At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(13)
The silence that follows is deafening; only the crunching of Jonas’s sugary cereal cuts through the still air. Then the slurping of milk from his bowl.
I yawn. Loudly and for a long time.
Jonas blinks up at me, studying my face. “If you’re younger than Auntie Blair, why do you look so much more tired all the time?”
I take a long drink of hot coffee, doing my best to ignore Blair’s snickering as she places her empty mug in the dishwasher.
“Really funny.” My mug clunks against the table, and I press the pad of my thumb to my temple with a wince. “Bowl. Sink. Now.”
Popping a shoulder, he does as he’s instructed. But not without a little bit of sass, naturally. “Just sayin’. Maybe you should try using all those creams you have in your bathroom or something while I’m gone.”
The slight tension in my skull might become a full-blown migraine before he sees himself out the door. And on a day with more than one hundred résumés and a dozen interviews to get through, no less.
“Want a kid?” I turn to my sister, who’s desperately trying to wipe the smirk from her lips. “He’s free, he’s potty-trained, and he occasionally listens. Please, take him.”
“But then I might look old like you,” Blair quips.
“Oh, you definitely will. Bet you have gray hair by the end of the day. But look at his cute little face—isn’t it worth it?”
Jonas’s lip flips in disgust, making him arguably less cute.
“Yeah, you’re doing a crappy job of selling him. I like looking young”—she flicks the ends of her long brown hair with a dramatic flourish—“and beautiful.”
Jonas slides into his shoes and looks at me with pleading eyes. “See? I have to stay home today so she doesn’t get ugly.”
The last of my coffee goes down in a rapid gulp. The next cup sounds like it might need a shot of liquor in it.
“Good try, buddy.” Blair ruffles the mop of dirty blond hair on top of his head.
“If I stay here, I promise I won’t be too loud while Mom works.”
“Jonas,” I wearily reply. “We’ve talked about the summer plan a million times. You get Mondays and Thursdays at home.”
The summer plan, also known as operation keep Jonas from having fifteen hours of screen time every day while simultaneously ensuring he’s not out with his awful friends causing trouble. He spends two weekdays with Blair and one with my dad. I wish I could rely on Alex, instead of my dad and sister, but he’s blown us off twice in the last week. Last Friday I made the mistake of promising Jonas that his dad was coming—you’d think I’d know better after ten years of this bullshit—and I was left with a sulky preteen for two full days when, inevitably, Alex didn’t show.
Jonas huffs, pushing past Blair to get out of the house as fast as possible. So desperate to prove he’s pissed off, he skipped tying his shoelaces during his irritated escape.
I mouth an apology at my sister.
Slowly shutting the front door as she follows him out, Blair says, “Nothing I can’t handle. I’m gonna need a Sephora gift card sent my way, though.”
The house is silent, save for the melodious percolation of coffee, and though I should get ready for work, I sink into my chair with an alleviating breath.
Once I finally work up the energy to start my day, the morning goes by in a flurry of résumés and job interviews. Corporate recruiter might not be most people’s dream job, and I can understand why. The upside is that conducting interviews for a variety of positions in the private healthcare sector means I meet a lot of interesting people. Plus, I have the flexibility of working from home and scheduling my own calendar, which has proven to be a lifesaver when it comes to Jonas.
Was it my dream job at seventeen? No.
But the day I found out I was pregnant, providing for us became my sole concern. I knew most of the town was talking behind my back—saying I was a fuckup, starting rumors about my relationship with Alex, assuming my parents would be stuck raising my baby. So I took online courses, worked my ass off, and climbed the ladder on my own merit. I bought a house, paid for daycare, signed my son up for afterschool activities, and volunteered with countless bake sales. Did everything possible to prove everybody wrong, myself included.
Sometime around one o’clock, the leftover pizza in my fridge is calling my name too loudly to be ignored. I push back from my desk and grab my phone to head downstairs, when I realize I haven’t changed my settings so Blair’s phone number automatically bypasses the Do Not Disturb function.
Crap. Good thing there haven’t been any emergencies.
Blair: Hey, Jonas wants to stay behind at the ranch. Cool with you if Denver drives him home later? If not, I can bring him back now.
I have to reread the text a few times to make sense of it, and to confirm hours of uninterrupted blue light exposure aren’t messing with my eyes. He wants to stay at the ranch? Each time I pressed for information about his experience there the other day, he shot back with a terse, clipped response and an unbothered shrug of his shoulders. No details, no obvious excitement or disdain.
I test a few responses as I cram pizza into my face, not wanting to seem too eager to be rid of my kid for longer, but also mindful that any trepidation will have Blair forcefully shoving his lanky body into the passenger seat of her car.