Page 13 of An Unexpected Turn
“Of course.” I sputtered out a nervous laugh. “I’m good, really.”
She eyed me as she opened the dishwasher door and shoved the rest inside.
As I’d always told my students, it was hard to tell anyone your problems when you couldn’t admit them to yourself.
SIX
JAKE
“So what else can you tell me about school?” I asked my son from my side of the vinyl booth. I’d brought him to this diner hundreds of times on our weekends together, and he always ordered the same thing. The waitresses who knew him brought him a grilled cheese sandwich and french fries the second he sat down.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled around a fry. “It’s fine, I guess.”
“I know you love the fries here, but they may taste better if you stop to come up for air.”
A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth as he looked up.
“I’m just starving. Gym is forty-five minutes at the end of the day. That’s torture.”
“They make you do physical activity?” I clutched my chest in mock horror. “For a whole forty-five minutes? Not a chance to look at your phone even once? You’re right, that’s pure torture.” I stole a fry from his plate. “Remind me to call the school tomorrow.”
“Very funny, Dad.” He rolled his eyes. “Would it be okay if I went over to someone’s house tomorrow night? It’s a birthday party right down the block.”
“Whose party is it? One of the guys from the group chat?”
“Aaron.”
“Aaron Score? The house right before the dead end? I worked on that house for weeks before they moved in.” I laughed. “You can go. I’ll take you to buy a present for him tomorrow before you head over.”
“Cool.” He went back to his fries, and I felt a bit unsettled at how easy it had been for the last month. He got on the bus in the morning, we had dinner at night, he gave me one-word answers like all teenagers when I asked about his day, but it didn’t feel as tense or as forced as it had been when he’d first moved in. Had we turned a corner so soon? Maybe finding some friends was helping ease his hurt feelings about his mother dumping him here. Either way, I’d take it, even if I feared it wouldn’t last long.
“Mike, I thought that was you!”
Peyton came up to our table, almost out of nowhere. Mikey straightened in his seat when he noticed her.
“Hi, Ms. Miller.”
“Hello to you too, Jake.” She flashed me a big smile, and I cursed the flutters that took off in my stomach. Forty-six-year-old men shouldn’t get butterflies or be so damn captivated by a woman they hardly knew and had a million reasons to stay away from.
“Nice to see you, Peyton.” I grinned when her eyes flicked to mine for a beat before turning back to Mikey.
“I’m picking up an order for the family. Uncle Keith was going to come, but I felt like heading out for a drive. It’s a nice night to be out of the basement.”
My smile matched hers, and for the moment, it didn’t feel so wrong to like this woman. Well, maybe it still did, but it felt natural and good.Reallygood—reaffirming how much I needed to keep my distance.
“I suppose it is.”
We all turned to my phone as it buzzed across the table. I cringed when I spotted my ex-wife’s number flash across the screen.
“Eileen? What’s up?”
“Is our son with you?” she asked, clipped and impatient even though she hadn’t even said hello.
I eyed Mikey, no longer eating with the same gusto as he slumped against his seat.
“He is. Why?”
“I’d like to talk to him since he hasn’t responded to a text in days. What did you do, have him block my number?”
