At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(4)
“Well, the school doesn’t find it hilarious. Especially since this is far from his first offense. I had to go there today and ask the principal to give him another chance.” I sigh. “Thank God school’s almost out…. I’m not sure he has any more sympathy left to give us.”
“Let me go next time.”
“Let you go?” I roll to meet his gaze, wide-eyed and searching for an explanation. Alex has never offered to attend any type of school meeting. Even when I’ve cried and pleaded for a little backup, he comes up with an excuse.
“Yeah, let me talk some sense into the fucking moron running that place.”
He massages my shoulder, then kisses it as his touch trails the length of my arm. Conveniently, he’s right back to the bottom of my shirt, toying with it. That’s all the explanation I need. He’s trying to placate me.
A finger flirts with the waistband of my pajama pants. “Now, where were we?”
“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you about our son.”
Alex groans, and even in the dark, I know he’s rolling his eyes the same way Jonas did earlier. “Jesus Christ, Whit. I said I’ll go to the school next time—what more is there to talk about?”
“Can you talk to Jonas? Like…man to man. He never wants to listen to anything I say.” I worry my bottom lip. “Maybe take him fishing? He hasn’t had the chance to go with my dad since Mom’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Wow, don’t sound so fucking thrilled about bonding with your son.”
“I’m super busy with work right now, Whit. And I didn’t come here to be nagged about this shit.” He removes his touch away from my body entirely, creating at least half a foot of space between us in bed. Looks like he’s given up on the thing he did come here for, which is honestly fine by me.
“Sorry,” I murmur, rolling to my side, facing away.
He blows a huff from his nostrils, and the mattress dips and shifts as he gets comfortable. Thanks to the sobfest in my laundry room, I’m left with only a few straggler tears to fall. Just enough to soak the pillowcase and send me into a deep slumber.
And when I wake up, Alex is gone.
Whit
“Jonas,” I hiss. “Knock it off.”
He wriggles free of the white-knuckled grip I have on his shoulder, flashing me a look that hits as hard as if he told me to go fuck myself. Thankfully, he doesn’t immediately return to throwing handfuls of gravel at some scrawny boy on the swing, which is exactly what he was doing moments ago, before I tore across the playground and confronted him. Now he’s heading toward his new friend group, and the way they’re snickering, huddled up in a circle, is far from reassuring.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
“That’s a bad word,” the kid on the swing practically shouts. Now I’m a little tempted to throw rocks at him, too. “My mom says you get soap in your mouth for saying that.”
Funny considering how many gentle parenting articles his mom shares on social media.
“Sorry,” I say over my shoulder. Bridge of my nose pinched tight between my fingers, I walk away while keeping Jonas firmly planted in my periphery, along with the gossiping moms on the opposite side of the schoolyard.
It was a stupid idea to bring all the students and their parents here to celebrate the last day of school. In a small town where everyone knows everyone, this sort of forced mingling becomes a cesspool of rumors and stink eyes. No amount of fruit punch and barbecued hot dogs can mend relationships that have been fractured since we were all little kids on this very playground.
“Boys will be boys,” one of the gossiping moms, Megan, says through a hearty fake laugh on my approach. “I’m so glad I had girls.”
Smoothing down the front of my buttoned blouse, I step over the railway tie dividing the children’s area from the adults’. The dark wood creates a harsh line between dusty gray pea gravel and green grass. The difference between retaliating against your enemies with handfuls of rocks or catty words.
“Yeah. Kids can be quite a handful.” I tamp down what I want to say, plastering on a fake smile to match hers. My go-to pacifying Stepford Wife appearance. I wear it so often and so well, there’s an argument to be had about whether this is my real smile now.
“Must be nice having the energy to chase him around…. Guess that’s a perk of getting your parenting years started early.” Megan makes the same comment I’ve heard approximately a million times from the moms around here. They love nothing more than making digs about the fact that I had a kid straight out of high school, as if that’s a crime.
She tilts her head to watch Jonas and his friend play-fighting. Lord, I hope it’s play-fighting. “Jonas is so much like Alex was.”
“Well, I don’t think I’d say that.”
Alex was a fucking terror. And while I loved how much my parents hated him back when I was a teen, I don’t want Jonas to be anything like Alex was. Is.
“Mmm,” she hums through pursed lips. “How many times was Jonas suspended this year?”
Megan’s friends—minions, rather—avert their eyes and quickly bring cups of punch to their lips.
“Boys will be boys, right? Jonas is…well, he’s not Alex.” I tuck a lock of pin-straight hair behind my ear, conscious of my quickening pulse. “Anyway, I need to get home for a work meeting. You ladies have a great summer.”