Page 36 of The Problem with Sports
I knew there were going to be days when I made Andie cry because I was a man and us men were fucking super stupid sometimes, but it’d never be intentional. However, Grant was too young to explain that to. So, instead, I told him, “I will do my best to never make your mom sad, Grant. You have my word.”
“And you and my Dad will be friends, too, right?”
And do you know how I knew it was over for me?
Because I looked this kid in the eyes and said, “Absolutely.”
Chapter 19
Andrea~
You have got to be kidding me.
It was late Friday afternoon, and Justin was about to get ready for the dinner and night crowds. He was offering his new dishes and drinks tonight, and I had stopped by to wish him luck. Rachel and I had given all three dishes the thumbs up, and most of the new drink concoctions, except for the Take A Guess disaster he had served up.
It had tasted like ass.
That hadn’t been washed in days.
But after making myself at home at the bar and abusing my perks for free appetizers and a drink, my phone has rung, and since it had been Steven’s name that had flashed across the screen, of course, I had answered, and now I was sitting down, stunned, at what he was saying.
“Are you…what?”
“Look, I’m not mad,” Steven said. “You’ve been completely honest about what’s been going on, Andie. I just would have liked a little heads-up that Grant knew you were dating Nathan. I felt kind of blindsided and hadn’t really known how to respond.”
Answering the phone, Steven had told me that, this morning over breakfast, Grant had told him that I was dating Nathan. Steven being a real estate agent, he was able to set his own hours. He always took Fridays off, even if that meant he had to put in extra hours Monday through Friday. It was something we both did. We worked our asses off on the days we didn’t have Grant, so that we could have more free time on the days we had them. We also got along well enough that if we needed to trade days or pick up/drop off times, we could.
“Steven, I never told Grant I was dating Nathan,” I told him. There had to be some mistake or Grant was just doing some wishful thinking and Steven misunderstood. “What…what did he say, exactly?”
There were a few seconds of silence, but there was no mistaking Steven’s tone when he asked, “You never told Grant you were dating Nathan?”
“No,” I replied. “I’d never do that without talking to you first. If…if it’s serious enough to tell Grant about it, then it’s serious enough to talk to you about it and discuss what it could mean.”
“He said Nathan told him that he liked you and asked him if it was okay if he was your boyfriend.”What?“I…I just assumed you guys had discussed it all together.”
“An…and when did Nathan tell him this? Do you know? Did he say?”
“I did ask, and Grant said Nathan told him yesterday afternoon,” he said. “Did Grant visit Nathan yesterday?”
My stomach dipped with realization. “Yeah,” I mumbled into the phone. “He went to visit him at his place a couple of hours before I dropped him off with you.”
“And Nathan didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“No.” Steven remained silent, so I went on to explain. “When I got back from dropping Grant off, Nathan had sent me a text that a water line had busted in his parents’ backyard. He’d gone over there to help out. I…I worked all Thursday evening, and I woke up to a text his morning that he’d see me today. The text came in at around midnight, so I assumed he stayed to help fix the water line, or…something.”
“And this morning?”
“I was working all morning, final edits and stuff, and…”
“And?”
“Well, he sent me another text, telling me he was going to go check on his parents water line again, just to double check in the light of day that it was fixed, and I got back to work.” It was like a bad movie where everything was going wrong, but Nathan could still have picked up the phone or sent me a text that we needed to talk. Something.Anything.
“Where are you now?”
“Justin’s got some new items on the menu tonight, and so I stopped by to wish him luck,” I replied. “I’m at the bar.”
“And no calls or texts from Nathan?”
