Page 71 of My Song for You
She laughed. “What gave you the idea my parents are divorced?”
“You just seem to know a lot about it.”
She inched closer to me. I stepped back. My hip bumped against the counter.
“My parents are happily married,” she said. “They just weren’t around much. They were always traveling for their careers, which meant I was raised by nannies. No kid should live like that.” She shrugged. “You said Logan isn’t even aware that he’s your son. Why tell him now? From the looks of it, his mother’s doing a great job raising him. How do you know he’s not better off without you—especially given your career?”
The thing was, I had no idea if hewasbetter off not knowing that I was his father. But I did know that he wanted me to be his dad. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so excited about the idea when he caught me kissing Callie.
“Are we practicing or what?” Kirk called out. The four guys and Logan were watching us, bored with waiting for Tiffany and me to finish our conversation.
“Sorry,” I called out. “I’m ready.”
“Can I stay and watch?” she asked.
“Sure. You can sit with Logan.” I gave the apple juice box to Logan and introduced her to him, then removed his auditory processor from under his hair.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Logan is deaf,” I said and signed. “This”—I pointed to the device in my hand—“helps him hear.” Yes, I signed that too.
“But don’t think for a second it means you can say ‘fuck’ around him,” Mason said as he fished a dollar from his wallet. He handed it to Logan and winked at him.
Logan grinned, but at least this time he didn’t repeat the word…which he had recently learned to lip-read. Mason owed me big-time for that new skill.
“I thought you said he can’t hear,” Tiffany said.
“He can’t. But he can feel the vibrations when we play the music.” I grabbed my guitar and signaled to Mason to start our first song.
—
The band had been practicing for two hours when we finally took a quick break. Before I had a chance to see how Logan was doing, Tiffany sashayed up to me like she was on a catwalk. She swooped in so fast to kiss me, I didn’t see it coming until it was too late.
“I’ll see you soon, love,” she said, then quickly left before I had time to react. But what I did see was Logan looking at me, frowning. Shit. Between Callie, Tiffany, and the girl at Disneyland, he must be confused about why so many women were kissing me. And he didn’t even know the half of it. How the heck did I explain this to him?
I turned around in time to catch Aaron and Kirk each hand Mason twenty dollars. Mason appeared smug behind his drums.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The losers bet me that you wouldn’t get back together with that fine piece of ass. I, on the other hand, knew you couldn’t resist it. No one can.”
I glared at them. “You seriously bet on my dating life?” And with Mason of all people. They should’ve known better, given his past gambling addiction.
“What else do you expect us to do for fun?” Aaron said, chuckling.
Any other time I would have flipped them the bird, but the last thing I needed was for Logan to learn that gesture. I could guarantee it wouldn’t have impressed anyone at his school. Nor would it have scored me any points with Callie.
“You can give Aaron and Kirk back their money,” I told Mason. “Tiffany and I aren’t dating.”
Mason laughed. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He didn’t give back the money. Instead, he flashed them a look that said it all:You just wait. Jared will be fucking her in no time.
Chapter 29
Callie
Before Jared and I had taken our “relationship” to the next level, sitting next to him on my couch to watch a movie had been hard enough. Now it was doubly so with Logan sitting between us. No touching or kissing of Jared was allowed. I just had to channel my inner nun.
Too bad I was as close to being Catholic as I was to being a mermaid.
