My Only - Alex & Jamie (19 page)

He felt like he was intruding on a private moment, so he turned and was halfway back to his truck when the screen door opened and Hazel popped out. “Hey there, handsome, we were just about to have some meatloaf. How does that sound?”

He wanted more than anything else to accept her meatloaf invitation, but this was Jamie’s house and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. He was just about to thank Hazel for the offer and nicely bow out, when Jamie appeared at the door with her son peeking out from behind her leg, “And someone wanted me to add Go-Gurts for dessert.”

He looked in her eyes silently asking if she was sure about this. She gave him a quick nod and his heart filled with so much love he thought it might explode in his chest. He knew how significant it was that she was allowing him to join them for dinner.

He smiled, “How could I say no to Go-Gurts?”

As he walked back up the path to the door Jamie moved to the side, looking down at her son. “Joey, this is Alex.” Then, looking up at Alex, she said, “Alex, this is Joey.”

Joey shyly looked up at Alex, his big brown eyes a little wary. “Hi,” he said politely.

“Hey, little man, you got any Transformers?”

Joey’s face instantly brightened, “Yeah, they're in the backyard. I’ll go get them.” And he was off.

Hazel smiled as she walked inside the house after Joey. Jamie stood looking at him with a strange look on her face.

“What?” he asked her, “Did I say something wrong?” He had no idea what it could have been, unless maybe Transformers were a sore subject or something. He had only asked because he and his brothers had been obsessed with them when he was younger.

“No, nothing. It’s just, I call him ‘little man.’ It was just weird to hear someone else call him that.”

“Oh, okay. I won’t call him that. Sorry. It just came out.” Alex couldn’t believe he had been handed this opportunity and he had already screwed it up.

“No,” she said, a smile finally appearing on her lips, “It’s fine. He is a ‘little man.’” She shrugged her shoulders, turned and went inside. Alex followed, feeling like the small ray of hope she had given him earlier had just gotten a little brighter.

--- ~ ---

After a rousing game of Transformers, Jamie had declared that it was bath time, to Joey’s great dismay. Hazel had gone home after dinner, so it was just the three of them. Joey had immediately asked if Alex could stay and read him a story. Jamie had looked torn but finally said that it was alright with her if Alex had wanted to.

So now, he waited on the couch for little man and Jamie to come out after bath time. He looked around the small duplex and noticed that it was filled with family pictures of Jamie and Joey. He stood and walked over to the wall where there were several of them at the park, a few at Christmastime, and a couple that looked to have been taken at a portrait studio.

Alex picked up a small framed picture that held a photo of Jamie in a hospital bed looking down at her arms, which held a tiny baby Joey. God, she looked so young.

“That’s me and Mom’s first picture together,” he heard Joey say happily.

“I thought it might be,” Alex said to Joey.

He looked up and saw a freshly bathed Joey in Batman pajamas and Jamie, who had changed into sweats and put her hair in a ponytail, standing behind him. He smiled. He had no idea if he would ever be able to convince Jamie that this was where he belonged, with them. But he was sure as hell going to do everything he could to try.

“I got my book.” Joey held up
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
and explained, “We get to read twenty pages.”

Behind him Jamie put both of her hands up and mouthed, “Ten.”

He smiled, looking back down and lifted one brow, “Twenty pages, huh?”

Joey looked behind him and sighed, “No, just ten pages.”

“Okay, sounds good.” Alex moved to go back and sit on the couch but he felt a little hand pulling on his arm.

“No we don’t read out here, it’s for a story for bedtime,” Joey said in a tone that clearly indicated he was questioning Alex’s intelligence.

“Right. Of course.” Alex smiled as he followed Joey to his room, Jamie by his side. He wanted so badly to place his hand on her lower back as they walked down the short hallway. But he didn’t. He would respect whatever boundaries that she put up, even if it killed him.

--- ~ ---

Alex shook his head as they left Joey’s room. As soon as they reached the hall and Jamie had quietly closed the door he asked, “Man, does always go out that fast?”

Jamie smiled, “Now that we have a regular routine he does. But it took a while.”

“Little man didn’t even last five pages,” Alex said, wishing he could fall asleep as easily as Joey.

As soon as they made it into the family room Jamie retrieved the papers she had received at his house and sat on the couch. Moving to sit beside her he gently asked, “So, what’s going on?”

She handed them to him as her eyes once again filled with tears, “Those are from Joey’s grandparents on his Dad’s side. It looks like they are doing two things. First, they are challenging the paternity and second, if the results turn out that Joey is Jeremy’s son - which they will - then they are suing me for Grandparent’s rights. They want Joey a month in the summer and every other holiday.”

He had been scanning the paperwork while Jamie had been telling him what she thought they meant and, as far as he could tell, she was right. “Can they do that? Do grandparents have rights?”

Jamie lifted her arms as if she had no idea her eyes widening, “Apparently they can, and do. But the thing that bothers me so much is why didn’t they just call and ask to see him? I would never keep Joey away from his family. I sent them the birth announcement and I even invited them to his first three birthday parties, but the invitations kept getting returned. I just don’t understand why they got a lawyer.”

She rubbed her hands over her face, tears still falling. “Joey doesn’t even know them and they want me to just let them have him for
four
weeks. They don’t know about his asthma, his treatments. I can’t do that.”

“Okay, well first we need to have Katie look at these. Then we’ll go from there,” Alex said, then realizing he wasn’t sure if Katie had family law experience he added, “And if family law is not her area I’m sure she’ll be able to recommend someone.”

Jamie dropped her hands from her face and shook her head, “No, Alex.” She reached out and took the papers from him. “This is not your problem. I’ll deal with it. I’m sorry I unloaded on you.” She stood and opened the front door.

