Shark Bait (The Grab Your Pole Series) (24 page)

No wonder Kate said he keeps things mostly minor! He’s already paying majorly for not doing so previously. And, that could also be why Kate mentioned how he doesn’t talk about his sex life and that he has skeletons—plural. Knowing him as well as she does, she would know about Joey and I mean the cheerleader is like a teeny-tiny thing to having a baby in my opinion, because this is one pretty freaking humongous skeleton, you know?!

All of that was still spinning in my head the following morning when I left the house early to go for a walk around the park. I still haven’t come to a decision and I kind of want to figure out how I feel before bringing this whole thing up to my sister, Kate and Melissa, Tristan, or, anyone really. On the one hand, I’m sure my friends as well as Tristan will understand my position if I say this is too much for me. But on the other hand, they all might think of me as being piously self-righteous. After all, none of them have seen fit to mention this to me and maybe that’s because this kind of thing has happened before with other girls who’ve found out about Tristan’s son. Plus—and not that I did so intentionally—I still feel inordinately guilty for finding out the way I did.

Thinking about that last part, though, was actually what told me what to do. I have to tell him. Even though I don’t know where I stand now on
dating
Tristan, I know I have no problem being his friend. The only problem is that I can’t expect him to want to be my friend until I’m honest with him, which means I have to confess that I know about Joey,
and
, how I came to know about him. And yeah, I’m taking a risk here but maybe once I talk to him, I’ll have a better idea of what I’m really looking at getting into. So, that’s what I determined to do; only I didn’t expect to have the opportunity to do it quite so soon.

When I made my way around the park and to the part where the playground is, my feet came to another stuttering halt and my lungs momentarily forgot what their primary function is. Nevertheless, sucking in a deep breath and fighting everything inside me that’s screaming for me to run and hide, I slowly started forward again to approach where Tristan was just pulling Joey out of a toddler swing. It was still early, but there were a few other kids already playing on the jungle gym; their moms seated on benches here and there, chatting with each other. I really was planning on just walking up to him, but...I didn’t. Right at the moment when I would’ve called attention to myself, Joey’s mom showed up and immediately, she and Tristan started to get into what appeared to be a heated sort of argument.

I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, though; they were both keeping their voices down and Joey had started crying the moment Tristan removed him from the swing. However, I did catch little things like Tristan accusing her of being on drugs, and her flat out demanding her son as she forcibly took Joey from Tristan’s arms. Then she bent down and grabbed the diaper bag.

My heart just about broke when, pleading, Tristan said, “Please, Gina…
please
don’t do this.
Please
...I’m
begging
you.”

“I’m not doing
anything
, Tristan…thanks for taking him on short notice,” Gina said, quite insincerely. Then she turned around, got in her car and left.

Tristan thrust a hand into his hair and watched them drive away. Then he turned around. He still hadn’t seen me, though, when he threw the stuffed elephant as far as he could in visible anger and frustration. I ducked as it sailed over my head and I watched it land a good distance behind me. Then looking back at Tristan, I saw the light of recognition dawn in his eyes as they found me standing there. His lips lifted into a small smile so I started towards him again.

Meeting me halfway he asked, “Hey…what are you doing here?”

“I’ve been out walking… Um, are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh… Yeah, I’m fine…that chick just
really
pisses me off. I mean she shows up obviously tweaking, and thinks I’m gonna be cool with letting her drive a baby?! Fuck! I mean
I
wouldn’t even get in a car with her when she’s like that, but, I have no fuckin’ say so what am I gonna do, you know?” He vented as we walked over to retrieve Joey’s toy.

Now, being that I’d just very recently come to the decision of telling him I know about him being a dad and all, I haven’t had a single minute to prepare what I wanted to say. However, after seeing and hearing all that, I was kind of mad on his behalf so I opened my mouth to try my hand at compassionate sympathy. What I
actually
did was quite simply put my ignorant foot in my mouth. Well, not “quite simply.” No, what I did was botch things up between Tristan and me so badly, God himself would have a hard time not calling me all the names synonymous with nincompoop that His thesaurus holds. And I imagine that’s one enormous thesaurus, you know?

