by Claire Adams
"I don't know why you're so mad, Vicky," I said calmly. "Last I checked, I was the reason you've had to replace ten writers in four years."
"You're going to be a little bit harder to replace."
"Victoria, this whole time I thought that you didn't even like me that much. So what's the problem?"
"I can't believe it," she said. I kept quiet because she wasn't really saying it to me, she was saying it to herself. If I had been her listening to me say this shit, I wouldn't have believed it either. "I hope you know what you're doing," she finally said, composing herself a little. I said I did, knowing that was about all I would get from her as far as goodwill.
That was that. I didn't regret it. I didn't want to call her right back and tell her that I hadn't been serious. That was it. I was in. I had enough money put away to take care of myself for a while. As important as work had been to me in the past, what could I say? Priorities changed, and that was what had happened to mine.
That had just been step one. Shelby would talk to me now, but I had to find a way to talk to her. I had already tried her old number; she didn't use it anymore. I called the one person I knew who would have it. Question was, would he give it to me? He picked up after a couple rings.
"Jason?"
"Davis, hey."
"Hey. I wasn't expecting to hear from you," he said. "I thought you would already be on your way back to New York." Yeah, I had thought the same thing.
"Plans changed a little. I wanted to ask you for something."
"What?"
"I need Shelby's phone number," I told him. He was quiet for a few seconds.
"Does that mean things are going well or going badly between you two?"
"It means we're working things out and I want to talk to her. I'll tell her that I got it from you if you're scared she'll be mad or something."
"I guess I underestimated you," he mumbled.
"You what?"
"Nothing," he said, agreeing to text Shelby's phone number to me. I thanked him, and we hung up. It was good of him to help me out. He definitely didn't owe me anything. Guess it was safe to say he wasn't trying to get with Shelby anymore. He had told me as much when I had seen him the day before, that she had broken things off with him, and competition wouldn't really faze me but still. If he felt the same way about Shelby as I did, he had done me a huge favor.
When the text came in, I saved her number and immediately called her.
"Hello?" she said, answering the phone. I could hear the baby in the background; she must have been home.
"Shelby? Hey. It's me. It's Jason," I said carefully.
"Jason? How did you get my phone number?" she asked.
"I asked Davis to give it to me."
"Well, then you were both wrong in this situation. I'm going to ask you to please not call me again."
"Shelby, wait. Just hear me out."
"Why? What could you possibly have to say to me?"
"I thought a lot about what you said to me yesterday." She paused, and I heard the baby some more. He was laughing at something. It was cute. We still hadn't hashed out the paternity thing, but now wasn't the time to bring it up. I was staying here more or less indefinitely now; we had time.
"Yeah? And what did you want to tell me?"
"You were right about what you said. My job is like a power trip for me. I get high off being in that position, but if it’s what is standing in the way of us reconnecting, then I made the choice to give it up." She was quiet again.
"You actually did it? You quit?"
"I got off the phone with Victoria less than an hour ago."
"Jason... is that why you called me? To say you quit your job?"
"I also called to tell you Merry Christmas," I added lightly. That got a little laugh out of her. "And because I still want to talk." I heard her sigh. That had been her challenge, show her I was serious by giving up my job. This phone call was proving even harder than the one I had had to make to Victoria. I couldn't take another rejection from Shelby, not now, not after giving up the one thing that had gotten me up every morning.
"I'm really impressed that you did that, Jason," she said sincerely. "I have some time off from work. If you're serious, we can meet up tomorrow."
"Should I pick you up or something?"
"No. It's not a date. We can meet somewhere. Is lunch okay?" she asked. I told her it was. Shit, I had nothing but time now; even breakfast would have been okay.
"Do you want to come here to the hotel?"
"No, somewhere neutral." Huh, too bad. Inviting her to the hotel the last time had worked out great. We hadn't ended up having lunch, but she had left satisfied. We are taking it slow, I reminded myself. What had Lake said? All that caveman stuff? Yeah, we weren’t doing that anymore.
