Defend

by Lindsay Paige

  “But you love that I do it, don’t you?”

  Her grin gives her away in a heartbeat. “It is nice,” she admits. We walk in silence until I open her car door for her. “If you decide you miss me between now and the game, just text me. I can come over after work or meet you for lunch.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Jamie shakes her head and leans into me, her hands clutching my shirt at my stomach. “Not good enough, Brent. I’d like to see you at some point between now and then when it’s not six a.m.”

  I chuckle. “All right. Expect to hear from me then.”

  She smiles and kisses me, long and slow, until I don’t want her to go anywhere at all. “Much better.”

  She’s right; everything is much better.

  “Did you study for the quiz?” Dax asks me.

  “What quiz?”

  “Don’t you read your emails, Jamie? He sent an email over the weekend that we’d be having a quiz today.”

  I lean down and bang my head lightly against my desk with a groan, causing Dax to laugh. “Who checks their school email on the weekends? I had better things to do. I’m so going to fail.”

  Dax reaches into his book bag. “There’s still time to look over notes.”

  “I don’t take notes for this class. All he does is go over what’s in the textbook, so I normally reread that beforehand.” I am so screwed.

  “Here.” Dax hands me his notes. “Be quick.”

  “Really?” He nods. I reach over and squeeze his forearm. “Thanks so much!” I bury my nose in his surprisingly well-written notes until our professor finally arrives and then I return them to him with a smile and another thanks. I’m still not so sure I’ll pass, but at least the material is fresh in my mind.

  Time automatically slows to a crawl once class officially starts. I’m tempted to glance at Kayla, but I don’t want to draw her attention to me at all. What I really want is to escape and be anywhere but here. The good news is I need to think about what I’ll do once I graduate. The sooner I start daydreaming and making plans, the better. The faster that time will have to come, right? I didn’t take as many classes as I could starting sophomore year, plus summer classes, to prolong my time here. This is my last semester. I just need to survive it and make a game plan for what I’ll do next.

  I could find an apartment and ask my manager about switching me to full-time. There’s no need to return to Charlotte and be close to my family. I’ve saved up enough money from the monthly allowances that even if I quit to find the elusive dream job, I could live off that for a good while. I don’t have a particular dream job, though, so no need for that.

  “Time’s up, Miss Alexander.”

  I glance up upon hearing my name. The Santa look-a-like professor stands in front of his desk and the room has emptied out. Looks like everyone else finished their quiz and left. I eye my paper. There are three questions left to answer. Oh well. I took too much time second-guessing myself and thinking about life post-graduation. I gather my things and hand in my quiz.

  There’s a text from Brent when I check my phone.

  Brent: Game is Saturday. Dinner tomorrow.

  I smile and get to typing a response to his curt messages.

  Me: I’ll mark my calendar. And yes, boss, I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow, even though you didn’t ask nicely.

  I’m ready for a nap right now, but I have another class to get to. By the time I walk across campus to another large and looming building, Brent texts back.

  Brent: Old geezers can’t text. Meant to have a question mark in there.

  Me: Sure, sure.

  Brent: Talk to you after work.

  If it’s like last night, he’ll call me within twenty minutes of me getting off work. I wouldn’t mind seeing him today since I didn’t see him yesterday, but it looks like another phone call will do. I’m almost to the building which holds my next class when I stop in my tracks. There’s a woman standing a few yards away, studying a piece of paper, and she looks confused as she glances up at the nearest building. The problem is she looks an awful lot like my mother. The woman turns my way and my beating heart skitters to a stop.

  What in the hell is my mother doing on campus? She has never, not once, stepped foot here. Why now?

  “Jamie!” She hurries over as much as she can while still looking as prim and proper as possible. “I’m so glad I found you. These campus maps are worthless.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Mother frowns. “That is no way to greet your mother.” She leans in to kiss my cheek. “I have news that might be difficult for you to hear, so I thought it was necessary to tell you in person. Do you have time for us to go somewhere and talk?”

  “Has something happened? Is everyone okay?”

  She gently grabs my elbow and leads me back across the courtyard. “Everyone’s fine. Let’s go somewhere to talk.”

  I yank my arm from her. “I have a class to get to. We don’t have time to go anywhere. What is it?” She’s scaring me a little, despite her claim that everyone is fine. It’ll be better if she simply spits it out. “Just tell me!” I snap when she hesitates.

  “Michelle is pregnant. She’s due in September.”

  I blink. This day was bound to come and I’m not prepared for it. I was so sure it wouldn’t bother me because my life was set and it almost felt like a relief because I was pretty positive I didn’t want kids anyway. I am certain I don’t want kids. So why do I feel like I’ve been sucker punched?

  Mother grabs my hands. “Jamie, are you okay?”

  “I’m happy for her.”

  “Well, of course you are, but I’m asking how you feel about you.”

  If there’s one thing I can say about my parents, it’s that they’ve been good in this area. They might flip flop in other areas of my life, but when it comes with the fact that I can’t have kids, they’ve mostly been solid.

  Clearing my throat, I focus on her. “I’m fine, Mother. I’m glad you came to tell me, but I’m fine. I’m happy for Michelle and I’m fine.”

