Chapter 2: Shopping

2014

"Is John home?" were the first words out of Taylor's mouth as he hurtled across the lawn of his school and skidded to a stop next to Joss.

"I don't know. He's working, I think. Haven't heard from him today. Why?" Joss asked as she and Taylor turned and started walking toward her car.

"Um. Well, I know you iron his shirts and we've picked up his suits from the drycleaners like, once in a while, so I sort of wanted to ask him about how to pick a suit for the school Valentine's Dance tomorrow."

Joss smiled at her son. "Last year you went with a bunch of your friends in a group. Did you actually ask someone this year?"

Taylor rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I did, and she said yes."

"It's not that Kylie girl from your freshman year, is it?"

"No, it's someone different. Her name is Lia. Her Dad's Italian, in the Italian diplomatic security service, her Mom's an Indian doctor, they met and married and her Dad got a permanent posting to the Italian embassy in Mumbai to be with her. They sent her here to live with her Aunt and Uncle while she goes to school here.

"I wanna meet her."

"Her Aunt and Uncle are really traditional and she's not allowed to date. They don't even let her go out after school, or hang out with us after school if it's not a school function. The only reason she's going to the dance with me is because when I asked John for advice on how to ask her out, and how she could get permission, he said she should talk to her parents via email and ask them if she can go. If her Dad and Mom said yes, then her Aunt and Uncle couldn't stop her from going. So I told her what John said and she did that and her Dad said she works hard and deserves some fun and told her she could go. She showed me the email today, she's so excited. So now I have to get a suit and we have to go."

"You asked John how to ask a girl out?" Joss was having trouble wrapping her head around the idea.

"Yeah? Why not?" Taylor looked puzzled at her reaction. "Mom, going with a group of guy friends was okay last year because we were sophomores. This year we're Juniors. You can't go in a group of your buddies when you're a Junior, you have to ask a girl out."

Joss suppressed a giggle. The way Taylor said it, it sounded like Sophomore year was years ago instead of barely twelve months. "There's whole world of difference between sophomores and Juniors, huh?" she said casually, waiting to turn out of the school parking lot.

"Yeah. Totally different world, Mom," Taylor said, oblivious to her sarcasm.

"Dad brought you back a day early last month. He really needs to make it up. I can drop you off at his place this afternoon and you can go shopping with him."

Taylor stared at her. "Mom, are you serious?"

"What? Don't be so dramatic, Taylor. He's your father, he's got a right to share these things with you." A long time ago when Taylor was little, she'd envisioned Paul taking Taylor hunting for a suit for his first dance with a girl. Just because she and Paul weren't married anymore didn't mean that it couldn't still happen.

But it was immediately clear that Taylor had other ideas. "I don't want Dad taking me shopping. The last time we went out it was right after a basketball game. He said he'd come watch but he spent most of the time sucking face with his new girlfriend."

"Taylor, don't talk about your father that way—"

"Mom, if he doesn't respect me enough to watch me play a basketball game, even if our team lost, then why should I respect him? And he doesn't respect you either." Taylor folded his arms defiantly. "After we lost Dad said he'd take me out for a milkshake. As a consolation. Like I'm twelve or something. And then when we were in the shop and he bought me the stupid milkshake even though I said I wanted a root beer float, he spent more time talking to her than me. I don't think he even knew what score the game ended with." He scowled. "I don't want Dad taking me shopping for a suit. Anyone but Dad."

Joss sighed. "All right, then you're stuck with me." She made a right turn and started heading toward the mall. She had the rest of the afternoon off, might as well get this over with. She wasn't exactly looking forward to suit shopping—guys' clothes weren't her forte. All Taylor's clothes till now had been jeans and t-shirts. Even last year's dance had been khakis and a button-down shirt.

Apparently, the difference between sophomores and Juniors was a suit.

"Come on out and let me see."

"Mom!" came an exasperated young male voice from inside the dressing room.

John Reese froze in the act of pulling a suit off the rack. Those voices were so familiar…he nonchalantly walked around the other side of the rack where he could watch the owners of those voices and not be seen, and then looked up.

And saw, as he'd expected, Joss.

Taylor must be in the fitting room; Joss was standing in front of it, her arms folded, purse slung over one shoulder. "Come on, Taylor, let me see. If you're going to refuse to ask Dad to take you shopping for a suit for the school dance then you're stuck with me."

"Yeah, well, Dad wouldn't want to. At least you do." The young male voice inside the fitting room sounded resigned. "Okay, I'm coming out, but remember, you picked this one."