"How about you tell me a spot that's convenient for you and I meet you there?" I suggested. She liked that idea. "Thank you," I told her.
"No problem. I'll see you tomorrow?" she said. I said that I would be looking forward to it. I stared at the phone after she had hung up. That was it. I was in. I didn't have anything in New York pulling me back. All I had was Shelby. This was probably my only chance to get it right with her. If I fucked up, I was ending up with nothing.
Chapter Eighteen
Shelby
"My God," I murmured, looking down at my tablet. "Guess what your papa did, Damien." He was in his carrier seat, which I had placed on the table. I always fed him before I had breakfast myself. Since I wasn't heading to work today, I was still in my pajamas and was probably going to stay in them the rest of the day. Sleeping in wasn't an option because I had to be up whenever Damien was, but just the fact that I wasn't rushing out the door made me feel a hundred times lighter. I read or watched the news every morning as part of my job, but this morning, I had had my eyes out for one story in particular, and I had found it.
"Jason Bowman, newsman extraordinaire makes abrupt exit," I read out loud. Damien would always look at me, rapt when I talked like he knew what I was saying, but of course, he didn't. I knew he didn't; he was still too young but talking to him was the only way he would learn how to do it too, eventually. I looked at him in his chair, content in a red and green Christmas onesie, watching me. I had been one of those people who had hated on parents who dressed their babies in holiday-themed outfits, but here we were. God, he looks like him, I thought. It would probably get more and more apparent as he got older. I looked at the article again.
"WRTC said goodbye to head anchor Jason Bowman yesterday as he made a sudden exit. Over the four years he has been with the station, his face and name have become commonplace in homes around the country. Stating nothing but personal reasons for his exit, the station is left with the heavy task of finding someone who can fill his shoes," I read. The rest of the article highlighted Jason's history with the station and some comments from Victoria. Jason himself had been unavailable for comment.
"Wow," I said out loud, finishing it. He had really done it. He had told me already, but it was different seeing the proof for myself. I didn't trust him. That was it, plain and simple. I had no reason to. He had sounded sincere enough, but the entire phone call had been like I had been talking to someone else, not him. Someone who sounded just like him but had had a total personality transplant.
He had really done it, huh? That meant I actually had to have lunch with him. He had really quit his job, said goodbye to that position, that paycheck, for me. Well, for us, I guessed, looking over at Damien. I hadn't really thought that he would do it. I needed time to gain confidence in him. He had made a solid start, but he'd have to keep impressing me.
After breakfast, I got changed and took Damien for a walk in his stroller around the neighborhood before getting back home and relaxing for a little while, him having a nap. I had told Paula that I'd need her the night before. She showed up early so she could stay with Damien while I got ready to go out.
Davis and I would go on dates all the time, but straightening my hair to g
o out with Jason, I felt weirdly out of my element. Okay, first of all, it was not a date. We were just having lunch together. Why was I making such an effort anyway? It wasn't like that between us. I sprayed my hair and ran my fingers through it, looking in the mirror. Did I need a haircut? It had gotten pretty long during the pregnancy, about to my bra strap when I wore it down. Jason had grabbed it in his fist, pushing my head back to kiss me the night Damien had been conceived. I shivered remembering.
There would be none of that today. Today, we would talk over lunch like two adults who knew how to work out their differences. I got dressed, choosing a comfortable navy dress and casual jacket. Damien was still asleep when I was ready to leave so I just told Paula where I would be and how long she could expect to wait for me. She was in her late thirties and had worked with children her entire life, both as an early childhood educator and carer. She charged a little more than some of the other people I had interviewed, but her experience was worth it.
I had asked Jason to meet me at a restaurant in downtown L.A., closer to his hotel than my apartment. I had felt a little sorry for him, not having a car and having to pay for all his rides, so I had tried to make it easy. I had been there once or twice before with people from work. They served amazing burgers, but what I was really there for was the seafood.
