Hotbox (43 page)

Other than wishing he’d stop referring to himself as my parent,
I
really
didn’t know what to think
. He still hadn’t given any indication about what he was going to do with my request.

“When would you want to get married?” he asked.

“I
t depends
. I guess I’ve been dragging my heels because of…because of certain issues holding me back. But I don’t want to be held back anymore.
I want to feel like I can get
married without any reservation
.
”

He slowly nodded, but he had a distant look in his eyes. “I still wish your mother was alive,” he said quietly.

I didn’t want to hear about it again, but I
remained
silent
and let him reminisce
.

“She was beautiful—long brown hair,
beautiful brown eyes. She was the kindest, sweetest woma
n that I
’ve ever known
.” He sighed and looked at me. “You look so much like her, Tyler. If I had given up the life that I had, I could have kept her. You could have truly been my son,” he smiled. “But,” he shrugged, “things worked out differently. I was gone so much… She found someone else. I easily could have taken care of the problem,” he lightly laughed, “but I didn’t have the heart, believe it or not.
Or maybe I did.
She seemed happy, so I counted my miserable losses—which were many—and moved on. When she died…
I actually wept.
It was very hard for me. I had this notion that she and your father weren’t
going to stay together for long, so
I was planning to get
her back. I’ll always regret my choice because I loved her, but didn’t want to admit it. I was very selfish.”

I knew the history he had with my
mother. It was the reason he’
d kept close tabs on me my entire life. He felt he owed it to her.

“Olivia would have wanted you to be happy, Tyler. I tried to make up for your father’s insufficiencies
; hopefully
I did to a degree.”

“Until you brought me into a world I had no
desire
to be a part of.”

I cringed
, instantly sorry
that I might have altered the course of our conversation. I wanted him to feel regretful and cut me loose,
not
ge
t on his bad side.

“
The first time you had to
come home and
witness your father begging for his life was what brought you into my world, Tyler. We’ve been over this
.
I’m a businessman.
It
’s the only world I know. I was an orphan from
day one
. When I was well into my teens I was brought into a family—a business family—and finally felt a part of something.
Once you entered my world,
I only wanted the same for you.”

“But it’s not what I want,” I replied, trying to be firm and pleading at the same time.

As he studied me I was debating whether or not I should continue my plea, or wait until he led the conversation again. He looked at his watch, which caused me to do the same. It was almost five o’clock.

“You should go,” he told me. “I don’t want to keep you from being with your fiancée.”

My heart thudded at the
implication
and
I
wondered if he meant what I thought he meant. I sat there frozen, wanting him to say the words I had been wait
ing for. I believe he
was aware of
that
since I was staring at him, probably with a great amount of hope in
my
eyes.

But what he said wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.

“Tyler, there are some things I need to take care of first. Then I can have an answer for you.”

I felt myself deflate.

“But,” he conti
nued, “
I want what you want, and I’m willing to make it happen. Give me some time?”
             
I was nodding right away, and the stupid feeling of grati
tude was beginning to confuse me
. This man had caused me so much grief. How could I be feeling grateful for his
kindness
? But this was something very significant to me. If he could cut me loose and let me live a normal life, maybe I could find a way to forgive all that had happened.

“Thank you,” I found myself saying. “Uh, let me know as soon as you can. Please?”

With a smile he nodded. “Yes, Tyler. I’ll be thinking of you. I always am.”

Without wanting to dwell on that last thought,
I quickly left. I drove by City Hall,
but noticed Jayden’s car was already gone. It was five-
twenty
when I got home,
so I gave her a call to see where she was.

“I’m at Shawn’s,” she said. “We’re just going over some things. Do you want to head over here?”

“Nah, that’s okay. Take care of your work. I’m heading home so I can shower.”

“Hmm, maybe I don’t have work to do.”

I laughed but said, “Let me know when you’re done.”

“Okay. Hey, I have a question for you. Do you think you’d be
available to go out of town this
Sunday?”

“Sounds intriguing. What’s up your sleeve?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.”

“A
h, I see. Let’s put it this way:
I’m all yours, so if you want to spoil me by running away together, then I’m all for it.”

With a laugh she replied, “I didn’t say anything about
me
being with you.”

“Oh, ouch! Okay, so I jumped the gun on that one. Then let me rephrase my answer
: I
f I get to spend an entire day with
you
out of town, then I’m all for it.”

We talked for another minute as I was walking through my front door. I heard Shawn getting impatient with her in the background, so after laughing at her retort to him, I told her she should get back to work.