Taylor Carter came out of the fitting room, and John looked the boy over. Joss had good taste in clothes; the suit looked good on Taylor. The problem was that it didn't fit right. It need to be a little looser over the boy's upper arms, so he could raise his arms without feeling restricted; the hem of the pants needed to be taken up—Taylor was a little shorter than the suit's legs—but overall it didn't look bad.

"It doesn't look bad," Joss said quietly, looking him over critically. "I like the way it looks, I just don't know if it fits right." She dropped her arms, sighed. "I really wish you'd done this with Dad."

"I didn't want to do this with Dad." There was an edge to Taylor's voice. "It's not like he really cares."

"Don't talk about your father that way, Taylor. He does care. He's trying to build a better relationship with you now."

"Yeah. Now. Not then. Not when we were all still living together. Not when you were married and not for the last five years when it was just us. And he's not trying to build a better relationship with you. He's uncomfortable around you. He never talks about you when I'm at his place on these stupid weekend court-ordered visits. I'd really sort of rather not go. I don't want to spend more time with Dad than I have to." He turned away from Joss, looking at himself in the mirror. "Though it would be nice to have someone who knows about suits to help. Just as long as it's not Dad."

Joss was quickly wiping her eyes. "Let me see if I can find a salesman to help." She turned—and almost collided with John. "John! Damn it, don't sneak up on me like that!"

He grinned at her. "Not keeping your guard up, Detective," he teased, but his smile was warm and understanding. Then he looked at Taylor. "You need a little more room in the arms there. The jacket's too tight across your chest."

Taylor beamed at him. "I've been working out in the school gym. I took weightlifting last semester. The girls like muscles." Joss rolled her eyes as John and Taylor shared purely masculine grins. "I asked Mom if you could give me advice when she picked me up from school but she said she hadn't heard from you and she thought you were working."

"I was. I got off a little while ago." He'd just wrapped up another number—since Joss had been working, he'd taken Shaw with him. It had been…interesting. Not a particularly challenging number this time, so he'd allowed her free rein when it quickly became evident to all of them that this number was clearly the perpetrator—a hired hitman sent to kidnap a rich man's son from his divorced wife's custody. Of course, the rich man hadn't known the kidnapper he'd hired had been planning on keeping the kid and asking for a double ransom. There'd been just a moment when John had thought he should let the rich man learn what being double-crossed felt like, but that wouldn't have been fair to the mother—or the child.

Shaw had made quick work of that one.

Taylor turned around, then raised his arms. "Seriously, you think this is too tight?"

"It is. Is this a two piece or are you getting the pieces separately? I recommend getting both pieces separately, since you need one size for the jacket and a different size on the slacks." John nodded to the fitting room. "Go ahead and get out of that one, and we'll go looking. It shouldn't be too hard to match fabrics so it doesn't look like they were purchased separately."

"I'm sure John has better things to do with his time, Taylor," Joss said quickly.

Both Taylor and John froze. "But he's right here, Mom, and he knows how to dress!" Taylor protested.

John looked at her quietly. "I don't mind, Joss. Really." Left unspoken was the implication, as long as you don't mind.

She knew what he was thinking, as always. "I don't mind, but…I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than find a suit for a school dance."

"If I had anything else to do, Joss, I wouldn't be here," he said quietly. "I don't mind. And you do seem…a little out of your depth here."

She looked at him, and he could see indecision in her eyes. And then Taylor said, in very firm, unchildlike tone, "John's going to help me find a suit and then we'll go home to dinner."

Joss threw up her hands. "Okay. Fine. I think I'm outvoted."

"Yes!" Taylor grinned, made a fist, held it out to John.

John didn't even have to think; he bumped fists with the boy, then stood beside Joss as Taylor vanished back into the fitting room. "So he really didn't want to do this with his father?"

"I'm trying not to bias him against Paul. He just…doesn't like his father much."

It wasn't John's place to say what he was actually thinking—which was that Paul didn't really seen to care much about Taylor, and that was probably a good part of the reason why Taylor didn't care much for Paul—but he bit down on those words and said, instead, "Maybe. But I don't mind helping him. Or you. Both of you."

Taylor rejoined them a moment later carrying the suit he'd just taken off. "Let me go put this back where I found it."

"You could just leave it in the dressing room. They'll put it back," John said.

Taylor shook his head. "Mom said I should always put stuff back where I found it." And he bounced off down the aisles back toward the men's suits.

He looked at Joss, trying to hide a grin. "Raised a good boy there, Joss."

"Nah, he did that on his own. He's a good kid."

