What about me?
“When do I get to see him? Can I see him now?”
I studied the eagerness in his eyes and sighed. “It’s Mr. James, JT. But he lied to us. His name is really Harrison Philips. He’s some sort of—“
“Mr. James?”
“Yes. He came here and got a job at the school so he could get to know you.”
JT sat back in his seat, dragging his greasy fingers through his hair.
“Mr. James is my father.”
“He is.”
“Can I see him now?”
“JT—“
I wanted to argue with him. But I could see by the expression on his face that anything I said now he wouldn’t hear. He didn’t want to hear anything other than what he’d asked. His head was spinning with thoughts that I could only imagine.
I sighed, put the car into gear and tossed my practically untouched meal into the trash on the way out of the parking lot. Harrison’s car was in the driveway outside of his rented house and the man himself appeared at the door seconds after I pulled my car to a stop at the curb.
JT didn’t even say goodbye as he jumped out of the car. But Harrison—he lifted his hand in a grateful wave.
Or maybe it was triumphant. Either way, I felt as though I’d just lost everything that ever mattered.
Chapter 12
Harrison
“It’s so weird, being inside a teacher’s house.”
“I’m not really your teacher anymore.”
JT looked up from the magazine he’d picked up from the coffee table. “Yeah, I keep forgetting,” he said, his eyes refusing to rest on my face.
“I know this must be pretty confusing for you.”
“Not really,” he said, dropping the magazine back onto the table and moving over to the bookshelves that held a collection of bells left by the last occupant of this house. He touched one or two before moving to the small collection of DVDs I had sitting on the television stand. “You like these?”
“Yeah. You?”
He shrugged, once again moving on. He was so restless, it was like watching a puppy checking out new surroundings. I leaned against the archway between the kitchen and living room to watch, not sure there was anything else I could do.
I hadn’t expected her to bring him by tonight. When I heard the car pull up outside through the exceedingly thin walls of this house, I wasn’t sure what to expect when he jumped out of the car. When she didn’t get out…I hated that this was so hard for her. I wished again and again that there was another way.
“I guess you have a lot of questions for me.”
JT hesitated, once again picking up the magazine from the coffee table.
“I used to wonder about my birth mother a lot. What she looked liked. What she did for a living. That kind of thing.”
“She’s kind of tall,” I said, holding a hand out just above my shoulder to show him how tall. “Blond. Blue eyes.”
“Yeah?”
“She was about to start college when I knew her. Now she’s married to a Wall Street guy and they have two kids. Daughters, I think.”
“I have sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?” JT kind of waved his hand like he didn’t want to say the words.
I shook my head. “I don’t have any kids yet. Never been married, either.”
JT crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me, finally meeting my gaze.
“Penelope said you got the job at the school just so you could get to know me.”
I nodded. “I didn’t want to disrupt your life until I had a chance to get to know you. Until you had a chance to know me.”
“You lied.”
There was that word again. Penelope kept throwing it in my face like that glass of whiskey that got thrown around so much in chick flicks. I buried my hands in the pockets of my jeans as I tried to find a defense that wouldn’t sound defensive.
“I never knew about you, JT. I met Julia in New York during summer break while I was attending Stanford. When summer was over, I went back to California and waited for her to call. When she never did, I just assumed she’d moved on to some other guy. I knew it was a possibility. Julia and I never made promises to each other because we knew we couldn’t keep them.”
“Her name’s Julia?”
I looked up. “Yes.”
JT looked away for a second, as though he needed a moment to work through that information. When his eyes came back up to mine, I continued.
“I went to New York on business several months ago. While I was at this restaurant I go to all the time, she happened to walk in and spot me. We talked. And that’s when she told me about you. She’d assumed all these years that I knew, that when she gave the adoption lawyer my parents’ address that she’d actually spoken to me. The problem is, I was at Stanford at the time. I never saw the lawyer, never saw any paperwork. I never knew about you.”
JT’s expression was unreadable. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. He didn’t seem to know what to do at all.