I had avoided it completely while I had been pregnant out of fear but felt a little better eating it now since Damien wouldn't be directly affected. Having him had completely changed the way I thought about health and eating, in a good way. I wasn't going to start drinking again until after I was done breastfeeding, and even then, I wanted to be as healthy as possible since my bad habits wouldn't just affect me anymore. Jason was waiting when I got there and stood when he saw me approaching. I smiled, politely, seeing him.
"Hey," I said.
"Hi," he said, coming around the table. "You look beautiful," he said, leaning in and kissing me on the cheek. He pulled my chair out for me, and I stared at him, lost for words. I didn't know who this guy was. Which one of Jason's fucking alters was this? He waited for me to sit before he did. A server showing up to take our orders interrupted us before we could finally start talking.
"Thank you for meeting me," he started.
"I said that I would."
"Still," he said. "You didn't have to."
"I read the story this morning in the paper."
"Yeah? Did they use a good picture of me?" he asked lightly. I smiled. Could I get this Jason only all the time from now on? He was great.
"You looked all right," I said, humoring him. "I'm really impressed that you did that." The server came by with our drinks. He took a sip of his whiskey soda before answering me.
"Good. That was the plan." I sat across from him, still a little stunned at the transformation he had made. The conversation was halting at first, my fault mostly because I wasn't sure how to act around him when he was being so... so nice. So normal and so not like himself. He was still staying at the hotel and would be for a little while longer, most likely. He had been serious, really serious about working on things between us. Without his job to take him back to New York, he was more or less free to stay as long as he wanted.
"How was Christmas?" he asked.
"It was okay."
"Did you stay in the city?"
"Yeah. I wanted to spend the day with my baby," I paused. "It was his first Christmas, and the first real break since I went back to work after maternity leave so, I don't know, I just wanted to spend time with him. It was nice. I wanted it to be special." He was smiling when I looked at him. "What about you?"
"Oh, I always spend Christmas alone."
"Why?" I asked. He shrugged.
"Family lives upstate. My sister lives in Amsterdam with her husband, and my brother lives in Hawaii. We can't really get together that often." I nodded, shocked that I had never imagined what his family life looked like. Of course, he had a family; he just seemed so detached, I never thought of him as someone's brother, or son, or anything. Just as Jason Bowman, anchor, and celebrity.
"That's too bad."
"I got used to it after a while," he said, shrugging again. Wow, was he really that isolated? More importantly, why was he so resigned to living that way? It might have been okay now but what about when he got older? Did he have many friends? I knew so little about him, I realized. Only as much as a person who watched him read the news on TV. Everything I knew about him, I had read somewhere, not heard from him.
"Do you do anything to celebrate?"
"Myself? Nope. I'll go to a Christmas party if anyone invites me, but I don't do the tree and present thing by myself."
"I should have invited you over or something," I said.
"For your son's first Christmas? How is he, by the way?" he asked. I smiled hearing him mention Damien. It was true; people loved talking about their kids.
"He's all right. I think he had fun yesterday."
"I thought you were going to bring him today."
"He's with his sitter. He was napping when I left the apartment anyway. I don't know how everyone would feel about me dropping my top to breastfeed here."
"What's his name?"
"Damien," I said proudly. "On Christmas morning, we celebrated by opening presents, watching movies, and Skyping his grandparents. Would you have said yes to coming over to do that?"
"Sure," he said, smiling. "Doesn't sound like a bad time." Either he was just trying to humor me, or he was serious and at this point, I kind of believed that he meant it. We had finished eating, and both turned down dessert. Lunch technically was over; we were just nursing our drinks, stalling on getting the check. That's because you don't want to go home, Shelby. You're enjoying yourself.
