A Will To Change (Hope) (17 page)

“Hello?!” I heard a woman’s voice coming from the front door. Suddenly the nice relaxed state that I was in, hanging with Hope and Grace, was shifting. I didn’t know why I was so nervous to meet Will’s parents. It’s not like we were dating or anything. Maybe it was because, from the stories Will has told me, his father seemed to mirror my mother so closely.

“There’s my little princess!” the woman behind the voice, who I assumed was Will’s mother, said as she walked into the kitchen, taking Grace in her arms. She gave her a hug and a kiss before finally noticing me.

“Kate, this is Gabby,” Hope said.

“Oh, hi, Gabby. Are you a friend of Hope’s?”

“Actually, I’m friends with Will.”

Her beautiful blue eyes widened. She put Grace down and looked me over as her smile became wider. “Oh, Will didn’t tell me he was seeing anyone.” I could hear the happiness in her voice.

“Oh, we’re not dating or anything. Just friends.” I smiled.

“Oh.” Her tone quickly changed to disappointment. “Where
is
Will?”

“He just ran to the store with Jamie,” Hope answered.

Will’s mom turned around to the tall bald man that had just entered the kitchen. “Doug, this is Will’s friend, Gabby.”

“You have my sympathy,” he said with a laugh.

“Oh, Doug, stop that!” Will’s mother smacked him on the arm.

“Hey, nice to meet you, too!” I said, not hiding my sarcasm as I looked over at Hope, who was giggling. He totally didn’t pick up on it, turning his attention to Grace.

“So, Gabby, do you live in the city?” Will’s mother asked.

“Yeah, I do.” I didn’t feel like I should share the extra tidbit of information that I was living with her son.

I was so relieved to see Will and Jamie walking through the door. “There he is!” Will’s mother’s smile was a mile wide as she threw her arms around him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” Will hugged her back, and I couldn’t contain my smile. How I wished I had a mother like that.

“What’s up, Dad?” Will asked.

“Not much. What do you think of your brother’s new car?”

“It’s pretty sweet.”

“Yeah, well, see what you’re missing out on by taking the easy way out?”

Will shook his head in disgust. “Dad! Just stop!” Jamie snapped. All of a sudden, the tension in the room was building and I felt like I had to do something to break it up.

“With all due respect, Mr. McAdams, being a lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department is hardly easy. I know I sure as heck wouldn’t want to go running into a burning building to save someone. Would you?”

“Just goes to prove that my boy is missing a few brain cells,” his dad said, smacking Will on the back of the head.

“Well, the same can be said for Yankees fans, as well,” I teased, eyeing up the Yankees sweatshirt that his dad was wearing.

His father smiled. “Don’t even tell me -.”

“Yup. Red Sox are the best! My dad was originally from Boston so I was raised to love the Sox.”

“Ah, Gabby, and I actually liked you!” Jamie joked.

Will’s father took the empty seat next to me and began spewing off facts about the Yankees and how many World Series they have won in comparison to the Red Sox. I played along with him, throwing in some stats about the Sox, giving Will a little bit of a break from his taunting. He looked at me and gave a smile of gratitude.

His dad kept me entertained, talking to me about everything from sports to movies. I was finding that he really wasn’t as bad as Will made him out to be. In fact, they were a lot alike. Even though he would make a snide comment about Will every now and then, I could still hear the love and admiration in his voice when he spoke about him. The whole time, Will did his best to avoid any conversation with him.

When it was time to sit down to eat dinner, Will pulled out the chair next to him for me to sit in. I was really glad that I had let him talk me into coming. It was nice to be spending a holiday with a “family” for a change, something I hadn’t done since my dad had passed away.

“So, Gabby, how did you and Will meet?” his mother asked once we were all seated around the table.

“Oh, Will was -.” I felt him kick me under the table, and caught a quick glimpse of the nervous look on Jamie’s and Hope’s faces. I hadn’t a clue what was going on and I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.

“At a bar.” Will responded.
Really, Will, at a bar? You couldn’t have said at a coffee shop or something?

“Actually, it was at a restaurant. I was waiting for my table at the bar,” I said, trying to make myself sound a little more dignified.

“Oh.” His mother gave a slight smile, seemingly liking
that
answer a little better. “So what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a nurse.”

“Oh, really?” Her smile became even wider and something told me I had just moved up on her list. “What type of nursing do you do?”

“Hey, Hope, this turkey is really good,” Will interrupted, squeezing my hand under the table. I gave him a quick glance, not having the slightest clue what his problem was.
Why had he lied to his mother about how we had met?

“I work in the burn unit at New York Memorial.”

“Ah, fuck,” Will whispered. I turned my head and stared at him, trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

“Really? Isn’t that ironic? You work in a burn unit and Will’s a firefighter.” I glanced at Will, then at Jamie and Hope. All three of them had their heads down, and then it finally dawned on me. Will didn’t want his parents to know that he was in the hospital. That would explain why I never saw them visiting.

“Yeah, it is,” I said, giving an uneasy laugh, feeling a little bad for lying to his mother.

We finished up with dinner and, thankfully, any more talk of my job had ceased. Normally, I didn’t have a hard time playing along with “little white lies”, but doing it to Will’s parents just didn’t seem right to me.

