Change of Hart(35)
“Mom!” he yelled as we walked in the door. Addison came walking around the corner from the kitchen.
“You’re home,” she said with a smile. “Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah! There was two diving boards and a slide and Jason threw me across the pool, just picked me up and threw me!” he said, mimicking all the motions like he was playing charades.
“Oh!” Addison said. “That sounds fun!”
“Yeah, it was. Can me and Jason go swimming again, Mom? Pretty please?” he begged, looking at her with puppy dog eyes.
“Not tonight,” she started. “But we’ll talk about doing it another day, ok?”
“Yeah!” Jaxon said, throwing his arm in the air.
“Why don’t you take the beach bag in the other room and start unloading it while I talk to Jason, ok?
“Ok,” he said, dragging the bag behind him.
She turned to look directly at me. “So, how was he?”
“Exhausting,” I said truthfully. “I have not played that hard in a pool in years.”
She giggled. “I should have warned you that even the water doesn’t slow him down.”
“Yes, you should have,” I agreed. “I might have asked you to give him a dose of Benadryl before we left. He sounded a little sniffly, ya know.”
“I bet,” she said with amusement. “But just so you know, Benadryl makes him even more hyper, if that’s possible.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Did you enjoy having a few hours to yourself?”
“Yeah, it was nice,” she said, flipping her hair back from her shoulder and putting her hands in her back pockets. “I cleaned up a little and then sat down and read a book,” she emphasized the word “book.” “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to do that?”
“Mmmm,” I said, bobbling my head back and forth, “Maybe seven years or so.”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “I bet you guys are hungry now. Would you like to stay for dinner?”
Nothing could shock me more than the invitation she had just extended. Except for the little tornado that blew in right at that moment.
“He can’t, Mom,” Jax answered for me. “Danielle is cooking Jason dinner at his place. She said he could have anything he wanted.”
My eyes widened as Addison’s head whipped up to glare at me. “Who is Danielle?” she asked through narrowed eyes. Once again, Jax answered before I could even put my thoughts together.
“She’s this lady at the pool. She’s really pretty, Mom. She had on this green bathing suit that did this,” he cupped his pecks like he was holding up breasts. At that point, I couldn’t look anymore. I just rubbed my hand over my face, praying he would stop. But he didn’t. “And she helped Jason put sunscreen on his back because he couldn’t do it and watched us the whoooole time we played! She was really nice.”
The silence after his revelation was deafening. When I finally pulled together the nerve to look up at Addison, I almost looked away. I could see the fury in her eyes.
“You brought a date when you took my son swimming?”
“She wasn’t a date,” I defended. “She’s a woman who lives in my building.”
The look on her face indicated that I may have just made things worse. “So you brought a booty call when you took my son swimming?”
“Uh, no,” I said. “I ran into a woman who lives in my building when we got there. I ignored her except for the two times she approached us.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “Hey Jax, since you didn’t change yet, go grab your clothes out of the bag and put them on, ok? I want you dressed for dinner.”
“Ok,” he agreed and took off again, leaving me alone with his mother. Normally I would’ve liked being left alone with her. But not right now.
“Listen, Addison, he made it sound a lot worse than it was,” I started.
“Really,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “My son is making gestures about her chest. You call that innocent?”
“Well, I can’t exactly help it that she had her,” I paused, “assets on display. We were at the pool, ya know.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “I can’t believe you, Jason! I trusted you to take care of my son! Not to give him an introduction to the birds and the bees!”
“Addison, that’s not what happened! Listen, can we talk about this outside?” I gestured toward the door. “That little tornado could walk in any moment and I wanna explain myself. I haven’t done anything wrong here.”