a brow. “Why?”
Here goes nothing.
“My mom is sick.” The irony that I’ve used a woman I haven’t spoken to in years as a cover-up story multiple times lately isn’t lost on me. “She needs someone to take care of her.”
I’ll give Becca credit because she isn’t half as dumb as she looks. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch,” I deadpan because acting dubious will only make her buy it that much more.
“Bullshit.” She places her spoon down. “What’s in it for you?”
I lower my voice a fraction, like I’m about to let her in on a big secret. “She’s contesting my father’s will. Apparently, she found a good lawyer who thinks she’ll win the case against Asher…especially now that she has cancer.” I shrug. “She offered to split it with me if I agreed to be a character witness…and stick around and make sure the private nurse she hired doesn’t kill her before she can collect.”
I can practically see the wheels in her head spinning. “Interesting.” She picks up her spoon again. “To tell you the truth, I never understood why your dad left most of his money to your brother. It should have gone to your mom since she was his wife.”
Anger swells hot in my chest. It should have gone to me.
She brings the spoon to her mouth but pauses. “How much money we talkin’ here?”
I resist the urge to tell her there is no we, but I can’t because as always, she’s got the better hand.
And he’s currently sitting right next to me, playing with his new toy dragon while he waits for his pancakes.
“I don’t know,” I settle on. “It depends what the judge decides…and how much of it my brother spent while he had access to it.”
She snorts. “Knowing the pampered asshole, it’s probably all gone.”