by Laine Watson
Max comes back down the stairs and sits on the stool, headphones in, watching his tablet as I cook. I smile. I literally feel like I’m his mom. This is what happens, isn’t it? When you’re a family?
I finally finish preparing dinner. “All right Max.” I smile.
“We have to wait for Daddy.”
“Yeah … of cour—” I start to say as the door unlocks and in walks Haru.
He slides his shoes off at the door.
“Hi!” I say immediately.
“Daddy!” Max grins and runs from the kitchen, through the house, to greet Haru with his tablet in his hand.
I smile, wiping my hands off on my apron.
“Hey.” Haru smiles at me sweetly, and then looks down at Max, scooping him up in his suit-covered arms and hugging him.
Aw, they’re so cute.
Max’s feet touch the floor, and he runs back into the kitchen. “Look, Daddy. Tummer…” He pauses. “I mean, S-ummer made a big dinner.”
“I see,” Haru says, walking into the kitchen. He takes his suit coat off. “Wow, it smells really good. I’m always starving, so I can’t wait to eat this. I bet it’s delicious.” He sets his coat on the back of a stool and rolls his shirt sleeves up to his elbows.
My cheeks start to burn. “Everything’s ready. I just need to set the table. Go put your suit jacket in the laundry room, or hang it up. I don’t want it to get dirty.”
That’s something a wife would say, right?
A smirk appears across Haru’s face. “Yes, ma’am.” When he returns, he says, “Summer, you’re not a maid. We can set the table.” He opens up the cabinets above the counter, revealing beautiful handcrafted ceramic square plates.
I ignore his words and my feelings as they bounce around me. “I didn’t even realize you had plates.”
“Yeah, it’s like the one thing from my mom that I keep in the house. She’d kill me if I got rid of them,” Haru explains, setting the plates down on the countertop.
Haru and Max set the table, as if they weren’t barbarian men who ate out of boxes and drank out of cartons all the time.
“Okay, so I’ll make Max’s plate, and you can make yours. There’s fresh guacamole right there,” I say, pointing to a nice black bowl full of fragrant avocado mash. “Rice is in the cooker, and there’s chicken and peppers on the stove.”
“Wow, this is amazing! It’s looks really good. But you don’t have to make Max’s plate.”
“I want S-ummer to make my plate,” Max says.
“Oh, all right then.”
“Okay, what do you want?” I eagerly say.
“I want some rice and chiten-c-h-i-c-k-e-n.”
“No problem.” I smile, making him a simple plate.
Like a gentleman, Haru puts everything I cooked on his plate.
They sit down to eat at the beautiful wooden table in the back of the kitchen, and I stand in the middle of the kitchen in an apron, watching. I already feel like I belong with them. It would be too much for reality to rip me away from them.
“Are you going to join us, Summer?” Haru asks.
Sitting down to eat with a man and a child frightens me. “Oh—yeah,” I say, untying my apron and breathing fast. I gulp. I’m so nervous, I think as I make myself a plate and join them at the table. I sit by Max.
Haru and Max talk the entire time. I barely say anything. Max happily shares what he has learned at school and at therapy, and Haru listens attentively. I marvel at their closeness.
I’ve never been this close to my mom. This is nice. I smile.
“Man, that was top-shelf.” Haru stretches. “I haven’t eaten that well in a while.”
I giggle. “Thanks.”
“You know what you’re doing, huh?”
“Nah, it’s blind luck.” I smile.
“Bullshit.” He smiles.
Max doesn’t seem to care, and neither does Haru; I don’t want to be the one saying something about his choice of vocabulary in front of his child.
“All right, Max, let’s go get a bath,” Haru suggests, and they both get up.
Max runs quickly up the stairs.
“I’ll be right back. I’m just going to get him started.” He pauses, “Say good night to Summer.” Haru instructs.
Max stops halfway up the stairs, turns to me happily and says, “Good night, Summer!”