When I had showered and changed, I sat on my bed, holding the ring in my hand. I had no idea how I wanted to propose to her. I thought up all kinds of silly, romantic propositions, but none of them appealed to me.
I also thought of
some outrageous, creative ones
too.
The problem was that none of them were anything
like
me, and I didn’t want to do it in a way that wasn’t me.
Plus, Jayden was very reserved and I didn’t want to do anything that would embarrass her, or make her uncomfortable. She
liked simplicity, and
I was very grateful for that.

I thought of the restaurant on the river; the night we shared how much we loved each other. Th
at scene wasn’t really my style
either, but the night was amazing—and I’d give anything to see her dressed like that again. I wondered if I should replicate the evening,
but
end it with a ring. She mentioned that was when she first
felt
I asked
her to marry me
. It was, so why not do it again and make it official?

Next weekend we were going camping again. I’d taken two Saturdays
off
in a row—which was okay with Lou, as long as he knew in advance. I would probably still be waitin
g on word from
Olevsky
by then, and
I couldn’t guarantee anything right now. I had the ring and I had an idea of how I wanted to ask her, but I still had to see if I was going to have the future that I wanted.

Jayden came over an hour later. We talked about going out for the evening, but we decided to stay in. However, ten o’clock found us on the baseball field at the college. We had gone for a walk since it was so warm outside, and ended up where it all began. We sat on the bleachers
reminiscing
, from the first time we saw each other to the last game of the season. I learned long ago that Jayden had been to two other games before the one I finally saw her at. She admitted to giving Cali a hard
time about coming to see Devin
when she herself was doing the same thing
because of
me.

“Oh, I was so surprised about
how I felt the first time I saw you. I’ve seen
cute
guys before,” she
smiled
,
teasing me,
“b
ut you… You made my heart
race.
I guess I didn’t know what ‘hot’ was until then.
It wasn’t until the third game that I thought you saw me. I knew I was staring at you
,
and you were so kind to smile back at an
obsessed
fan,” she said,
softly
pinching
my cheek. “
I wanted to talk to you after the game
,
but Cali was in a hurry to get to work that afternoon. I w
as too
shy
anyway, so when you
walk
ed
by
me at
the next game, I guess it was meant to be.”

“Yes, it was,” I agreed
, running my fingers through her hair
.
We started kissing each other
while we sat on the bleachers, and i
t quickly intensified
.

“Ty
…” she smiled.

I shrugged and continued to kiss her. “
Why so shy
?”

“I have no idea,” she laughed. “You never know what kind of strange people show up in ball parks in the middle of the night.”
             
I lau
ghed and kept kissing her,
but toned it down a bit
. Bef
ore lo
ng
she picked up the
intensity
again
.

“What, c
hange
your mind?” I teased.

With a
toying
smile she said, “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Well, I need to know, lady, so I can
behave
accordingly.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The park was fairly crowded the next day. We arrived after noon and there were several people listening to a country band that was playing. Jayden didn’t mind country music if the vocals were pleasing, so we sat under a tree in the shade and listened for a while. We each saw people that we knew, but the amount of people that knew Jayden was ridiculous. Every five minutes someone was coming up to her to say hi. It was like
that almost everywhere we went.

A lot of spectators at the park were lying down listening to the music, so after a while, we did the same thing. I was on my back with my arm behind my head, and she laid
her head
against me and covered part of her face with my hat.

“Maybe I won’t be recognized,” she
said
.

It did actually work and we were able to listen until the current band was done
thirty
minutes later. There was an hour break in between every band that played so we walked down the street and ate lunch at a small café. Each of her friends had called her throughout the day to see who was doing what. Matt and Stacie ended up meeting us at the café, and after that, we all walked back to the park together.
Matt had a friend that was playing in the next band, so he met up with him and introduced us. His name was Dirk, and he introduced us to his three other band mates. I di
dn’t particularly care for
Jarett
, the guy that
kept
looking Jayden over.

With a creepy smile he asked, “You play with Mason, don’t you? I recognize you,” he added, looking her over again.
 

“Yeah, I do,” she replied
guardedly
, seeming
to sense his personality.
Then she reverted into her usual mode of avoiding any further conversation
with him
. She told Matt to give her a call if he and Stacie wanted to meet up with us.

“You ca
n hang out with the band,”
Jarett
smiled. “I’ll take good care of you.
Especially if you bring that other chick you play with; she’s pretty hot, too.
”

She
just walked away, taking my hand in the process
before I could even say anything
. As we left
,
he
added
one more remark that made me
turn around
.