Page 64 of The Progressions

“Is her boyfriend a deadbeat?” Jayden asked sympathetically, and he nodded.

“Yeah, but my mom is like a dog on a bone about stuff like this. She’s going to nail Iva’s ex to the wall. She looks all sweet and she thinks that ‘crap’ is a bad word, but you don’t want to cross her. She got the boyfriend’s address out of a real estate agentand she hired a detective to watch him and get evidence of his assets.”

“What?” I asked. “What detective?” No one had said anything to me about that. “Iva can’t…” I stopped myself before saying that Iva couldn’t afford that, because it wasn’t the business of Jayden and Zach Santiago. We would be talking more about it later, though, and I was pretty mad that it hadn’t been discussed with me already.

“My father was that guy,” Zach said. “Now he comes around, sniffing for money. Get the boyfriend on a court docket and get a new name for baby Balderston.”

I agreed that he needed a name and I had plenty of questions about this topic, but I also felt like we needed to stop discussing Iva’s personal problems. “Did you guys see that Herb and Buzz are releasing their own line of men’s personal care products?” I asked. “Cologne, aftershave…”

It was a fun night, and in terms of a playdate, I thought it worked great. Both Tyler and I had plans to meet up separately with the Santiagos and Jayden hugged me goodbye, too. “That was better than I expected,” he said when we got into his car.

“Are you saying that I was right that you needed a friend?”

“I’m saying that I like Zach more than I thought. He and I have a lot in common.”

“Good,” I said. “And I’m glad that you insisted that I come, because I liked Jayden a lot, too.”

“We were both right,” he told me. “I’ll give you the credit for thinking it up, though.”

He was giving me credit, and he was probably also giving a lot of money to a private investigator. “Iva didn’t tell me about the detective,” I said. “Isn’t it expensive?”

“Yeah, but it’s necessary. My mom suggested it and Iva said ok, but that she would be paying for it. There’s no way,” he told me. “It’s too much money.”

“But why didn’t she tell me about it?” I persisted.

“She’s aware that you hate stupid Dominic.”

“Everyone hates him!” I exclaimed. “It’s also no secret that you share that feeling.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t care about my opinion. She cares a lot about yours.”

“Well, I’ll never talk about stupid Dominic again, then,” I said. “I’ll never bring him up. I don’t want baby Balderston to know how much I hate his father, either.”

“When other people talk about stupid Dominic, you can’t go like this.” He turned to demonstrate what he meant, and there was an expression on his handsome face resembling someone who’d lifted something too heavy, like when I’d tried to move Shay Galton’s deionizing casket by myself.

“I look like that?” I asked, horrified. “Good grief, I’ll stop. I don’t want her to be afraid to tell me things. Am I so judgy?”

“No, she’s judging herself,” he said, nodding. “She was sad and scared at first, but now she’s getting mad and embarrassed that she was with stupid Dominic at all.”

“You’re so wise, Tyler.”

“You’re so sassy,” he answered. “You have a sassy mouth.” But he was smiling, so it didn’t seem to bother him. “We’re going to have to stop calling him stupid Dominic, too.”

“I guess so,” I agreed. “Thanks for doing all this for Iva.”

“My mom organized everything.”

“But you’re paying for it,” I pointed out. “Would you really pay for a place for them to live, too?”

“For my mother? Of course,” he said. “She wasn’t interested in moving to California, but she hasn’t said no to being here.”

“She hasn’t been here in the winter yet.”

“Neither have I, except for a few games,” he told me. “I think I’ll be an idiot like Zach was. Yeah, us idiots will have to stick together.”

“I guess I made a good list of potential friends,” I said. I couldn’t help myself.

“Sassy and smug,” he pointed out.

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