“Good night, Max and Okay.” I smile as they disappear up the stairs.
He’s such a guy. He ate everything on his plate. I get up and glance over the table. I’ll leave the plates there until after I put the food away. They can have this for lunch tomorrow. I take out some of the storage containers I got and put the leftover rice, guacamole, peppers, and chicken in one for Haru. By the time I put everything in the refrigerator, Haru is back. I totally forget to save some for my mom.
“Hey, you don’t have to do that,” he says.
“Do what? I was just putting you some lunch away.”
“You’ve done way too much for us. I can do that myself. You should just go home. I know you have to be tired.”
“Go home?” I say, my body language changing.
Haru’s face tells me he notices too. “I didn’t mean I wanted you to leave. I just feel bad because—”
“I don’t want to leave. I like being over here. I had fun with Max. I like being around you … too.”
“What?” he smirks.
I avert my eyes, trying not to twiddle with my fingers when doing so.
“Quite a different attitude from when we met in my dorm room.”
He’s right. He’s still just as kind as he was before. I’m the one who changed. I bet if I wouldn’t have been so full of myself back then, I would have fallen for him so hard. I practically already had, that’s why I couldn’t go back. I ignore his statement and start to clear the table.
“Here, I can help you. I’m not completely pathetic.”
“I didn’t—”
“I’m kidding.” He helps me put things away, cleans the dishes, and the surfaces of the counters. At some point he asks, “So, you like being around me?”
“I just meant you and Max have a pretty awesome relationship. I don’t have anyone I’m close to like that, not even my mom.”
“Well, we’re all either of us have. We have to be close. Plus, we see each other every day.”
I smile. “Yeah, I guess that’s why I spend so much time at my mom’s job.”
“See, we got it done quickly.” Haru’s referring to the cleanliness of the kitchen.
“Yeah we did…” I smile. “Um, I spent a lot of money today. All this stuff was like two-hundred bucks. I-I’m sorry. It’s just you didn’t really have anything—”
“No, don’t worry about it.”
“You can deduct it from my pay today.”
“Nah, it’s cool. This was amazing. It’s nice to sort of have a friend.”
Friend?
“Daddy!” Max says, jumping down the stairs. “Let’s watch a movie!”
Haru turns around and picks Max up. “Can I at least take a shower? I smell like all day.”
Max laughs. “Okay! Me and Summer will watch it until you get back.”
“Oh, you will, will you?” Haru gives a playfully suspicious look at me.
“Yeah, your loss, all-day-smeller.”
I smile.
“I guess I’ll just have to hurry then, huh? So, I don’t miss it all. What are you guys going to watch, Max?”
“Whatever we want!” He hops down from Haru’s arms and runs into the den. I imagine he finds the remote and searches for a show or movie.
When I was his age I was still trying to figure out how to turn on the TV.
“Keep him company until I’m done? I promise you can eventually go home.” Haru smiles.
“It’s cool.” I gleam as I join Max in the den. It seems like Haru watches me walk into the den, but when I look back, he’s gone.
I take a big breath. I don’t want to go home.
Haru’s taking a shower, I think to myself as I sit next to Max on the sofa. Max is so happy to watch a movie about human-like foxes fighting crime, he barely even speaks to me. Unfortunately, that gives me time to overanalyze everything Haru said to me. He seems like a good person. It must be easy to make friends for him. Well, I’m a good person, too. I don’t have any friends except for Darby—oh no, I have to text Darby.
“Hey, if Mom asks, we’re making dinner. Okay?” Sometimes my mom is a snooper. When I look over, Max is passed out on the sofa.
I check the time. Yep, 9:30 it’s about that time.
Haru steps into the den. “So, what’d I miss?” Haru asks.
“Well, I think you missed about as much as Max did. He’s passed out.” I giggle as Haru walks over to the sofa. “He made it about forty-five minutes, and then collapsed.”
