Page 16 of Catching Our Moment

Shaw

“Why do I embarrass my dad?” Aaron asked in a monotone voice, tilting his head. “Have I done something wrong?” He turned to his mom. “I don’t understand.” He pulled on his fingers.

Panic was written on Kelcie’s face. Her mouth opened, but words were not coming out as she tried to walk toward her son.

I stepped forward. “Hey, buddy. What’s the score of the game?”

“21-17, Washington,” he said succinctly, though his gaze was still focused on his mother.

“Is it still half-time?” I asked, trying to buy Kelcie some time to gather herself.

“Yes. So, am I not going with Dad this weekend?” He walked down the stairs and stood in front of her. He was almost up to her nose. His shithead of a father wasn’t that tall, but his grandfather, Kelcie’s father, Holden Hammer, was a former football player himself and was almost as tall as I was.

She hesitantly put her hand on his head, threading her fingers through his hair. “No, not this weekend. Your father is busy, and we can’t seem to arrange it. But we will find something fun to do around here?—”

It infuriated me that she shared the blame.

“Where is he going that I would embarrass him?”

“Honey, I didn’t mean that?—”

I couldn’t leave her dangling. “Oh, you know, probably some dry business function that would bore any teenage kid to tears. There’d be nothing else to do but stir up trouble.” I waved it off.

“I don’t get in trouble.”

I took a step back in surprise. “You don’t? Seriously?” I studied him. “Why not?”

“Because you aren’t supposed to break the rules. That’s why there are rules.”

“Are you sure you’re your mother’s son?” I deadpanned. He furrowed his brow to understand me better. “Oh, dude…how do you have any fun without breaking a few rules?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, still fidgeting with his fingers. “I don’t understand.”

Kelcie put her arm around Aaron. “Shaw’s joking with you,” she whispered.

“Is he making fun of me?” he whispered back, but loud enough for me to hear.

I shook my head. That wasn’t where I was going with this. I remembered Grace telling me to be direct with Aaron. No sarcasm or inferences.

I squatted down, giving him a higher position.

“No. No. Not at all. I was joking because I was trying to make you laugh. Because I was a bit of a rule-breaker when I was younger. Your mom—” I glanced up at Kelcie, whose eyes began to warm because of the effort she knew I was making.

“She liked to have everyone believe she was a major rule follower. But really, she led the charge in finding ways around the rules rather than breaking them. It’s how we were such good friends. ”

“My father used to pay me an allowance to keep Shaw out of trouble.” She tapped her hand on his shoulder, pointing at me. “It was my first babysitting job.”

“Wasn’t Shaw my age?” he asked sideways over his shoulder at her.

She nodded, smiling, and winked at him.

“Oh…I get it, because he was immature like a child.” He put his hand over his mouth to try to hide his laugh. “Shaw, she said you behaved like a child.” He guffawed.

I jokingly glared at Kelcie but then shrugged and smirked because Aaron was amused. My mission of removing James’s taint from the evening was accomplished.

“Yeah, well, if it wasn’t for her keeping me out of trouble, we probably wouldn’t have made it to the state championships our junior year…”—I narrowed my eyes as if concentrating—“and maybe our senior year either.”

“Definitely senior year. Remember? You always wanted to skip fifth period with Mandy O’Hare,” she said, hand on her hip.

I smiled up at her with devilish amusement. “Oh, yeah. Good ol’ Mandy.”

She rolled her eyes at me, but I saw the tilt in the corner of her mouth.

“Tell you what,” I said, wanting to maintain the momentum, “how would you like the job of babysitting me?”

Aaron chuckled, and Kelcie’s brows drew together. She was obviously wondering where I was going with this.

“I’m so bored.” I stood and threw up my arms in exasperation. “How about tomorrow you come home from school and keep me company?”

“He goes to Maeve’s after school, until I get off work.”

“Even though I told her I could stay by myself. I’m not a child.” Aaron glared.

“Of course you’re not,” I said.

“And you aren’t supposed to be driving yet,” Kelcie countered.

“True…”

“I can walk a few blocks by myself, Mom,” Aaron grounded out.

Kelcie shifted, closing her eyes to this well-worn argument.

“Or I’ll meet him."

Kelcie produced a side-eye glare for me.

“Or we can meet each other halfway. I think we can manage between the two of us, boss.” I resisted the need to tug her ponytail like I used to when I’d won an argument. “We will call you when we make it home, okay?”

Aaron’s face lit up, and he began to nod vehemently.

“Maybe we can go to the park and find something to do that is fun,” I said and then held up a placating hand, adding, “without breaking rules.”

She opened her mouth, a slew of excuses undoubtedly ready to come out. “But?—"

“Kelcie…” I rolled my eyes with great drama. “I’m bored to death. I can’t exercise except to do a few stretches. There’s only so much binge-watching of reality TV I can do. I hate reality television.”

“Your girlfriend is starring on a reality TV show.”

