Page 8 of Beg Me

“Tell Gus good try.”

Jory’s chuckle drifts behind him as he walks away, and for some reason, I don’t think this conversation is over.

CHAPTER

THREE

Jory

“What do you even do with peach jam?” Gus asks, sliding the jar across the kitchen island. It skids precariously close to the edge of the counter before spinning in a circle and coming to a stop.

I shut the door behind us and remove my shoes. The air is cold enough to freeze out a polar bear—just how I like it. I told my landlord, one of my best friends, Miles, that I’d pay extra for the electric bill. He laughed me off. Something tells me that he’ll change his tune when the first invoice arrives.

“You can do a lot of things with peach jam.” I take my wallet out of my pocket and plop it on the counter next to the refrigerator, along with my keys and phone. “Putting it on toast is the first thing that comes to mind.” And the only thing, but Gus doesn’t need to know that.

“Peaches and toast? That sounds gross.”

I shrug because he’s right. It does sound kind of nasty.

Gus snorts.

“What?” I ask, bracing myself. That look has smart-ass written all over it. “What’s that little snort all about?”

“This is purely … What's that word? Hypothetical?” He pauses, mulling over his word choice. “Okay. This is purely hypothetical, but I wonder if Markie would’ve said yes to dinner with you if you would’ve splurged and bought two jars.”

I roll my eyes, placing glasses from the sink into the dishwasher. “Keep it up, and you’ll do the dishes tonight. And there’s nothing hypothetical about that.”

“I mean it. She probably thought you were cheap.” He opens the fridge. “You’re good-looking, rich, and mostly charming despite your cheesy pickup lines—which you really do need to work on,” he says, glancing at me over his shoulder. “And I definitely wasn’t the problem. I’m a gem. She loved me.”

I laugh, peeling off my shirt. The lemonade from earlier has dried into a sticky mess. “Have kids, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”

“Want to know what else would be fun?” He closes the fridge and turns to me. “Having food in the house. Think we could find a grocery store soon?”

Leaning against the counter, I study my son. He’s me at eleven, right down to the athletic build, crooked grin, and being too smart for his own good. Some days, the resemblance knocks the wind out of me. Other days, I look at him like he’s a puzzle that I’m trying to put together.

Both are probably true.

“Your mom will be happy to hear that you’re sick of pizza,” I say, tossing my shirt into the laundry closet.

“Oh, yeah. Mom called while I was pretending to be thirsty and asked for you to call her when you have time.”

I noticed a missed call from Deidre when we left the farmers’ market. “I’ll call her this afternoon.”

“Great.” He gazes out the window. “Hey, so, do you think it’d be okay if I walked down to the park?”

“Sure. Let me put on a shirt and⁠—”

“Dad.” He holds up a hand. “As a reminder, I’m eleven. I can walk to the park at the end of the street by myself. I do it all the time back at home, and that city is about a million times bigger than here.”

Oh. Right.

I struggle with a lot of decisions when it comes to Gus. I don’t know if it’s okay for him to walk to the park alone, or what his bedtime should look like, or how firm I need to be about picking his clothes up off the floor. Sure, I can ask Deidre because she has all the answers—and I do ask for her input from time to time—but that feels like such a bullshit thing to do. She shouldn’t have to teach me how to be a dad. God knows that I wasn’t there to help her learn how to be a mom.

When I think about this too long, anxiety begins to blossom in my stomach because these are the easy things. This isn’t the real, day-to-day parenting stuff. I’m not dealing with teachers and doctors and coaches. I’m not making medical decisions or making sure he’s not hanging out with the wrong crowd. But next year, when I retire, those types of things will be my reality, too.

I hate that I’m just learning how to do this. And every time that I think about it, the gravity of what I’ve lost hits me like a ton of bricks.

I lost a decade of my son’s life, and I can never get that back.