“I’m so sorry, Tristan…but, if she’s an unfit mother then why don’t you sue for custody? I mean fathers have a lot of rights now that they didn’t used to have.”

“Yeah I—wait. Did you just say
I
should sue for custody?”

“Well yeah, it’s a lot easier for fathers to do now than it used to be.”

This was when it all of sudden occurred to me that Tristan was wholly incredulous—and,
pissed
.

“You think
I’m
his dad?!” He asked in what could best be described as outrage.

“Well I—”

Tristan cut me off, being close to shouting now. “What? You see me with a baby and you automatically assume he’s
mine
?! What the fuck?!”

I didn’t get a chance to say anything in my defense, though, because he snatched the stuffed toy from the ground and then pointing it at me in accusation he said, “You know, I really thought you were different.”

He stormed over to his car and started to get in; I was stunned. But, I was also desperate. I ran to catch up with him, not wanting anything—er,
everything
to end like this. “Tristan wait! Will you please let me explain?”

“There’s nothing to explain here, Camie. And for your information, if he
was
my son, you can be goddamned sure I would’ve fought for custody and won a long fucking time ago. Oh and you can forget about our date.” Then he slammed his car door shut and took off, tires screeching.

So yeah. That’s what I get for not only invading someone’s privacy on multiple occasions, but for also using the limited information gleaned from said invasion to assume probably the worst possible scenario. I think this would be the perfect place for an expletive but, I don’t got one. I was also at a complete and utter loss as to what to say, what to do, or, how to fix it. Actually, fixing it is probably out. I mean even if I explain myself, I can’t imagine Tristan will be likely to laugh off my narrow-minded ignorance. And just this once, I think I’d really like to have someone laugh about how stupid I can be, provided of course that the laughter isn’t the much-evil sneering kind and that he’s laughing
with
me and not
at
me.

Once the ramifications of what’d just happened actually hit me, the tears came. I sat on the swings for at least a half-hour and got it all out as best I could. Then, knowing I was probably wasting my time, I sent Tristan a text asking him to please text or call me back. He didn’t respond. And even though I was tempted to send him another one explaining everything, I didn’t. Besides, I really think this kind of thing would be better done face-to-face. So now that I was emotionally as well as physically drained, I walked back home. Then, saying a brief hi to my mom and telling her I was exhausted, I went to my room and went back to bed.

After not sleeping last night, I wasn’t shocked that I didn’t wake up until I heard the telltale sound that means a monster Great White is about to chomp on another unsuspecting swimmer. I went to answer Kate’s call but just barely missed it so on a sigh, I called Tristan while I waited for the voicemail I was sure Kate would leave. Again, I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. Sure he wouldn’t pick up, though, I was prepared to leave a message. The voicemail I left him was one of sincere apology for hurting his feelings like I had and I asked him to please let me at least explain. I also told him he could still hate me afterwards. Honestly, it was entirely unintentional but I still wouldn’t blame him if he thought I was a superficial bitch.

I got out of bed and while giving myself a good look in my bathroom mirror; I listened to Kate’s voicemail. I was a little surprised to learn she hadn’t heard about the incident already from Jeff, but again, who knows…maybe she just didn’t want to chastise me in a message. She’d asked if we were still on for a movie so I called her back to accept, thinking I’d just explain everything to her when she picked me up. Needless to say, she heard something in my voice and I ended up crying into the phone instead as I told her what I dunce I am.

“Oh Camie…I wish you would’ve asked me about that. I mean I could’ve told you the deal with Joey,” Kate said after I spilled my entire sordid tale.

Come to find out, Joey is actually the nephew of the guy who was down to his boxers at Mike’s party; his name is Wayne. And because he and his parents are out of town, Tristan was the next person on the babysitter list. Apparently, Tristan has a soft spot for kids and it was obvious from what I saw, Joey adores him. Not only that but I guess Tristan’s and Wayne’s parents are kind of close friends; therefore Tristan is close to their children, making it not uncommon for any one of the three to be called in to babysit in a pinch. Also, from what Kate explained to me, the texts I read were most likely from Wayne’s older brother and Joey’s real father, Gary. She told me that Gary and his wife, Gina, only got married because Gina got pregnant. Additionally, their wedding took place only after Joey was born and a paternity test was done. Everyone who knows the family well thinks that Gina trapped Gary into marriage by getting pregnant on purpose. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, they have some serious problems and Gary is apparently trying to make it work for the sake of his son and that relationship.