  Mother frowns. “You just said you were fine three times.”

  “I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m perfect. I never wanted kids anyway and there’s no reason why I would be upset over learning my sister is having a baby.” It does bother me that she thought she had to deliver this news in person. She drove two hours for a ten-minute conversation.

  “You still don’t want kids? There’s adoption and surrogacy, Jamie.”

  And that’s why she drove two hours. While I’ve been good with never having kids, heaven forbid my mother not get grandchildren from both of her daughters.

  “Do you know what I want? To survive college. That’s my focus right now. Thanks for coming to tell me, but you can go now. I have to get to class.” I turn on my heels to walk away from her, even though it means I’ll walk the long way to my next class and will likely be late.

  So, technically, I could have kids if I wanted, even my own kids. I’d just have to go through a surrogate to have them, or I could adopt. But even as a little girl, I never dreamed of being a mother. A husband and some mysterious job were always present, but never kids. It’s one reason the news didn’t hit me as hard as it could have, though it definitely did a number on me.

  What I never considered is how it would affect me if my sister got pregnant. It’s as if I’m that young teenager, hearing the news all over again and not quite sure if I should be okay with being fine or not. As if I’m trying to grasp my reality and what it means. It’s ridiculous because my sister’s pregnancy has nothing to do with me.

  Yet I numbly autopilot my way through the day, through my class and through my shift at work. Mother texts me on and off, worried I’m not okay, which only annoys me. Her asking doesn’t make me feel like I’m okay. As I’m leaving work and walking to my car, I once again find a reason to stop in my tracks.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask Brent.

  He leans against the hood of
my car and shakes his head at me. “You are not observant at all.” That’s true. I had my head down and only lifted it when I was five feet from my car. “I could be a psycho waiting to kill you.”

  “Why are you obsessed with safety? It’s annoying.” I walk past him and to the driver’s side of my car.

  “My daughter was stalked earlier this year,” at this, I turn to face him, “and he took her for a short time and tried to take her again shortly after that. I worry about five times as much since that happened.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. Worry and lecture away.”

  “Are you okay, Jamie?” He walks over to lean his hip against my door, effectively preventing me from getting away. “I come to surprise you and you don’t seem all that happy to see me.”

  “I’m sorry; it’s been a weird day. I’m surprised you aren’t in bed already,” I tease to lighten the mood.

  “Ha-ha.” He laughs. “I’m in the mood for ice cream, so I thought I’d pick you up and make you share some with me.”

  “Everything’s closed, Brent.”

  “Not the grocery store. Want to come? You can tell me about your weird day.”

  Yeah, I don’t know about that. Sure, I’ll have to tell him if things reach a certain point, but I don’t know if today is the day. I haven’t ever had to tell but one other guy before. It was my last serious relationship, and he broke up with me a day later. I’m not saying Brent will do the same or that I think he will, but the past definitely makes a girl hesitant in the present.

  “Jamie?”

  I refocus on Brent. “Yeah, ice cream sounds great.”

  He smiles, takes my hand, and leads me to his truck, which is parked in the space behind my car. Once we’re both inside, he asks, “Want to talk about your weird day?”

  “It’s kind of complicated and really personal.”

  I’m not sure what I expect him to say, but I love his response.

  “Sounds like you really need ice cream then.” A second later, he asks, “Do you have a favorite flavor?”

  “If it has cookie dough in it, it’s automatically better than the rest.”

  When we get to the grocery store, he goes inside and returns a few minutes later with two pints of ice cream and a box of plastic spoons. He hands me mine, which of course has cookie dough in it, and pulls out one that is chocolate with chocolate chunks for him. Next, he hands me a spoon and we’re ready to dig in.

  “I know you’re not an excessive talker, but you do normally talk more than this,” he says after a minute of silence.

  “So do you,” I point out.

  “Maybe, but I’m worried about you, so I’m preoccupied with that. Just give me something.”

  I eat another spoonful of ice cream to buy time before I have to speak. I don’t want to have this conversation today. That I do know. “What are you doing after this?” I wave my ice cream in the air. “Going home?”

  Brent looks guilty for half a second. “Actually, I was thinking about going back to the shop. I’m not all that tired and I went home at six like a normal person, but now I’m bored and antsy.”

  “Can I go with you? Just to hang out?”

  His eyebrows raise in surprise, but he nods. “You’ll probably be bored.”

  “I’ll be okay.” Being with him, talking or not talking, is better than being on campus.

  We put away our ice cream and Brent takes me back to my car. I follow him to his shop, feeling better already. Brent works on some vehicle while I sit in a chair nearby. While I might feel better, I’m still thinking about kids. But not really mine.

  “Did you ever know or have this idea that you’d be a father one day?” I ask.

  Brent pauses and looks up at me for a solid ten seconds before returning to his work. “I had no clue what I wanted until I held my little girl in my arms for the first time. That’s when it was the realest for me and it hit me that I truly wanted that kind of life where I was her father. Everything before that was scary and full of nerves. I could picture it once I had her in my arms, though.”

