Page 65 of A Return For Ren

In the past three weeks they’d gotten much closer than he could have imagined.

They’d had dinner a few times during the week, and were spending most of Saturday and part of Sunday together too.

They even managed to go out to dinner a few times with Max with them.

She hadn’t spent the night once, but this weekend would be the first. They were going to Dee and Colin’s on Saturday for a small Christmas dinner. Dee missed Max and they had gifts for him. It was better to go the week before Christmas than try to go there the weekend of.

“Play nice,” Zara said, pulling Max’s jacket off and hanging on to it. She reached for Max’s bag to put over her shoulder too.

“Are you sure it’s okay to bring him this early?” he asked. “I don’t see Caroline.”

“She’ll be here in a few minutes, I’m sure. It’s fine,” she said. “Relax. Max will go in the bouncy seat and in the main room where there will be eyes on him. I’d never let anything happen to him.” She turned and rubbed her nose on Max’s and his son started to giggle and grabbed her hair.

“No pulling, Max,” he said, untangling his son’s chubby fingers from his girlfriend’s long locks. “You should try to tie your hair back more.”

“I do at times,” she said. “But you don’t teach the kids things if you take away their ability to learn what they should and shouldn’t do.”

Hmmm. He’d never thought of it that way before. “You could save yourself some pain though.”

“I’m pretty tough,” she said. “Go. Max is fine and you’ve got a call to get on.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

He jogged out to his car and was pulling away when he noticed Caroline turning the corner. That made him feel better at least. He probably should have checked with Zara beforehand, but it never crossed his mind.

She didn’t seem to have an issue with it, but he had to remind himself that Zara being his girlfriend did not mean he could assume or take things for granted.

Not that he thought he was, but he didn’t want to get into the habit of it either.

He was working hard at making this relationship be better than what he’d had before.

A few hours later, he made sure that some of his programs were running tests and then left to meet his mother and look over some of the work on the marina.

“I appreciate you coming by, Ren,” his mother said when he knocked on her office door that was open. “But you didn’t have to do it during the day. I know you’re busy. You could have come later.”

“No,” he said. “You’re trying to get out of here at a reasonable time so I wouldn’t make you stay late. My time is fairly flexible as long as I don’t have any calls scheduled.”

He put enough time in at his job, working before Max was up, then oftentimes more when Max was in bed for the night.

He used to work weekends too before Max came into his life.

Now he realized that he’d had no life prior to his son.

He’d like to think or say he was more focused on his work and productive when he was working now since he couldn’t always drop what he was doing to get something done when he had an idea.

“I’m glad. Do you enjoy your work?” his mother asked when she stood up.

They’d never talked about this much before. “I do,” he said. “It’s what I always wanted to do. I know Dad thought all I did was play video games when I was on the computer. I’ll admit I did at times, but not much.”

Maybe the guy wasn’t a total dick his whole life and it sucked those were his dominating thoughts of the man and wished it wasn’t always so.

“He didn’t understand you, Ren. We both know it and there is no reason to hash over that again. Maybe you would have created video games. You were talented enough to and you’ve always accomplished what you set your mind to.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I try.”

He tried a lot for a long time to get his father to understand. To make his dad see that he wasn’t meant to work at the marina but rather sit at a desk and create with his mind.

He supposed he should be happy and consider himself lucky that his mother understood and stood by his side and supported him.