No One Else (The Ladies Who Brunch 2)

Chapter18

Ethan

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fuller.”

I take a seat in one of the miniature chairs in Oliver’s kindergarten classroom right after I walk through the door, and my knees instantly hit my chin. “Hello. Uh, do you have regular-sized seats?” I look around the room as the teacher chuckles.

“Yes. I was about to tell you I have a table set up for us over here, but you seemed eager to sit.”

Standing, I follow Miss Turner’s lead over to the table suitable for adults. “Sorry. I guess I’m just nervous. I’ve never done this before.”

She laughs, taking the seat across from me and then reaching for a folder full of papers. “No worries. There’s nothing to be nervous about though. Parent-teacher conferences are supposed to be a memorable experience, and based on how Oliver’s doing in class, I think you’ll be quite pleased at what you learn today.”

His teacher spends the next ten minutes going through his reading and writing scores, emphasizing where he’s excelling and where he still needs to show improvement. “Don’t worry though. At this age and this point in the school year, all kids have things to improve on. Remember, kindergarten is about developing the skills he will use throughout school as he gets older.”

“Okay.”

“He’s doing very well in math as well.” She pulls out a few more papers. “His number sense is inherent, but he likes to race through his work so he can finish and move on to something else, which means he will often make silly mistakes.”

“The kid has very little patience. He gets that from me, unfortunately.”

She smiles across the table at me. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps you can remind him to take his time on his work so he doesn’t make mistakes because I know he has the knowledge. He just gets problems wrong because he’s rushing.”

“Noted. I will talk to him about it.”

“Excellent. Now, let’s move on to his artwork.” She slides a picture out of the folder and spins it around so that it’s facing me. “This was our family project that he completed last week.”

As I stare down at the paper, my heart lurches. Oliver’s depiction of our family only serves as a reminder that I need to do what I can to convince Amelia that I’ve changed my mind—and I think this picture will definitely help with that.

Standing side-by-side are drawings of three people—me, Oliver, and a girl I’m assuming is Amelia, based on the yellow curls all around the person’s head. We’re all smiling and holding hands, and we look like the perfect family.

And damn it, we were.

Despite how quickly it happened, the three of us did become a family. Despite how fast my feelings developed, I think deep down, I knew I was powerless to stop them anyway. And despite the fact that things right now aren’t fixed yet, I know that I have to do everything in my power to change that.

“When did he draw this?” I ask, clearing the emotion from my throat.

“About three weeks ago. He wrote a story to go along with it last week though. We had to break up the project into parts since we were finalizing the play last week—which by the way, Oliver was outstanding in.” She slides another paper in front of me, where I attempt to piece together the broken and misspelled words. But it’s far easier than I thought.

“My family is me, my dad, and Amelia, my daddy’s girlfriend. We all go to my soccer games together and get gelato after. Amelia lets me swim at her house and she shows me pictures of her gnomes, and she has a spinning pole in her house. My daddy always smiles when we’re together. I hope Amelia gets to be my new mommy because mine left. But she hasn’t been spending time with us anymore and it makes me sad. I miss Amelia. I love her and I want my family back.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, dragging my hand down my face before lifting my eyes to see Miss Turner staring at me with wide eyes. “Sorry.”

She laughs. “It’s okay. Oliver talks about Amelia all the time. You can tell he feels very strongly for her, but he has mentioned that she hasn’t been around much lately.”

“That’s my fault.”

“Well, for the sake of you both, I hope you find some solace soon.” I watch her put all the papers she’s shown me back in the folder. “His drawings are very detailed, and his writing is fairly advanced for this point in the year, so with my help, we were able to put into words what he was trying to say.” She pushes the folder toward me, and I intercept it. “Despite the obvious emotional hurdles you and him are facing, I want you to know that he is doing very well, and I look forward to seeing how much progress he makes by the end of the year.”

“Thank you, Miss Turner.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Fuller. And I hope you three can get your family back together soon.”

“Please let me know if his feelings about the matter become an issue in your classroom,” I offer as I stand, and she follows my lead.

“He’s had a few moments here or there, but nothing I couldn’t steer him around relatively quickly. It’s just obvious that he feels very strongly for her.”

“He and I both.”

I leave the conference feeling even shittier than I did before, considering that I was feeling confident after the awards dinner the other night. I haven’t seen Amelia since, but perhaps showing her Oliver’s drawing is the perfect excuse to catch a glimpse of her honey-colored eyes and that smile I miss more than I care to admit—and a way to convince her to give me another chance.

When I get back to the office, though, I see something I wasn’t anticipating—yet another obstacle that I instantly want to smash.

Standing outside her office door are her and Brayden. She has her purse slung over her shoulder, and he has his hands in his pockets, staring down at her with a gleeful smile on his fucking face.

As I walk up to the complex, Amelia’s eyes shift in my direction and then widen as they take me in.

“Good afternoon,” I say even though on the inside I want to curse and start a fight with this guy. But that’s not going to get me very far, so I refrain.

“Mr. Fuller,” Amelia replies.

“Ethan,” Brayden answers with a smug lift of his lips. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s been better. One hell of a day, and people just seem to continue to irritate me more as the day goes on.”

Brayden huffs out a laugh. “Well, sometimes it’s our own fault when that happens, isn’t that right?”

I stop walking, pausing right in front of my office door. “I like to think of it as people getting in my way that should know better at this point. But sadly, some people are just too delusional to realize they won’t ever be able to compete.”

“Well, maybe—” Brayden goes to reply, taking a step toward me, but Amelia reaches out to grasp his arm, holding him back.

“Brayden. Let’s go.”

He swallows and then straightens his jacket. “Yeah. We have a reservation to get to.”

Fuck. They’re going on a date?

“Have a good afternoon, Mr. Fuller,” Amelia says to me as they begin to walk away.

And my heart aches as I watch them move toward the parking lot, kicking myself for the unfortunate timing and wondering if she’ll be back later today so I can talk to her in private.

For the rest of the afternoon, I’m extremely unproductive. I can’t concentrate, wondering where Amelia went with Brayden or what they’re doing. I can’t stop looking out of my blinds to see if she’s returned. And I can’t stop thinking that I’m too late to try to win her back.