That thing finally hit him like a bolt of lightning that knocked him square on his ass one night over dinner at another zealously priced restaurant, courtesy Planet Robin. It happened as Jake was relating his conversation with Cole’s court-appointed counselor. In truth, Cole had been doing pretty well the last few weeks. It helped that Tara seemed to like her perfume and had selected Cole as her favorite for the time being. But Jake couldn’t help worry that perhaps Cole was doing too well. His highs were off the charts as were his lows—there was absolutely no middle ground with the kid. And while Jake could appreciate part of that came with the teenage territory, he wondered what would happen when Tara decided she wanted a new boyfriend. Cole’s counselor had confirmed his fears.
“She says Cole does pretty well, but that he can’t handle any sort of rejection, especially from a female,” he said to Robin over a plate of prime rib that cost right around what he figured a whole prize steer would bring. “Sort of a throwback to his missing mother, I guess. Anyway, the counselor says I need to work with him on that.”
“On what?” Robin asked.
“Rejection. Because he doesn’t handle it very well.”
Robin snorted. “Who does?”
“Well, Cole does tend to overreact. And girls can be brutal.”
“Girls can be brutal? What about boys?”
“What about them?”
Robin lowered her fork, glared at him from across the table. “Boys are mean. Boys will use girls just to get what they want. Sex, money, you name it. A few sweet nothings, then bam, he gets what he wants and he’s outta there.”
“Wow. That’s pretty harsh.”
“You don’t know harsh,” she muttered irritably, retrieving her fork. “I know harsh.”
Jake watched her take a bite of lamb, debated asking her to explain, then thought the better of it. “Okay, kids can be cruel, male or female. But as far as Cole goes, his counselor says that he really needs special attention on this subject. She thinks I should give it to him. It sort of supports my theory that he should come and live with me.”
Robin glanced up at him. “What about your mom? What would she say?”
His mother would have a lot to say, and none of it good, but what else was new? “I don’t know. But Cole needs a strong hand right now, and she doesn’t really have that with him. Now me, that’s a whole other ball game.” Sort of. He really felt pretty clueless, had no idea why the counselor thought he was the right man for the job.
Robin chewed thoughtfully, nodding after a moment. “You’re right. He does need a strong hand. I am sure you two can work it out. You’ve got enough room in your house, don’t you? You guys will be okay, I think.”
That was when it hit Jake smack between the eyes. Her statement was really very innocuous, but it struck him that it was the same thing she said every time the subject of a future cropped up. It was suddenly very clear—she didn’t see herself as part of his future. She said she loved him; okay, he believed that she did—but she hadn’t taken that extra step toward a long-term commitment. It was that simple. It was that disturbing.
Why it had taken him so long to figure out the root of his vague discomfort he couldn’t begin to guess, but at that moment, sitting in that stuffy, overpriced, overly-pleased-with-themselves restaurant, he could see it as clearly as the nose on his face.
“What?” she said, curious as to why he was staring at her.
“I was sort of thinking all of us would be okay. You. Me. Cole.”
Her cheeks darkened; she glanced at her plate with a slight frown. “I was just talking about the long run.”
“Yeah. So was I.”
Robin didn’t say anything. She avoided his gaze, attacked her lamb, and remarked that the wine seemed a little flat.
And Jake was too stung to press it any further right then—after all, there was the inevitable arguing over the check, which he won (but not without some polite scuffling and an instant coronary upon seeing the total). And there was the ride home, and the inevitable question of whose house they would go to.
Nor did Jake press the issue over the next several days as he tried to balance the end of the semester finals, Cole’s counseling sessions, and finishing up the work at Robin’s house. The problem was too big, too fundamental to be handled casually, and though he tried to push it down, the damn thing wiggled its way back up until it was playing major head games with him, finally weighing him down like some friggin’ mental boulder.
It was not an issue he wanted to face. But he was once again conscious that he and Robin had, in his humble opinion, crossed over that line where the relationship demanded an explanation of intent, at least a road map. Anything to indicate where they were going.
Except that he wasn’t sure he could handle the answer.
And oh, the irony of his anxiety was not lost on him, not by a long shot. He was the one who had never been able to maintain a relationship more than a while, and Lord knew the only thing he had ever committed to was his Visa bill. Yet here he sat, floundering about like a fish on a hook, so lousy at the relationship thing that he really didn’t know how to go about the next step.