“Yeah, we get up pretty early. I’ll take him upstairs and put him in his bed. Did you want to hang out for a while or you want to go home? I can’t really gauge what you want, and I don’t want to come off as some weird, old dude. Also, I don’t want to trigger anything that’s going to make you freak out on me again.” He smirks. “I’m not opposed to you flashing me again though.”
I laugh. “What?”
His smile goes away. “Ah, I’m really sorry about that, um…”
My cheeks are on fire, and I can’t look at him.
“Let me just put him to bed.” Haru takes Max in his arms and heads upstairs.
I don’t know what he wants. Does he really not know that I like him? He has to know, right? Otherwise, why would he say something like that?
This is so confusing. I lie back on the sofa defeated, and in a few minutes, Haru returns.
He is smirking as he strolls back to the sofa. “Well, you’re still here so I guess I didn’t creep you out too much. Sorry about my mouth. I say shit all the time. I don’t always have a filter, so I’m sorry in advance for all the shit I’m probably going to say at some point.” He sighs. “If you want to stay, I’ll probably end up like Max if we watch a movie, but you’re welcome to.” He sits on the other side of the sofa.
“Thanks, but I feel weird staying sometimes.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“I guess because you say we’re friends.”
“You don’t think we are?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’re definitely friends. It’s kind of nice to have someone to talk to. I don’t think I’ve ever had a real conversation with a woman.”
“That’s a strange thing to say, considering you have a kid.”
“We didn’t do much talking.”
“Oh!”
“Yeah … um, before Max came along. I was a different person, but it’s all good now. Someone like you wouldn’t even have talked to me, let alone cooked me dinner. Maybe the old you, definitely not who you are now.”
“Someone like me?”
“Yeah, a nice girl wouldn’t have come within fifty feet of me.” He shakes his head. “Maybe when you were pretending to be a bitch. Clearly, that’s not who you are anymore. Or is it?”
“What? Do you not recall the dorky guy sitting behind a computer in his dorm room? The guy who I clearly told I didn’t want any water but brought me some anyway? That guy was a good guy.”
“I’m really not that guy anymore. Like, not at all.”
“That can’t be true.” I smile.
“It is. It’s so funny. That nice guy you couldn’t stand, but the piece of shit that stands before you now, you want to be friends with?”
“What? Don’t say that about yourself. Look at you, you have everything. An awesome kid, a job that can afford all this stuff, and an awesome car. You’re like a genius. I guess, like my mom.”
“This shit doesn’t matter. This is what I’ve done since I fucked everything up. When I found out I had a kid, I didn’t even have a job. I had a fucking master’s degree, but I was chillin’, practically homeless because I didn’t want to go back home. There was no point. I worked so hard, putting myself through school, and then I had this bomb ass job at this company downtown that did sales and shit. I quit and said fuck it. I literally fell off the map.”
“Wow, you were homeless?”
“Sort of. I just wasn’t doing the right shit. I could have gone home, but what the fuck ever. Then all of a sudden, my parents get a call from some people, and I’ve got a fucking kid. Instead of them being all pissed off at their stupid ass son, they supported me. So, I filled out a bunch of applications at a bunch of places. I was a waiter for a little while, then I got a job at the broker firm. My last promotion moved me here … and that’s pretty much how it went.”
After he says that we forget about the movie.
“Well, that’s not so bad. You probably didn’t even do anything that bad.” I ignore his disagreeing eyes. “When we met each other, I was a complete, broken mess. Not that I’m much better now, but back then, I didn’t really know how to protect myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some lame guy broke my heart, but it was my fault because I didn’t really understand romantic relationships. I told you my mom and dad got a divorce before I started high school, but he was always estranged. It feels like my mom’s always been a single mom, and having a single mom sometimes means you miss stuff. She was always at work or at school. So, I was alone a lot.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s in the past. By the time I reached high school, I hadn’t really developed social skills. I had been doing everything on my own. All my mother ever worried about were my grades. Everything else was up to me.”