"No one does anything on their own. He's got a great mother." And he grinned wider at her as her face flushed a bright pink. He liked that pink…

He cleared his throat, forced himself to think about something else. After the events of the last year, Joss needed time to settle and come to grips with everything that had happened to her, and he didn't want to set her emotional and mental recovery by asking her for something she wasn't ready for. He didn't want her to have sex with him because she felt he demanded it-doing so would cause mental and emotional harm, possibly irreparable. He'd learned his lesson over the last year; pay attention to what she wanted and needed, to what her body was telling him. And right now, although she was at the point where she didn't mind him in her personal space, he wasn't getting any signal from her that she was ready for...that. And he wasn't going to even think about it until she was ready. "So what occasion is this we're trying to find a suit for?"

"Valentine's dance at his school. Just a little thing in a school gym."

"When I was his age I didn't have the nerve to ask out the girl I wanted to go with. I ended up going with a bunch of my friends—and she came with a bunch of her girl friends. We still spent the evening together."

"John Reese, didn't have the nerve to ask a girl out? Now I've heard it all." But Joss's smile was warm. "No, according to him, you told him how to ask her out."

"Mea culpa." But John didn't sound all that contrite.

"He also said you told her to ask her parents instead of her Aunt and Uncle."

John grinned and refused to look abashed. "I did. And apparently it worked."

"It did. Taylor told her what you said, she emailed her Dad and Mom and asked them if she could go to the school dance—and they said yes, so her aunt and uncle couldn't say no."

"Good. He's got sense enough to take advice when he asks for it. So what do you think?"

"I haven't met her yet. Taylor told me her parents live overseas. They sent her to the US to live with her uncle and aunt—her mother's older sister and brother-in law—while she goes to school here, but he says her Uncle and Aunt are very conservative Hindu and she's not really allowed to date. I still want to meet her."

"I saw her. At the school when I picked him up not that long ago. The day they got yearbooks. They signed each others' yearbooks. I got the impression of a shy bookworm, but she was pretty, and she was polite. I liked her better than those blond cheerleaders trying to catch Taylor's attention."

"Kylie? Blond, supermodel-type?" John nodded, and Joss snorted. "He brought her home to meet me his freshman year in high school. I didn't like her then."

"She's pretty but from what I saw, shoving other girls around for no reason other than spite, she hasn't changed in the last couple of years. I don't wonder Taylor decided he doesn't like her. This other girl he asked out doesn't seem like that type, and Taylor also knows you don't like Kylie. Trust Taylor. He knows the difference between right and wrong, and he knows he'll answer to you if his choice of friends leads him astray. He loves you and he doesn't want to disappoint you." John was certain of that.

"Is that why you and Taylor never told me what happened with Tommy Washington?"

He sighed. "Yes, Joss, it is. You have a lot of things to worry about, and Taylor and I don't want you to worry about something we've already handled."

"Are you two going to tell me eventually?"

John was spared from answering that question as Taylor bounced up. "Okay. I put that one back. Let's go find a suit."

"This store isn't the best one. There's another on a few doors down the mall that's a bit better." John started walking, and Taylor and Joss fell in beside him. She didn't bring up the subject of Tommy Washington; he knew she was thinking about it, but she apparently decided to let him and Taylor keep their secret.

He smiled at her as they left that store and started heading down the mall concourse. He'd never liked shopping. Go in, grab what he needed and run, that was how he approached the miserable task of shopping; but with Joss and Taylor, he was suddenly realizing he didn't mind this as much as he thought he would. He shortened his strides to match theirs, stopping when they stopped. And so he found himself smiling when Joss stopped next to a large store window, with a mannequin displaying a truly lovely black formal gown. "Been a long time since I could go somewhere where I could get dressed up," and she sighed. "I mean, I wouldn't want to do that every night, but just once I'd love to be able to get dressed up." She looked at John, her eyes sparkling but with a slightly wistful look, and he heard the words she was thinking but hadn't spoken; with you.

He looked at the dress. Black. Velvet. A sheath dress; it would cling to Joss's curves, accentuate her waist and her chest. And yes, he would love to see her dressed up. A flash of memory—Lionel taking Joss to the Policeman's Ball soon after they'd moved to the new apartment—and at the time he'd thought he wanted to go somewhere nice with her. On a date.

The way she was looking at the dress, maybe she was ready to go on a date with him again. No sex; not this soon after… it had only been three months. But a quiet dinner—not at Ettienne's, this time, because as much as he and Joss both liked the place, he'd seen so many nice restaurants in New York, in his travels, and yet he'd never taken Joss to any of them. An oversight he'd have to correct. Soon.