I was having a great time hanging with Will’s family and playing with Grace. I was a little bummed out when it was time for her to go to bed and I was forced from the land of baby dolls and back into the adult world. I had managed to keep Will and his dad at a comfortable distance for most of the day. That was until Will, Jamie, and their dad began to talk about football which, somehow, turned into how Will would never make Captain because he was too lazy to finish the education needed for it. Will tried his best to just walk away and Jamie made his best effort to change the subject, but his dad wasn’t having it.

“Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like you need much of a brain for that job. It’s really all in who you know,” his dad said.

“You know what? Why the fuck do I even bother?” Will snapped.

“Even bother what? You call this bothering? Coming around every six months to spend time with your family because you’re too busy with your own life to care about what’s going on in anyone else’s?” Will’s dad snapped.

“Dad, just stop!” Jamie shouted.

“You be quiet, Jamie. Will is a big boy now. He doesn’t need his big brother fighting his battles for him anymore!”

Will looked at him and shook his head. “You know what, Dad? I’m not doing this with you anymore.”

“Doing what?”

“Every fuckin’ time I’m around, you have to start. You wonder why I never come around? This is why! It’s because of you!”

“Because of me? Don’t use me as an excuse for your self-centeredness!”

“I’m outta here!” Will turned around to his mother and Hope, who both looked understandably upset. We were all having such a nice time and then, out of nowhere, it all came crashing down. “Mom, Hope, I’m really sorry, but you know how it always has to go.”

“Will, please don’t leave,” his mother pleaded, shooting her husband a dirty look.

“Gabby, let’s go!” Will demanded. I looked at his mother and my heart broke over the tears pooling in her eyes. Here was a mother that actually loved her child and was clearly upset by someone causing him pain. I envied that.

“Nope!” Will looked at me and creased his forehead. “I didn’t get any pumpkin pie, and I’m not leaving here until I do! So you two stubborn men need to put your differences aside because I don’t feel like listening to your bickering and getting indigestion while I’m eating.” Will and his dad stood there, speechless, as Jamie stood laughing in between them. I raised my eyebrow at both of them, flashing them a sarcastic grin before turning around to Hope. “Hope, do you have whipped cream?”

“Absolutely!” Her smile was a mile wide.

“Now you two behave, or Jamie will have to put you in time out!” I said, getting up from the couch and following Hope into the kitchen.

“I think you deserve the
whole
pie after that one,” Hope teased.

“I don’t even
like
pumpkin pie,” I giggled. “I just had to think of something quickly. I didn’t want Will leaving that way. Now at least maybe they can try and make up a little.”

“You are a genius, Gabby! So how about a slice of this?” She took the lid off the most delicious looking chocolate cake I had ever seen.

“That’ll do!” I laughed.

Will’s mom came into the kitchen when I was halfway through eating my cake. “They’re in there watching a movie and laughing like nothing ever happened,” she smiled. “Thank you so much, Gabby!”

“No need to thank me. They just need to realize that they’re both so much alike and through all of the stubbornness in both of them, they really do love each other. Will is very lucky to have two parents that care about him so much.”
Ouch, I should have quit while I was ahead.
Both Will’s mom and Hope looked at me sadly, seemingly picking up on my lack of family in my life. “This cake is really great, Hope. Would you mind sharing the recipe?” I asked, trying to create a distraction.

“Oh, not at all!” she said as she rummaged through the drawer for a pen and paper to write it down for me.
Crisis averted.

Gabby pulled the seatbelt around her and turned up the heat. “That was fun. Thanks for inviting me.”

I shook my head, and couldn’t help but smile at her feigned innocence. “You are a piece of work, you know that?”

“What?” she asked, popping a piece of gum into her mouth.

“You don’t even like pumpkin pie!”

“Oh, you remembered? How sweet, William.”

“Really…thanks, Gabby.”

Her eyes widened and she placed her hand over her heart. “Was that just a genuine ‘thank you’ from you, Will?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Well, I have a reputation to protect. Wouldn’t want everyone thinking I’m a nice girl, you know,” I teased.

“Okay. Thanks b -.”

“Hey, watch it!” she said with a smirk.

“Brat! Thank you, brat. What did you think I was gonna say?”

She shrugged her shoulders and giggled before turning up the radio and singing along, loudly, to Katy Perry. I didn’t think it was possible, but her singing was actually worse than Janelle’s. Funny thing, though. I didn’t mind it one bit.

Once we got home, Gabby immediately changed into her pajamas. “Good night!” she said, popping out of her room

“You’re going to bed?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty beat.”

“Okay. Good night.” She gave me a quick smile before turning around to head off to her room. “Hey, Gabby!” She stopped and turned around. “Thanks for being a buffer today and actually making it enjoyable.”

She moved closer. “Will, you really have no clue how lucky you are to have such a great family. Take it from someone who doesn’t have that and longs for it.” I immediately thought back to the day that Gabby had moved out of her old apartment and how her mother treated her. She was right. Compared to her mother, I had no reason to be complaining about my father.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just, me and my dad -.”

“You and your dad are so much alike that it’s scary,” she interrupted.

“What? Okay, you must be really tired because that is
so far
from the truth!”

I sat down on the couch and she took the seat next to me. “Your number in baseball was always ten. You pitched and played shortstop. In one season, you pitched three no hitters and hit a grand slam that put your little league team into the regional tournament.” She apparently saw the look of confusion on my face. “These are all of the things I learned about you when I was getting to know your dad a little better today. That’s what a dad does who is proud of his child. They brag about them.”