“Wow, your mom works hard, but maybe she should have spent more time with you.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. We’re so different. I’m not sure if it would have helped. We’re so distant from each other, even now.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Huh?”
“Like, seriously, what happened? How did this guy break your heart?”
“Oh…”
“How did you end up in my dorm room, flashing your boobs without a care in the world and having the worst attitude I’d ever seen in my life?”
I gulp. “Well … freshmen year of high school,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck and keeping my eyes from Haru, “I had a crush on this guy. I thought he liked me, but he was actually dating someone else. I thought we were going out. Seriously, who gets a boyfriend wrong?”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. Everybody makes mistakes in high school.”
“Yeah. I guess. I was devastated because the girl was supposed to be my friend. I told her everything, and I was just a stupid little kid. If it would have all ended there, it would have been okay, but they made my life a living hell. The bullying got so bad I had to leave school.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah. Of course my mom thought I was being bullied for being weird or something. I didn’t try to change her mind about it. I was homeschooled sophomore year. Then I went back junior year, and only went to the high school campus a couple days a week, the other three days I was at Lincoln. I was pretty much invisible by then, so no one was bothering me.”
“I took college credits my junior and senior year too. You must have been making pretty decent grades to be able to get in that program.”
“I was, until I started partying all the time. I can’t believe all that happened because of one guy. I developed this callas attitude. I didn’t want to need anyone, which meant I’d never get close to anyone, especially a guy.”.”
“How long did that last?”
“The partying—not long.”
“Wow! That must have been way crappy. That explains a lot. You pretty much hate guys, don’t you?”
“I used to. Then I met you, and you messed all that up.”
“O-o-h, so you did like me? That explains things even more. Some guys are douches. I me
an, I’m a douchey guy, I’m positive of that. I didn’t used to be, but shit happens.”
“You’re not a douche. You weren’t back then, and you aren’t now. You’re like the kindest, most genuine person I’ve ever met. It may have seemed like I hated you, but I mostly was scared. I let my guard down without even knowing, and then you grabbed me and were talking in my face all sexy. Even though you were being stern, your hands were gentle. I hated being submissive to you.”
“Sexy, huh?” He smirks, thoughtfully.
I don’t take it back even though my cheeks are burning, and I can’t look at him.
Haru sighs. “Summer, I am not a nice guy. Maybe I used to be.”
“You are.”
“You don’t know me. Max changed my whole life. The first year I had Max, I didn’t know how to handle him. It hasn’t always been like this. Even now, I think I’m a hopeless case.”
“I think you’re great dad.”
“And I think you’re doing an amazing job with him and me, for that matter. This promotion is so important to me, and so is Max.”
I smile. “I can’t believe I just told you all that. My mom doesn’t even know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I never told her. I stuck with the story that the principle told her—that whole being weird thing.”
“I don’t think you’re weird.”
“I was way different when I was an adolescent.”
“Me too. Life fucks things up, sometimes it un-fucks it too.”
I giggle.
“Yeah, okay. Here’s something I never told anyone: I used to want to be a bodybuilder; I wanted all the muscles in the world.”
“You have a nice body.” I clear my throat. “Even back then, it was nice.”
“Yeah, but I was fucking skinny. I wanted to be swollen.” He laughs.
“I think you’re just fine.”
“Well, thank you. You’ve got a great body, too, especially now that you have a little more ass.”
“Haru…” I giggle, my cheeks starting to burn.
“Oh, I’m sorry. See, I knew I’d say something I shouldn’t.” He sighs. “Let’s talk about something else,” he suggests. “So, how’s school? You never talk about it.”
“Ugh. School,” I complain. “Because I never think about it. I’m just trying not to be a spaz. I don’t really know what I want to do. Midterms are coming up, so I guess I need to study.”
