Page 62 of Mine to Keep

“Who told you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Did you get the results back?”

“Do you care?”

“Of course, I fucking care,” he mumbled. “But you didn’t give a flying rat’s ass to tell me.” He planted his hands on his hips. “And then you summoned me to this lunch, and I thought we were going to talk about whether or not you have cancer and hopefully mend our relationship, but you had to go and pull this bullshit about whether or not I’m dating Bryn. Only to make that worse by being a cop about it and not a mother.”

“So, what you’re saying is if I had cancer, you’d be willing to—?”

“Oh, my God. This is so fucked up I can’t stand it. I take it the results were negative?”

“They were.”

He leaned in and kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’m truly grateful for that news. And whether it was positive or negative has nothing to do with our relationship. That’s a fact. It’s your actions that dictate our inability to have one. Don’t go poking into Bryn’s life. There’s no reason to. We can try lunch again when I’ve calmed down. Okay?”

“All right,” she said.

Sometimes, his family drove him batshit crazy.

“Be safe out there,” he said. “I love you. I do mean that.”

“I love you, too, kiddo.”

His chest tightened. It had been years since she’d called himkiddo, and it reminded him of when he’d been six years old and had broken his arm. She’d sat with him for hours in the hospital waiting room.

“I understand that you and Cheryl are over. I accept that,” his mother said. “I’ll do what I can to help her move on. I mean that.”

“You can stop acting like her mother-in-law for a start.”

“That’s a fair point.”

“Can I trust you not to ask Bryn a million questions this afternoon?”

“How about I keep it to twenty?” His mother smiled. “I can’t help it. I’m a cop. It’s my nature to be suspicious of everything. And I don’t think she’s a bad person, I just can’t help but wonder what her story is. Don’t you?”

“Haven’t you considered that maybe I already know and have decided that it’s no one else’s business?” That should quench his mother’s thirst but did nothing for his.

“Fair enough,” his mother said. “Now, will you come back and eat lunch with me?”

His stomach growled. He nodded. He could only hope that his mother wouldn’t bring up any other hot topics.

They returned to the table. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Jon Kaplan.

“I can feel your anger all the way over here,” his mother said. “What about Jon Kaplan has you tied up in knots?”

Jamison tilted his head. “You’re fucking kidding, right? Jon just did a second piece about Steve, and in the article, he mentioned you and me and all of this shit again. And now, Jon wants to interview Bryn about her business. I’m calling bullshit. It’s going to be all about coming at me again.”

“Jon’s not a bad guy. Maybe he wants to talk about how you delivered her baby.”

“Right. That’s total bullshit. That article would be a paragraph long. I can see it now.Local firefighter does his fucking job. Big damn deal.”

“Bryn’s baby nearly died. And don’t tell me that’s not true.”

Jamison still had nightmares about Zadie and how blue she’d been when she was born. Or how tightly the cord had been wrapped around her neck. So, yeah, he knew how close to death that precious little girl had been, but that didn’t change the fact that Jon wanted to turn the article into something else, and Jamison didn’t want his life in print for all of Lighthouse Cove and the surrounding towns to judge.

“That’s not the point, Mom.”

The waitress showed up with their food, and even though his stomach growled, indicating that he was hungry, his mind told him a different story. Jon Kaplan standing and strolling from his table to theirs made it all worse.

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