Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

He shook his head and let my hand go to shake that between us as well, like I’d said something to refute him, which I didn’t.

He then continued.

“Early days, when I was younger, more importantly he was younger, he did some stupid-ass shit. He’s conceited. He was a really good-lookin’ guy. He knew it. He got married to a beautiful, equally vain woman, but he did not settle down. I even remember being out with him and watching him flirt with women, his young son at his side, his wife somewhere else. I remember feeling weird about that. I didn’t like it and I was too young to even get it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed when he paused.

“And as you and I talked about,” he carried on, “I’m not okay with cheating. So I’m not forgiving that in him. I’m just saying, shit got out of control and really freaking skewed along the way. That was on him. It was also on her. She completely descended into the dysfunction. But Dad? He was not father of the year, but he looked after me.”

“A parent should do more than that.”

He nodded. “What I mean is, when he heard your mom had cancer, he gave a shit. He looked right at you. He doesn’t even know who you are, and he felt that for you. My mom didn’t even process it. It wasn’t about her, so it evaporated the minute the words were said. That’s the difference. So I’ll amend. I don’t give up in terms of not giving up on my dad. Hoping that one day he’ll realize he’s caught in an unhealthy cycle and he’ll get shot of her. Mom, she’s a lost cause. I only put up with her for him.”

I’d noted he definitely had way more issue with his mother than his father.

And meeting the two of them, even the short time I’d been around them, I got why.

That said…

“I think all of this affects you a lot more than you know it does,” I pointed out.

He looked away.

It was me taking his hand then, and when I did, I got his attention back.

“Auggie, you just told me you felt exposed, just because I’d met them. You were engaged to a woman, with her for years, and she never met your parents. You thought I was going to rescind my dinner invitation to you after they played their scene in your living room.” I squeezed his hand. “You aren’t them. I’m seeing you. I want you to have dinner with me and my daughter. You’re protective and attentive and kind and funny. You’re good with kids. You’re a great kisser. You are so many things and not any of it has to do with them. But I think you think it does.”

“Do you want them meeting Juno?” he asked.

Shit.

That was a tricky question.

I sallied forth carefully, but honestly.

“From the little I’ve been around them, I’d have to answer, not particularly,” I admitted, “But Juno is of this world. She’s already experienced things, seen things, heard things, a lot of them, that I would have preferred to shield her from. I’m not doing my job if I cushion her from the bumps of life. Eventually, she’s going to deal with dysfunctional people. Rude people. Selfish people. Thoughtless people. She’s gotta learn how to handle it.”

Abruptly, I felt my skin itch.

And it was because of the look that came over his face and the way he forced out, “It’s fucking me up.”

His smooth voice was tight, almost scratchy, like there was pain in the act of forming those words.

“What’s fucking you up?” I asked quietly.

“Being with you.”

Before I could think twice about it, I let his hand go and leaned away, feeling my stomach take an unpleasant dive.

“No, not that. Not that,” he said swiftly, reaching with both hands to my face. Once he got hold, he pulled it closer to his. “Not like that,” he whispered.

“Okay, now I don’t know what you mean, ‘not like that,’” I said, my voice small.

“Like it’s bad.”

“How can fucking you up be good?”

“Because I’m seeing how it was.”

“What was?”

“How they treated me,” he stated. “How they treat each other. It’s coming at me all the time. I can’t control it. I’ll be in a meeting at work, and I’ll be thinking about ridiculous shit that isn’t ridiculous. Like how all the guys who have women bring travel mugs into work. How that’s what you do when you have someone in your life who cares. How you build a life together. How my parents don’t even look after each other enough to have travel mugs in the house. Or food. My dad doesn’t get up and make a pot of coffee for the both of them because they both drink coffee, so as a matter of course, one of them makes it so both of them can have it. How even my dad’s place, where he’s lived for decades, seemed transient to me because she was in and out of it. How I…”