The next night, a Sunday evening, Adam smiled at his son, who despite the fact that there was now plenty of open seats, still chose to sit cross-legged on the floor side by side with Jade.
"So, you start work tomorrow, right?"
Dylan nodded.
"Since when did you get a job?" Nathan asked the teenager in surprise.
"A friend from school set it up for me to do over the summer. At a video game store."
"That'll be a good job for you." Victoria spoke up. "Although, I haven't seen you playing video games much here recently."
Dylan shrugged. "I have more important things that take up my time now."
Nathan smiled softly. "I'm fairly certain that you've had those same things in your life for a while now."
"Yeah." Dylan shrugged. "They're just coming to the forefront now."
"I get that."
"Hey, guess what I found?" Jade inquired of Dylan, coming into the living room.
"What?"
Jade shook his cellphone, crossing the room to hand it to him.
"Where did you find it?" he asked, taking it.
"In my purse. You must have dropped it into my purse when we took the boys to the park yesterday. So I will say again: my purse is not your dumping ground."
"It's just easier." Dylan replied, smiling easily.
Jade rolled her eyes. "Mm-hm. For who?" She turned back to go into the kitchen. "I'm gonna go do the dishes. Join me if you feel like it."
"And if I don't?" he shot back.
"Then I'll get some nice somebody to help me."
"Just tell me when you need me and I'll be in there."
"All right."
A moment passed before Dylan said slowly, "You know, I heard somewhere that you can tell somebody's opinion of you by the ring they have set for you on their cellphone."
"Oh yeah?" Adam asked.
Dylan nodded, smirking at Nathan as "I Loved Her First" filled the room. "Oh yeah. You can tell."
Nathan grabbed his cell from his pocket and hit "ignore" on its screen, wondering what Dylan was going to say about his choice of ringtone. Dylan just grabbed the laptop and typed something in. In a minute, he started mouthing something, and Nathan realized that he was reading the lyrics to the song. Well, good for him. He wanted to know Dylan's response, especially now that David wasn't around to defend him twenty-four/seven.
The first thing Dylan said to him was, "This one part doesn't fit."
"What part?" Nathan asked, settling on the floor beside Dylan.
Dylan pointed to the screen, to a couplet in the song. And I knew the first time I saw you with her/It was only a matter of time.
"First time was in the shoe store." Dylan explained. "That doesn't fit. We weren't even thinking like that yet, you know that."
"According to your dad, that was just the second time he'd seen you smile since the car accident."
"Yeah."
"Yeah, well he knows his kid and I know mine. And I just had this feeling. And then, the next time - at the resolution ceremony –" He saw Dylan cringe and Nathan laughed a little. "How stupid do you think that I am, kid?"
"You're not." Dylan answered.
"No, I am not. So just know: I loved her first."
"Hey, Dylan," Jade's voice floated in from the kitchen. "I'm ready for your help."
Whether Dylan was a runner or not, Nathan had never seen a kid move so fast to do dishes. Nathan grinned, noticing Dylan's cellphone still laying on the carpet beside him. Curious, he called it, laughing outright when he heard the boy's song of choice.
Rodney Atkins' "Cleaning This Gun".
"You know what?" Nathan spoke up.
"What?" Jade asked, looking up from her picnic supper.
It was August sixth, one week exactly until her seventeenth birthday, and, as it was such, she was surprised that her dad sounded so chipper. It was also Tuesday, which meant that they were on their weekly father-daughter date.
"Since next Tuesday is your birthday, I was thinking that we might get the gang together and go out to eat next Tuesday instead of the usual one-on-one picnic. Is that okay with you?"
Jade nodded eagerly. "Yeah, sure."
"So where do I tell people you feel like going?"
Jade cocked her head to the side, thinknig. "Well, I'm not sure that I want to do it to Amanda, but I've really been in the mood for Pearly's."
Nathan smiled. "That's my girl. And don't worry, I'm' sure that Amanda will be willing to take one for the team. Or at least for you."
Jade smiled. "Yeah, I guess. I don't know. She is a good sister, at least that's what I kind of think of her as."
"Adam says that she's his adopted daughter, so I'd say she's more of your sister-in-law."
Jade's pulse skittered unreasonably, but she tried to keep her tone even when she asked, "Why? Has Dylan talked to you about something that I haven't heard about yet?"
Nathan smirked at her. "Do you really think that I would tell you if he had?"
"No." Jade conceded. "But that's not an answer to my question."
"And you're not going to get one." Nathan informed her.
"Dad," she objected loudly. "That's not fair! Not fair at all! As a matter of fact, that's just wrong! You have to tell me!"
"No, I don't have to." Nathan argued merrily. "And you better be nice, or I might just say no."
"So he hasn't!"
"I didn't say that." Nathan smiled evenly, and Jade had no idea what the answer to her question was.
Great. Now she was curious.
Dylan relaxed against the wall of the living room, closing his eyes, heaving a huge sigh, and shutting the notebook in his lap with a resounding bang.
He let the declaration "They're done" out with another relieved sigh.
And just in time for her birthday, he mused to himself. Her birthday…
He sat straight up, his eyes flying open. "That's it!"
This is the last story in my Dylan/Jade trilogy. Please review! Thanks! And thanks for sticking with me throughout this trilogy!:)