Page 156 of Break Out

I flipped the T-bones. “No, but he wanted to help, and he said he—”

“Wanted you to give me up.”

I stared into her deep brown eyes – lamenting how thin the walls were at my end of the clubhouse. “I didn’t know you heard that. He changed his tune when you went missing.”

“Okay.”

“He could see how much I care for you. Made it clear he may not understand it, but he was opening his eyes. That’s why he’s coming to dinner.”

She settled on the outdoor sofa. “I hesitate to ask this… is he bringing Debra?”

I barked out a laugh. “No.”

“Good. Here’s hoping three isn’t a crowd.”

The doorbell rang.

The anxious expression on her face had me handing her the tongs. “You flip the steaks. I’ll get the door.”

I let Jordan inside, but didn’t let him go very far. “Are you going to be cool?”

He met my hard stare. “Yeah, Dad.”

Hearing him call me that never got old. I reached out and gave him a quick, fierce hug and led him to the deck.

“Want a beer?” I asked.

“Maybe with dinner.”

Twenty minutes later, I smiled while Simone and Jordan laughed at a story I told about changing Jordan’s first diaper. Her concerns about this being awkward were for naught.

Simone sighed. “I forgot about that with boys. Mom let me change Bobby’s diaper once or twice when I was little, but I don’t remember it at all.”

Jordan grinned at her. “Do you know what you’re having yet? Do you have a preference?”

Simone glanced at me, and back to Jordan. “At this point, my only preference is healthy. Though, Mom wants me to have a girl so I get a taste of my own medicine.”

I swallowed a bite of steak. “Pretty sure she wants a healthy baby and doesn’t care.”

Simone nodded and looked at Jordan. “Will you graduate in May?”

He sipped his beer. “August. I’m starting an internship June first.”

“That’s awesome. The one you wanted last fall?”

I’d never seen it before, but Jordan’s cheeks held a hint of pink.

He shook his head. “One that a friend told me about. It’s in southwest Florida.”

Simone sipped her water. “Tennyson’s from there, right?”

That caught him off guard. “Why would you think she told me about it?”

She aimed a closed-lip smile at him. “The way she looked at you that night in December. And I recalled her living in the same complex as Chet.”

This conversation could have had an awkward overtone, but Simone was relaxed and matter-of-fact about it.

Jordan nodded. “She's from there, but it was Chet who told me about the internship. Tennyson’s gone to New York City with an old boyfriend.”

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