I mean I felt like a heel before but with knowing the back-story, I now feel like a freaking size thirteen and a half boot. Kate told me I should just talk to Tristan and explain why I thought what I had, and yeah, I totally agree but, that’s kind of hard to do when Tristan won’t give me the time of day now. So with that being what it is, Kate and I were back to talking strategy. Only this time, our strategy didn’t have anything to do with getting Tristan to be my boyfriend. This time it’s solely about trying to figure out a way to get him to listen to me. The plan we came up with however, did include doing a little stalking, or rather, a lot of driving around.

Because Kate and I had originally made plans together, Jeff had made his own. He’d told her he was doing something with Tristan, but she didn’t know what they were doing or where they were hanging out. She didn’t think it’d be the best idea to call him and ask, though, because if he forewarned Tristan that I might be coming and if Tristan really didn’t want to talk to me, then he’d take off for sure. Instead, we drove around looking for them. It took close to two hours but we finally spotted Tristan’s car at a pizza place that is, ironically, only about five minutes from my house.

“Are you ready?” Kate asked, pulling into a space in the mostly full parking lot and shutting the engine off.

“Not exactly…I mean what if he freaks out and screams at me again? I don’t know, Kate…maybe this is a bad idea. I think if he wanted to hear anything I have to say he would’ve said so by now, you know?”

“No, I don’t know that. I mean Camie, he likes you…really,
really
likes you. I can totally tell. Hell, anyone who saw you guys at the beginning of the bonfire could see that plain as day. If you can just explain it to him the way you explained it to me, I’m sure everything will be okay. I mean he still might not wanna go with you on Friday, but just tell him what happened and then give him some time to get over it…I bet he’ll ask you out again once he does.”

“You think so?” I asked, feeling the tiniest seedling of hope begin to bloom within me.

“Yeah, I do. Because honestly, this really isn’t that big of a deal…it was a misunderstanding, nothing more. He just took a hit to his ego, that’s all. And now that I think about it, I don’t think that’s ever happened to him before so that might be why he flipped out like you said he did.”

“Okay, but what about reading the texts…that really doesn’t qualify as a misunderstanding.”

“Well, the way I look at it, he was the dumbass who left them up on the screen and then literally handed you his phone, so what does he expect? I guarantee if he’d been in your shoes he’d have read ‘em too. And for all we know, he could’ve done that! I mean who knows what he was doing while you were sleeping. Plus, he actually
answered
your phone and you didn’t flip out on him for doing that, you know?”

All true. I mean not the dumbass part really, because I didn’t
have
to read what I did just because it was in front of my face, but the rest of it is true and I let it give me courage. So, with that little bit of bravery in me, Kate and I walked into the pizza place, resolute. Actually, resolute is stretching it. I was as nervous as Melissa was before her first kiss and I had to stop myself from making an unnecessary trip to the bathroom to hide. That inclination, though, was partly because the place was fairly well packed with guys, all wearing blue and gold letterman’s jackets declaring them to be athletes from my school.

I looked at Kate with questioning eyes and she leaned in to whisper, “I don’t know what this is about but they’re his boys…from the water polo and swim teams. And it looks like a few guys from the baseball team are here too, and of course Conner, but, he works here...”

Looking around at all the guys milling about, laughing and guffawing with each other in the dining area, I couldn’t help wondering if Tristan felt so injured that he had to circle the wagons himself for protection, or if they just instinctively flock to their wounded like freaking geese. I mean they were everywhere…going from table to table, talking and eating as they did. Some were playing pinball, others were playing air hockey, and still some were simply watching highlights of a baseball game on the TVs hanging in the corners of the room. All told there had to be at least two-dozen of them. However, not one of them was Tristan.