  This confirms that it’s not crazy at all for me to be unable to picture myself as a mother or to have a child as my own. It shouldn’t feel crazy, though, right? Plenty of women go through life without having kids because they don’t want to be a mother. I just wish I felt more confident in the way I felt. It would be a lot easier to do if I knew my family had my back.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious. What are you working on?”

  I breathe a little easier as he talks about car parts I didn’t know existed and rambles on and on. When he takes a break, I escape to the fridge to grab my ice cream from earlier and decide to venture into his office to lie on his couch while I enjoy my favorite flavor. Coming here was definitely a good idea. My feelings just need to disappear pretty quickly because the less I think about this, the better.

  My hand jerks at the sensation of something sliding through my fingers. My eyes open and I realize I fell asleep on Brent’s couch with the pint of now-melted ice cream in my hand. Brent sets the ice cream on his desk and faces me.

  “It’s pretty late.” A sheepish look affects his small smile.

  “How late?”

  “Almost four. I got carried away. Normally, I’d just sleep here until morning instead of driving home.” He points to the couch. “You—”

  I roll over to face the back of the couch and interrupt him. “C’mon. I’m not going anywhere. It’s too late and too early and I’m too sleepy to drive.” I blindly pat the empty space behind me.

  The lights turn off and then the couch dips as he squeezes into the empty space. He grabs the blanket from the back and adjusts the throw pillow under our heads before slipping one arm over my waist and the other under my neck.

  “I’m doing a terrible job, Brent,” I mumble.

  “What are you talking about?” he whispers, the silence of the shop seeming so loud now.

  “I’m supposed to keep you from doing exactly what we’re doing.”

  “I promise we won’t do it again.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better when it’s you who isn’t supposed to be doing it in the first place,” I point out.

  “Let’s sleep, all right?”

  I’m too tired to argue further, but I don’t miss how he avoids promising to do better.

  My body is still stiff from sleeping on the couch last night and not moving hardly at all in those few hours I laid there. Jamie didn’t look that tired this morning, but I was and since I’m not supposed to be working all-nighters anymore in the first place, I decided to take the morning off. There was an additional reason, of course. Kayla texted, wanting to know if I’d looked at the papers on the cruises yet.

  I hadn’t.

  After I caught a few more hours of sleep, I looked them over before returning to work. I hope she doesn’t expect me to help pick because I honestly don’t care. All of the destinations sound great. She and Gregory can decide.

  Kayla calls me as I pull into my driveway at the end of the work day.

  “Did you look them over?” she asks after I answer.

  “Yeah. They all look good.” I get out of my truck and head inside.

  She sighs. “Dad, you’re supposed to narrow it down.”

  “And you’re supposed to be picking the cruise with your brother,” I remind her, tossing my keys on an end table and walk up to my room.

  “He acts like I’m pulling his teeth. I think he’s mad that I left him to live with Mom, but if that’s the case, he could always move in with you.”

  “Gregory’s fine where he is.” He hasn’t complained about his living situation once to me. Well, other than the other night. “How are things with you and Logan?”

  “Dad,” she chastises. “You know, you can stop asking me that now,” she says as if it’s been a long time since she moved in with him. It hasn’t been. It’s only been a few weeks, maybe a month. “We are still learning how to live together, but as Logan
says, we’re firmly in the honeymoon stage. We’re fine, Dad.” As if I don’t understand what the honeymoon stage means.

  She’s missing the point of why I ask, though. “I’ll ask you for however long I want. You’re my little girl, remember?”

  “I know. You don’t have to worry. That’s all I meant. What are you doing tonight? I was thinking Logan and I could come over for dinner.”

  “What about tomorrow night?” I already have dinner plans with Jamie tonight. I sit on the edge of my bed, waiting to see what she says.

  “Do you have another date? Is that why we can’t come over?”

  “Yes.”

  “You seem pretty serious about her, Dad. Isn’t it—”

  “When it’s time, you’ll meet her, Kayla. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” I need to get off here and shower to make sure I’m ready in time. We say our goodbyes and off to the shower I go. If this thing with Jamie continues on much longer, I’ll have to tell Kayla. I don’t particularly like the idea of keeping something from her, especially since it’s likely going to be a tough thing for her to accept. If we’re still seeing one another in two weeks, I’ll tell Kayla.

  After a while, I leave to pick Jamie up from campus. On and off all day, and since last night really, I’ve been trying to figure out what could’ve been bothering her. What would make her ask me if I could always picture myself as a father? Or maybe that had nothing to do with her weird day. I don’t know.

  She grins as she walks toward me. At least she seems in better spirits today so far. “Hey, Brent.” Jamie lifts up to kiss my cheek. “I’m starving.”

  “Then we should get going.” I open the door for her and close it once she’s in her seat. “You look great,” I add once I’ve walked around and gotten into the truck myself. She’s wearing a long-sleeved black dress with black stockings and black heels.

  “Thanks. How was your day?”

  “Well, I talked to Kayla and I made a decision.” I glance over and catch her eyes widening. “Gregory seems pretty sure she’ll flip out more than I think she will, so I think sooner might be better instead of waiting for things to get really serious. If it’s okay with you, if we’re still seeing each other in two weeks, I’m going to tell her.”