Page 7 of My Orc in Uniform

As he clomped into the kitchen—at sixteen, Patrick was finally growing into his long limbs—I used my chin to point to the salad spinner. “Could you please do the Caesar salad?”

He agreed with a grunt, and I felt a moment of pride that the two of us could work so well together. Years of living alone, just the two of us, meant that we could prep for dinner with our eyes closed.

We sat at the table and began to eat. When he was younger, we used to watch TV as we ate, and sometimes I still allowed us to both bring books to the table—although he wasn’t nearly the reader I was, despite my best attempts. But mostly, I tried to use this time to bond.

Too bad there wasn’t much to bond about.

“How was school today?”

“Good.”

Ah.

I hid my sigh by shoving a bunch of lettuce in my mouth. Iwantedto ask him what he’d been up to at the water fountain, and why theschool’s police officerhad to interrupt him. But I was learning that the more I pushed him about his friend group—hisbadfriend group—the more he would clam up and retreat.

The problem was, since he’d moved into the high school wing of the upper campus, Patrick had started hanging out with…well, the only way I could describe them was The Bad Kids. These were the guys—led by Jaxon—who did stuff like graffiti walls and set small fires. They weren’tcriminals, but they were heading that way.

“Did your biology quiz go okay?”

He shrugged and hunched over his spaghetti.

Damn. One of the issues, I was learning, was that I knew little, and understood less, about what a sixteen-year-old’s interests were. Besides his hoodlum friends—and yes, I realize that makes me sound like I’m getting ready to shake my cane and yellGet off my lawn!—Patrick had his video games, and I really couldn’t follow much of that.

But being a parent was realizing you had to meet the kid on his level and find value in his interests. Unfortunately, the only thing I was certain of when it came to how he spent his time was his schoolwork, so I tried to ask about it every day.

“Patrick,” I prompted.

Huffing a sigh, my son rolled his eyes. “Fine, yes, it was okay. I got an eighty-five.”

“That’s great!”

He peeked up at me from lowered brows. “It’s not an A.”

Did he think it mattered so much to me? Maybe asking about his schoolwork each evening had given him the impression it was all I cared about? I tried for a nonchalant shrug. “I know you studied last night, so that’s what matters. If you tried your best and got a B, then that’s great.”

Slowly, he sat up a little straighter, as if he hadn’t expected my answer. “I…uh…I used the wholemitochondria is the powerhouse of the cellsong you sang.”

A surprised bark of laughter burst from my lips, and I eased it into a smile as I saluted him with a fork full of noodles. “I guess your old mom doesn’t totally suck, huh?”

“You’re notold, Mom,” he snorted, and bent back over his food. “You’re just boring.”

I reared back, blinking in surprise. “I’m not…” I trailed off, because wasn’t that what Joleen was saying this afternoon?

“You don’tdoanything,” Patrick said to his spaghetti. “You don’t date, you don’t party, you don’t go play pickleball or whatever, you haven’t touched the boat since last fall, you don’t volunteer at the animal shelter…”

“Is that what your friends’ moms do?” I couldn’t help my hurt tone. “I’m not going to go out partying each night! I have a kid, and a job, and responsibilities.”

Patrick suddenly tossed down his fork and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “Yeah, and so does every other adult I know. But they do all that stuff. They havefun.” He glared. “Mom, when was the last time you had fun?”

“I like to read,” I mulishly pointed out. “And I watched that mystery show—”

“Mom.”

I winced. “Yeah, I realized as I was saying it. That doesn’t sound particularly fun to you, does it?”

The little snot smirked. “It doesn’t sound fun toyoueither. It’s just something you do before bed. You scroll your phone, you go to sleep. Why don’t you get a hobby, or go on a date or something?”

I stared at him, too shocked to try to figure out how to formulate my response. “A…date? Date who?” Hewantedme to date? I hadn’t seriously dated anyone forsixteen years. “You know I’m not going to date. The two of us are a family, Patrick; I’m not going to screw that up.”

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