“Aw, Uncle Cruz is friends with this creeper.” Bear snapped me out of my reverie, opening the passenger door for me and helping me out.
I felt seasick.
I couldn’t believe Cruz gave Rob such a warm welcome after everything we’d shared these past ten days.
“Please stop calling him Uncle Cruz. He is not your uncle.”
“Is that what we’re focusing on right now?” Bear wheeled both our suitcases to our door, sulking.
“Let me do the speaking when we get there,” I told him.
“Why? He was a jerk to me, too, remember?”
“Trust me, I do, but this needs to be handled with subtlety.”
“Mom, you and subtlety can’t even coexist in the same universe.”
My stomach felt like someone had filled it with stones before I even reached the threshold of my door.
Bear was right beside me, and when Rob took him in for the first time—this carbon copy of himself when he was thirteen—he stumbled backward from the impact. As if Bear’s face alone wounded him in some way.
“Jesus Christ.” He put his hand over his mouth. His eyes were two, bright green moons.
“Yup.” Bear popped the P, completely disregarding my request that he wouldn’t speak. “It’s called genetics, Dad. Look it up on the internet.”
“I’m sorry I called, Bear. I just…” Rob was trying to find the right words.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Bear let out a metallic laugh. “Be sorry you haven’t been here for thirteen years, jackass. See you on the flip side. I’ll be inside if you need me, Mom.”
With that, Bear kissed my cheek, pushed the screen door open, and stormed in with our suitcases.
I’d never loved that kid more.
I turned to Rob with a scowl. “I cannot believe you called him.”
Though, actually, I could. What else could I expect from a selfish, narcissitic bas…card?
“You left me no choice,” Rob said pliantly, his shoulders sagging. “You wouldn’t take any of my calls.”
“I ought to sue you.” Sue, strangle, shoot, whatever.
“I have the right to see him,” Rob reminded me sensibly.
Cruz stood next to Rob, like a useless albeit beautiful houseplant.
“How was your cruise?” Rob tried diversion as a strategy.
Great, I rode your best friend.
“None of your business.” I gritted my teeth. “This is the last unannounced visit you ever pay me, you got that, Gussman?”
“I worked on your front yard while you weren’t here. And wrote you a check. I’m going to start paying child support from now on. Here.” Rob reached into his pocket, fishing out a crumpled piece of paper.
I took it, tore it in front of his eyes, and made a show of throwing the shreds in the air like confetti, thinking it wasn’t as pleasant as people made it look like in the movies, since I really did need the money and also would now need to clean up the mess of paper bits afterwards.
“You’ll pay me child support. But the court will decide what sum you’re going to pay and it’s all going to be official. We’re not pretending you’re doing me any favors.” And, because I hated that Cruz was watching this entire ordeal, I turned to my spring fling. “Well? You had your show for today. Thank you for the ride. Why don’t you go along to your clinic now, Dr. Costello?”
Cruz’s eyes darkened. I knew I was being needlessly mouthy, but I had no other choice.
I couldn’t show weakness and I wasn’t ready to show our…whatever this connection was or was going to be. Not until we’d figured it out better.
“Catch you later, Rob.” Cruz clapped my ex-boyfriend’s shoulder before getting off of my front porch, ignoring my existence.
It was just Rob and I now.
“I’m not going to give up, Nessy.”
I wanted to physically recoil from the nickname. To pick it up like it was an inanimate object and hurl it back at him.
“I’m not asking you to, and it’s Tennessee now.”
Or at least, I wanted it to be.
I liked the way Cruz used my given name.
“Let me talk to him. But don’t ever bypass me again. I mean it, Rob. You messed it up. Now you’re going to play by our rules.”
“Fair,” he said. “I’m sorry again. It was a bad night. I didn’t know y’all left for a cruise. Only found out after the fact. I thought that you…that you just took him from me and ran.”
I bristled. “I’d never do that.”
Unless I won the lottery, but he needn’t know that. And I could see how it may have sort of—okay totally—looked that way.
“Yeah. I know that now. My mother filled me in on the Costello-Turner cruise. He’s a good-looking kid. Looks like me when I was his age.”
“The arrogance of you to think you were that beautiful or innocent.”
“Come on, you know it’s true.”
But no matter how much I wanted to want to stab Rob to death, it was hard when he ultimately gave me the best gift of all, my child, and it seemed like he was genuinely eager to get to know Bear now.
And he had done the yard… demonstrating willingness to put in more effort than writing a check.
Plus, I couldn’t let my personal history impact Bear’s choices to get to know his family—maybe even his other grandparents—and gaining more loved ones in the long run.
“Let me talk to Bear. I’ll ease him into the idea of finding out more about you, but I’m warning you right now, Robert, I’m not going to pressure him. If he is not open to the idea, you’re going to have to give him room to breathe until he comes around.” I lifted one finger in the air in warning.
Rob nodded. “Is there anything I can buy him? Anything that he particularly wants?”
I thought about the Assassin’s Creed game. I shook my head.
“Bear is not bribable.”
“Good kid.”
“Yeah, no thanks to you. Don’t look so proud.”
“Can I ask you something off-topic?” Rob scratched the side of his jaw, a gesture that brought back fond memories that made me want to be sick.
I wondered how many people already knew he was back in town and who the woman he’d decide to date would be now he was home.
“No,” I said flatly. “The only topic you and I have in common is Bear.”
But Rob went ahead, anyway.
“Is there anything going on between you and Costello?”
I let out a laugh, shook my head, turned my back, and slammed my door in his face.
I wish.
Later that evening, Bear and I were flung on the couch in front of a reality TV show where celebrities were stuck on an island, eating worms and uncooked rice, drinking raindrops to survive, while fighting one another about existential threats like hair extensions or who really had butt implants.
“What do you think about giving your dad a chance to explain himself?” I asked casually, passing Bear a bowl of freshly made popcorn.
Bear buried his hand in the bowl and tossed a handful of it into his mouth.
“I think it’s never going to happen.”
“Never is a strong word.”