Page 96 of This Could Be Us
“Mostly my dad. My mom is…” I give a vague wave of my hand in her direction. “Like you. One of those glittery people who enjoy being around others all the time.Life of the partykind of person.”
“You mean an extrovert? Thatisdifferent from you, then.”
I chuff a laugh. “Thanks a lot.”
“You said it first. It’s not bad, just different.” She glances up through a veil of long dark lashes. “I like it. I like you.”
Those words dangle between us from a tantalizing thread, shimmering with the possibility of pleasure we tasted together only a week ago. A pulse ofagainandmoreandnowclamors through my body, but I subdue it and wait for her to move becauseshehas to control this.
She clears her throat. “Um… sorry. You were saying.”
“Just that I’m a lot more like my father.”
“What do they do? For a living, I mean? Or are they retired?”
“My mom is still going strong as a nurse, but she’ll probably retire in the next couple of years, if only to be at home with my dad. Though right now he’s driving her out of her mind. He’s bored.”
“What did he do?”
“Hewasan FBI agent.”
Her eyes go wide and round. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. Hundred percent. He’d come home talking about his cases, at least as much as he was at liberty to. The embezzlement stuff always fascinated me the most. Or anything where someone stole something and tried to get away with it.”
“I’m envisioning ten-year-old Judah walking around with a calculator, solving fifth-grade crimes.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “Not quite. I did love numbers. Like they came so easy to me, which actually I think I get from my mother. She’s great at math. And I loved puzzles. Solving things.”
“Like Aaron.”
I glance up from my plate, where only a little of thepastelremains. “Yeah. I guess like Aaron. I got a full ride to MIT and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at first.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine you not being sure what to do. You always seem to know.”
A self-deprecating smile tips one side of my mouth. “You should have seen me when we got the boys’ diagnoses. I didn’t know what any of it meant. I was kind of a wreck for years, but didn’t realize it until Tremaine insisted I start therapy. Thank God for her.”
“When were they diagnosed?”
“Around two years old, and around the same time. For a while they presented very similarly. As they got older, Adam started making gains that Aaron wasn’t. Well, I don’t know if it’s actually quite that simple.”
“What do you mean?”
“Adam made the gains people pay the most attention to. Like hestarted talking again. He’s very academically gifted, so teachers were dazzled by his intelligence. They just weren’t always sure what to do with a ten-year-old who could do high school–level math but wasn’t potty-trained and couldn’t tie his shoes. He wears Crocs or slip-on sneakers to this day because he still can’t. Aaron has incredible bodily kinesthetic intelligence but can never learn to ride a bike. There are these… gaps sometimes. Development is not a straight line, and it misses some stops altogether.”
“Sounds challenging,” Soledad says.
“At various points, yeah. Tremaine and I took turns staying home or working from home. There was a time when both of us working outside the house was impossible, but there were things we wanted to do for the boys that weren’t covered by insurance. So we needed money. We got calls from school constantly because of Adam’s seizures or Aaron’s meltdowns or any number of things. Not to mention driving back and forth to after-school therapies.”
“So you stayed home?”
“We both did.” I shrug. “I would take on freelance stuff so I could work from home. It slowed my climb up the ol’ corporate ladder. Tremaine’s too. She should have made partner years ago.”
“We do what we have to for our kids, huh?” Soledad pierces herpastelwith a fork and slides part into her mouth.
“Almost forgot thecoquito.” I walk over to the cabinet and grab two stout glasses.
“Only a sip for me. I’m driving, and the rum is actually pretty strong in this batch. Courtesy of Lola’s heavy hand.”