Page 66 of Playing for Keeps

“You might need to tone down some of your conspiracy theories if you plan to become a science teacher,” I suggested. “Or the parents might complain.”

“You thinking of becoming a teacher?” Jonathan asked.

Ethan sat up straighter. “Yeah. I’m looking at enrolling in my first paper next semester. Just trying to work out how to make the teacher training fit around rugby.”

“You’ll make it work,” I said.

We ate our ice creams, and the sun beamed down.

It should have been a moment of contentment, right? Sitting in the sun with my boyfriend, my best friend and my nephew after a nice outing.

Instead, I had an antsy feeling I couldn’t shake. A feeling that something just wasn’t right.

I tried to curb it as we finished our ice creams and wandered through the gift shop. I bought Theo some cool stamps that had an animal on one side and the animal’s footprints on the other.

“You don’t need to buy him stuff,” Ethan said after I handed a smiling Theo the paper bag with the stamps in it.

“I’ve got a few years of nephew spoiling to make up for,” I said.

Ethan smiled, but it wasn’t his usual full-on beam. “You’re here now.”

I flicked a sideways glance at him as we headed out the exit. Was he thinking about all those years when we hadn’t spoken? Had they been as hard for him as they had been for me? After we exited through the turnstile, Ethan turned to us.

“Thanks for coming.” There was an unusually shy element in his smile.

“Anytime,” I said. “We had lots of fun, didn’t we?” I glanced over to include Jonathan.

“Yeah,” he said, but something in his voice sounded slightly off. “It was great.”

Theo gave both Jonathan and I unprompted hugs, then retreated to Ethan’s side.

“See you guys later,” Ethan said.

He walked off, clutching Theo’s hand. Halfway to their car, Theo stopped to pick up a leaf and show it to Ethan. Ethan turned it over in his hand and then carefully put it in his jacket pocket.

I wrenched my gaze away from them to find Jonathan watching me.

Shit.

I’d thought Jonathan would be a buffer between Ethan and me. But I had a feeling it hadn’t quite worked out like that.

Jonathan was quiet the whole trip home. I was lost in my own head as well. That niggly feeling just wouldn’t go away.

When we got inside, Jonathan headed straight to our bedroom.

I hesitated, then followed him. I found him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the opposite wall.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Jonathan raised his eyes to mine. For a second he looked lost, and I instinctively took a step toward him to comfort him.

“I didn’t realize how much of you was missing when I first met you,” he said, his voice soft. I stopped a few feet from him, staring down at him.

“What do you mean, missing?”

“Seeing you now, around Ethan, there’s this whole other side I never saw in Japan. It’s like this weight has lifted off you. I noticed it at the Easter egg hunt and at the wedding too. You were so happy every time you and Ethan interacted.”

“Okay…” I said cautiously. From Jonathan’s expression and the tone of his voice, I got the impression he didn’t necessarily see it as a good thing.