He took a deep breath as he stood, he knew he had to handle this just the right way. “Jamie, I know that you have been doing this alone for a long time.” He looked down at the picture of Joey and Jamie at the hospital, “And I can’t even imagine how hard it’s been. But please, please at least just go and see Katie.”

She looked down at the paperwork in her hands as she bit the inside of her lip. He hated seeing her like this. He felt so completely helpless.

He reached out and lifted her lifted her chin then wiped a tear that had just fallen from her eyes, “Please go see Katie. For me.” He smiled, hoping that she would see it wasn’t any kind of a burden, he was happy to help.

She let out a sigh as a small smile lifted from her mouth. “Okay, and thank you, Alex. Really. For everything.”

It looked as though a lot of tears were threatening to fall and he didn’t want to leave her crying so he said, as he wiped the few that fell away, “Sorry for breaking rule #2 but since you can’t seem to keep your hands off me, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

She swatted him with the papers as he made his way out the door. He turned back just as he remembered, “Hey, are you and Joey going to the Harvest Festival tomorrow?”

She nodded her head as she barked out a laugh. “That’s all he’s been talking about.”

“Okay, good. Make sure you stop by my booth.”

“Okay,” she said as she was shutting the door.

“Promise?” he asked.

She paused, her brow furrowed slightly as she smiled, “I promise.”

As she shut the door, he turned and for those last few steps to his truck, felt as though he was walking on cloud nine.

Jamie could not believe her eyes when she walked into the Community Center. It looked like a bona fide carnival, minus the rides. It held all sorts of games. Colorful booths lined the wall.

There were clowns doing a myriad of different things. She saw some putting on vaudeville-like performances, others doing face painting and making balloon animals. One was walking around on stilts.

As she scanned the crowd, it looked to her like the entire town must be here. She had originally thought that she would have to miss the festival because she was scheduled to work, but since she still had one more day on ‘Alex Sloan’ duty before she went back to the hospital, she had been able to come.

Joey pulled on her hand, wanting to go look around. She trailed along after him while he played the different games and then was awarded candy whether he ‘won’ or not. He seemed to be having a blast. He saw a couple of his friends from school, Jamie was happy to see that he had made friends so easily.

Joey’s costume was a big hit as well. Jamie had given her number to several moms who wanted her to make their children's costumes the next year. Some had even asked what she would charge to do general seamstress type jobs. She quoted them a number that she thought was fair and they had seemed thrilled.

Jamie had taught herself to sew when she had had to fix her clothes because they had a hole or a missing button when she was in elementary school. By the time she had gotten to middle school she had been making her own clothes. She had even made several girls' prom dresses, as well as making her own.

But as an adult, she hadn’t really given it much thought. Until tonight. Now she tried not to get ahead of herself, but her mind started calculating how much business she would need to have before she could replace her waitressing income. This idea intrigued and excited her, because unlike waitressing, she could sew from home - which would mean more time with Joey.

“Mom, Mom!” Joey yelled over the crowds.

She looked down at him, “What?”

“Can we go see Alex?” He pointed towards the booth in the back that had the only line that they had actually had to put up rope barriers so that people were zig-zagged instead of straight. There must have been over fifty people in it. And they were all women.

She looked up to see what kind of booth it was and had to smile. Of course. The Kissing Booth. How had she not figured that out last night when he had made her “promise” to stop by?

She stood and watched several woman get up to the front of the line, put money in a jar that looked to be overflowing then lean down and plant one on Alex. Alex greeted each one with a friendly smile and sometimes a wink. Hoo, boy. Yeah, so that wasn’t something that she really wanted to stand in line and see played out over and over again.

“There’s a long line, sweetie. Let’s wait till it gets shorter and then we will go say hi.” She looked down at her disappointed son.

“Promise?” he asked as he pointed his little index finger at her.

“Promise,” she said as she used her finger to draw an x over her heart. “Cross my heart.” She had never liked the rest of that particular saying, even as a child she thought it was morbid.

As they walked to the dunk tank she thought, man, what is it with the men in my life and the
promising? That thought stopped her up short. No, she corrected herself, not men, plural. She had only one man in her life. Her little man. The five-year-old dynamo who was about to try and dunk Riley Sloan, who was seated over a tank of water.

Joey gave it several attempts but was not able to lob the baseball with enough power to hit the lever that would send Riley splashing down. In fact, now that Jamie looked at him, she noticed that Riley was perfectly dry except for his feet, which were dangling in the water.

“Hot Mama!” Jamie heard a familiar voice and turned to see Chelle waddling up. Over the past couple of days, during which she hadn’t seen Chelle, her baby bump had seemed to take her over.

“Hey, Chelle, how are you feeling?”

“Huge! I am soooo ready to have this baby.” She smiled as her hand waved up and down towards Jamie, “But you give me hope that I will one day have my figure back. Look at you!”

Jamie looked down at herself. She was wearing the same thing she had worn for the last few years - form fitting black shirt and jeans. She had added cat ears, gloves, and dark eye make-up and - voila, she was a retro Eartha Kitt-style Catwoman.

“This my go-to-easy-breezy Halloween costume when someone,” Jamie motioned down to Joey who had plastered himself to her leg, “insists I dress up.”

“Is that the Joey I’ve been hearing so much about?” Chelle asked.

“It is,” Jamie smiled as she looked down, “Joey, this is Mommy’s friend Chelle.”

Chelle looked down at him and gave him a small wave, “Hi Joey.”

“Hi,” Joey said shyly.

“Hey, Joey, do you see that guy sitting in the tank?” Chelle pointed to Riley, who as soon as he saw Chelle broke out in a huge smile.