The MPs showed up ten minutes later, and Graham resigned himself to missing most of the practice to an interview.
The warmth and happiness from his lunch hour with Kara bled out, and when he was finally able to return to practice, he found himself with anger to burn. It fueled him, kept him fierce, and sent him home to take a cold shower after a ride from Greg.
That ruination of his lunch hour with Kara was the worst of it. Not the cost of a new windshield, not the expense of having to rent a car for a few days while they got around to fixing his windshield. The fact that his day had been tainted with something so stupid, so unproductive, so childish . . . after his perfect moment with her.
CHAPTER
14
Kara stared at her phone, willing it to ring. Then willing herself to stop staring at the phone. This was absolutely pathetic.
But he’d said he would call her later. She knew for a fact the guys were done with practice, as Marianne had posted a selfie of her and Brad at the movie theater, seeing the new romantic comedy, an hour ago.
#truelove.
She scoffed at herself. Now she was thinking in hashtags. Her life was going off the rails.
Zach wandered into the kitchen and started poking around the snack shelf in the pantry. Though she hated the expense, she stocked pre-made, pre-packaged snacks for him there, and he knew he could have what he wanted from that shelf without question. She’d prefer him to grab an apple, but when your son was as skinny as hers, and his diet as limited as his, you accepted calories where you could get them.
“Didn’t you just have dinner an hour ago?”
“Fractions make me hangry,” he grumbled.
“Hangry?” She smiled when he sat down beside her at the kitchen table. He did that so infrequently anymore, willingly sitting with her. He was growing up, and Mom was no longer the coolest person in his life.
“Yeah. Hungry and angry. Hangry. It’s a portmanteau. We learned about them yesterday.” He beamed at her.
“Grammar and math all wrapped up in one night. Very nice.” She wanted so badly to run a hand over his hair, but she knew he would duck away and make an aggravated sound. So she let him open his snack and went back to reviewing a blog advertising request. But she felt his stare on her, so after another moment, she looked back his way.
“Mom?” He glanced down at the wrapper of the granola bar he was eating, fiddling with it between his fingers.
“Yeah, honey?”
“Is Graham coming back sometime?”
“I’m sure he is. Why? Did you want to invite him to dinner again?”
“No. I mean, yeah, sure. Just, I mean I wondered . . . is he . . . are you . . .”
Oh, boy. She nudged her chair out a little to better face him. “Are you wondering if we’re dating?”
“Sort of. I guess you are, since I’ve seen him kiss you.”
Thank God that’s all you’ve seen.
“But then you guys don’t go out a lot, and I don’t know.” He sounded miserable, as if talking about this was the last thing he wanted to be doing, but couldn’t resist knowing.
“Honey . . .” She sighed. Giving false hope would be pointless. “Graham and I are friends. We like hanging out. I hang out with a lot of adults, like Marianne and Reagan.”
“You don’t kiss them,” he said defiantly, then the corners of his mouth twitched as if the idea was funny.
“No . . . it’s a complicated thing, adult friendships. It’s—”
“Why don’t you want to date him? He wants to date you. I like him. What’s wrong?”
She fought hard not to cry. This part was the worst. She’d vowed early on she would never say anything negative about her son’s father, or her parents, in front of Zach. It served no purpose to poison the well. But it was moments like these—moments when she longed to explain why she couldn’t move on with her life—when she could cheerfully murder Henry six different ways with her bare hands and not think twice about it.
“Nothing is wrong. It’s just not . . . the timing . . . it’s . . . not going to work. Graham is a great guy. And I’m so glad you two have become friends. I hope that continues. But he and I . . .” She lifted her hands, let them fall back into her lap again. Fought hard against the tears. “It won’t work.”
“You won’t let it work,” he accused, his hand fisting hard around the wrapper. The crinkle of the foil sounded harsh in the kitchen. “You won’t let it. He could have been my dad, and you won’t let it work. I hate you.”
He stood back so fast the chair tipped over, clattering to the linoleum floor. He flung the wrapper at the trash—missing by a mile—and ran back to his room where he slammed the door.