“You know that I’m not looking for a relationship.”
“Everyone should be looking for a relationship,” Patrick tries to object.
“What about you?” I ask, giving him a look.
“Well, I would be looking for a relationship, but I have Brennan. He just lost his parents and I need to get him settled and make sure he’s happy before I try to find someone to settle down with. He needs to be my priority right now. You know that.”
“Uh huh. So what? You’ll find someone after Brennan has graduated and moved out?”
“That’s the plan, yeah.”
I just roll my eyes as I stand up and head back behind the counter for my coffee cup.
“So you and this Hartley girl then?” Patrick asks, trying to steer the conversation back to me.
“Nothing there.”
“Yeah, but there could be,” he insists.
“I ran into her yesterday and she said that I was the worst, so, no, I really don’t think that there could be.”
Patrick throws his head back, laughing as I grumble and sip on my coffee.
“What did you do?” he asks after he’s calmed down.
“What did I do? How do you know it was something that I did?” I ask, outraged.
“I just do. Now, what did you do?”
I glare at him and he just grins at me, taking a long slow sip of his coffee. I sigh.
“I don’t even know. I ran into her at the store and then gave her a ride home when her car wouldn’t start. I told her that she needed snow tires and a car with four-wheel drive and she asked if I knew that I was the worst.”
“How did you say that she needed snow tires and a new car?” Patrick stresses and I try to think back.
“I just said it like that,” I say with a frown.
“Okay, so matter-of-factly and like a dick then,” he says, nodding his head like that makes sense.
“No, not like a dick,” I object.
“Listen, Eli. You’re a good dude but you have a way of saying something in this really stoic way that can come across as, hmm, how do I say this… assholish. It comes across as assholish.”
I frown, trying to think back to my exchanges with Hartley. Is that what happened? I don’t have great social skills. In fact, I would say that mine are decidedly less than stellar, so it’s entirely possible that I did come across that way even though I didn’t mean to.
I’m saved from having to answer when Patrick’s cell phone starts to ring.
“It’s Brennan’s school,” he says and I can hear the concern and slight panic in his voice.
He’s still getting used to being a parent and anything having to do with Brennan always has him freaking out. I guess maybe I would too if I had a kid of my own.
He answers it and I watch him. I know that it would kill him if anything happened to that kid. Hell, it would kill me if anything happened to that little boy.
He hangs up the phone after a minute, his face pale.
“Brennan threw up at school. I’m headed there to pick him up now,” Patrick says distractedly as he grabs his car keys off the counter.
I follow him up to the front door, worried now that Patrick looks so worried and upset.