I opened my mouth, pointed at them, and said, “Not the point.”

Then, my eyes darting between the two of them, I pled the rest of my case because this was the best idea I’d had in a long time. “Everyone is working... It really will keep me out of trouble.”

“Mom, please. I’m bored at Maeve’s.”

I pulled Aaron gently toward me, put my hand on his shoulder, and surprisingly, he let me. We were a united front.

“We can talk sports and maybe take a walk downtown. Give us a list of rules, and we will follow them. It would be a good change—a distraction—for both of us.”

“You can’t go for long walks yet.”

“Then we will find a park bench and sit on it.” I gave her a pointed look and nodded once. I would make sure to distract him from his father not coming tomorrow.

She studied us both, her eyes darting from me down to her son and back. She took in a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders, then closed her eyes, and I knew I had her. “Okay. We can try it.”

Aaron tilted his head up to smile at me and then over to her.

Yes. This felt right.

“Aaron, honey, why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for tomorrow? I’m going to walk Shaw out.” We all turned and walked upstairs. Aaron continued up to his room, and Kelcie and I walked toward the back door.

“Okay. Bye, Shaw,” Aaron said.

“Later, my man.”

Once we walked out onto her back porch, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared out into the backyard. “I appreciate you stepping in, but it really isn’t necessary.”

“I wanted to. I think this will be perfect for both of us.”

“It was my fault he overheard me. I let my emotions get away from me.” She moved toward the railing and ran her hand through her hair, pulling on her ponytail, “God, I should have known better.”

I walked up behind her and jammed my hands in my pockets. “It doesn’t mean he heard everything you said.”

She nodded. “He did. You may as well be warned. He could hear our conversation out here with the TV on in the kitchen. He has unbelievable hearing. His brain can’t filter background noise, which makes his life difficult and overwhelming, but it also means he hears everything .

We’ve had to invest in several decent noise-canceling headphones for him.

I leaned against the railing, facing her.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper, and she kept her back to the closed sliding door.

“When he was younger and couldn’t communicate how uncomfortable it was, life was hard for all of us.

He’d get overwhelmed, the noise would get to be too much, and it would send him into meltdowns that we couldn’t always predict or understand.

Daycare was out. Going out to eat didn’t happen.

Playdates with other screaming kids were a definite no. ”

“That couldn’t have been easy,” I said quietly, glancing at her, wanting her to talk but not wanting to hear how hard her life had been.

“It wasn’t. It’s why I stayed home for so many years.” She leaned her arms on the rail and continued to talk into the darkness. “Once he was older and able to express himself, he was able to predict when something wouldn’t work for him, or I would be able to anticipate signs of stress in him.”

I shifted myself closer to her, my hand inches from hers. “Like going to the game with 75,000 screaming people? That must have been overwhelming. How did he manage that, anyway? Did the box help?”

She met my eyes from over her shoulder, and in that moment, I saw how hard things had been for my girl.

“Oh my God, he was trying so hard, Shaw.” Her voice hitched with pride. “He wanted to go so badly. I bought new industrial earplugs for him to use.”

“Did it help?”

She nodded and glanced up. “It did for the first half. He would step out onto the seating area for a bit and then back into the quieter room to take a break. He did an amazing job of managing himself. He wanted to watch you in person, so he kept in his earplugs and did his own commentating, which was fun to listen to.”

“I caught some of that this evening. He’s quite good.” I grinned at how he’d imitated the voices of the other commentators in their intonations and cadence.

She straightened and turned toward me. “He got agitated once you were hurt. His sense of right and wrong kicked in, and he wanted justice for you being hit. He insisted it was a penalty. We left quickly, and Grace stuck around to see how you were doing. It was a tipping point, and he needed to decompress after that. That’s why we needed to go straight home.

” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned a hip on the rail, and stared at her feet.

“We were really worried about you, though. I knew you had a lot of people around you…”

I reached for her hand, holding it gently, wanting her to look at me.

“I am sorry he had to witness me getting hurt. I’m sorry you both did. But thank you for coming to see me. It meant a lot.” I motioned with my other hand.

She squeezed my hand, and the corner of her mouth tilted up.

“Not that I want to get the crap knocked out of me, but at least something good is coming out of it.”

She shrugged. “That’s true. At least we both are at a point that we can be here for each other like we used to be. And I get to boss you around again. That’s almost worth it.”

Yes. Exactly. This is what I wanted—to have her back in my life.

“Come here.” I couldn’t not hug her. I wrapped her in my arms, ran my hand over her hair, and breathed in her scent.

It was like fitting another piece of myself back in place.

I closed my eyes, tucked her head under my chin, and stared up at the night sky—the same night sky that had seen me do this so many times in the past. And I… well…I felt more like myself.

No lights, no glam, no stress to impress. Just Shaw with his Kelcie.

“God, I missed this.”

And she squeezed me a bit tighter in response and mumbled, “Me too.”