It was true. I was. He was being so great. Even if it was an act, it was working. I had mentioned inviting him to Christmas more as a joke than anything, but as I thought about it, it could have actually been a good time. It would have been a family affair: Damien's whole family, not just me. I loved him more than anything, but that didn't mean there was no one else who did or no one else who could. Maybe... maybe there was a way that this could work.
"It would have been nice for Damien to spend Christmas with his dad," I mused.
"What was that?" he asked. I looked at him, realizing what I had said. I swallowed, wishing I had kept my mouth shut. He didn't look upset, just curious though. He had already proven to me that he could be a better person than he usually was. He had given his job up and was serious about making it work between us. Damien would have entered the picture sooner or later. The truth would have had to come out, eventually. We were in public; he probably wouldn't make a scene. If he did, then I'd know the decision to keep Damien from him had been right.
"It was just me and him yesterday. It would have been nice if he had had both his parents with him," I said carefully. "It would have been nice if you had been able to.... I mean, if I had invited you to come."
"Is he..."
"Yeah," I admitted quietly. It was a weight off my shoulders to finally tell him, but I didn't want to regret it. I looked up, Jason was leaning forward on the table, grinning at me.
"Really?" he asked. I nodded.
"Wow," he said, leaning back. I held my breath, watching him. I guess this was the real test, wasn't it? The Jason I knew would flip out and lose his temper. He hadn't been acting like the Jason I knew so what would he do. He ran his hands through his hair and looked at me. "Can I meet him?"
"Yes. Of course, you can. I'd... I'd like that."
"Would it be too much to do it now, once we're done here?" he asked hopefully. He sounded so eager, I noticed with some surprise.
"Maybe not today. Tomorrow?" I asked. He liked that idea. Tomorrow, it was all coming to an end. He was finally meeting his son.
Chapter Nineteen
Jason
"Sir? Do you need any help?"
"What?" I asked, looking up. A woman in a uniform was smiling up at me. I had told my cab drive
r that I'd only take about ten minutes, but I hadn't been in a toy store before. It was a fucking warehouse in there, with shelf after shelf of toys. I had just wanted to pick something up for Damien. When I shopped for my nieces and nephew, I would just get them candy and clothes. I hadn't been ready for just the sheer variety of toys that were made for kids.
"Yeah, actually. I'm shopping for a baby. I wanted to get him a stuffed toy or something."
"How old?" she asked, leading me away from the aisle I was standing in towards another.
"Little," I said, unhelpfully. "Three or four months," I guessed. She giggled a little. She stopped at a shelf with stuffed toy animals and picked up a rabbit, handing it to me.
"These are nice and soft, infant safe. He would probably like one of these," she said. I looked at the selection. Bears, birds, farm animals, big cats: they had everything. I picked a green and blue dinosaur out of the pile and looked it over. What did Damien like? I had no idea what I had liked at that age. He probably wasn't that picky anyway. I still wanted to make a good impression though.
"Is it a gift? We can wrap that for you," she said.
"Yeah, that would be good, actually. This is perfect."
"Are Mom and baby waiting in the car?" she asked, following me to the checkout.
"No, they're at... they're at home, waiting for me."
"Oh, that's too bad," she said. I scoffed softly, realizing that she had been flirting with me. I had been too distracted to notice how much attention she had been paying to me before.
"Well, not for me," I said. She went around the counter and took the toy from the woman who rang me up. She put the toy in a box and wrapped it, dropping it into a gift bag, and handing it to me.
"If you ever need anything else, don't hesitate to come back," she said. I took it and thanked her, walking out of the store. Back in the parking lot, finding my cab, I searched the gift bag and found a loose piece of wrapping paper with a phone number on it. I crumpled it up and threw it away before getting in the cab to go to Shelby's. She had been cute. Blond hair and what seemed like a pretty nice figure under her uniform, but shit, she had slipped me her number even after she knew where I was going and who I was meeting there? Whatever. I wasn't interested.