So I'm giving you two chapters today to kind of make up for my long absence. Hope you guys enjoy it! Even though he's my character, I'm really impressed with Stryker. When I have kids, I want a kid like him. He's like, the perfect son. Let me know what you guys are thinking of the story so far. As always, thanks for reading!
APRIL 28
I sat down in the seat across from Jonathan. "Hey," I greeted. We'd been meeting up almost every weekend, since we'd met up at the Smoothie Shack after my play performance. It wasn't really awkward anymore. I was kind of glad that I'd decided to let him into my life.
I mean, we still didn't really have anything in common, but we did enjoy spending time together, even if all we did was talk. It was nice to get to know him and to be able to understand him a little better. Growing up, I honestly hadn't thought about him very much. And when I did, it was just this vague idea of him.
"Hey, champ," he replied.
I gave him a strange look. "Champ?" I repeated. It was the first time he'd called me anything other than my name. It was weird. Not a bad kind of weird, necessarily. Just…weird.
Jonathan shrugged. "Just trying it out. No good, huh?"
"I don't know. It's weird, but not bad. I don't mind if you use it. It's definitely better than little man." I shuddered.
"Who calls you that?"
"Mom. She has for as long as I can remember."
"Ah. Well, Mac would do that." He handed me a chocolate-mango smoothie. It was becoming a tradition between us, every time we met up, to get smoothies. And always chocolate-mango ones. "How's school going? You're almost finished with the year, aren't you?"
"Yeah. Just about." I shrugged. "It's going all right. I've got As and Bs in all of my classes. Although, I did just drop to a C in science. I bombed my last test, and it's killing me trying to get my grade back up to a B before the end of the school year. Science is not my best subject. At all."
Jonathan chuckled. "It was never mine, either. Then again, there weren't many subjects in school that were. I passed all of my classes, but it was a close call sometimes. I had pretty steady Cs in most of them. It seems like you got your mother's brains."
"Eh, I don't know. I mean, I'm doing well. But not all of it comes easy for me. It's been really hard to keep a B in science. Mamie told me that Mom was getting almost straight As her senior year. And before that, she only did poorly because she chose to." I shook my head. "My mother is a very complicated woman."
Jon laughed. "She's one of a kind, that's for sure. Her birthday's coming up in a few days, isn't it?" I nodded. "Anything planned?"
I swirled my straw through my smoothie. "Dad and I are writing a song for her. Well, Dad's doing most of the writing. He's way better at that than I am. I can't write songs. I can play them and sing them, but I can't write them. We'll play it for her when we all go over to Mamie and Pappy's house to celebrate. We're just doing a family get together. That's all. The usual, really."
"Family get togethers are pretty common for the Pendragons."
I snorted. "No kidding. It's nice, though. I kind of…like how close we all are. Hey, how's Charlie doing? She's what, seven months? Seven and a half?"
"Yeah, about. She's good. I've heard all kinds of horror stories about women being downright scary during their pregnancies, but not Charlie. She's pretty much the opposite. She's ridiculously chipper."
It wasn't fair. It really wasn't. There were some days that Mom looked like she was ready to bite someone's head off. "Lucky you," I said. "Mom's pretty scary some days."
"Charlie wants to meet you, by the way."
I was a little surprised. We'd talked about Jon's fiancée, of course. I knew that she was the one who had convinced him to connect with me to begin with. But it just seemed strange that she'd want to meet me, though I guess it shouldn't have. "Really?"
Jonathan nodded. "Really. We'll have to arrange it. As long as you're okay with it, Stryker. You don't have to if you don't want to."
I smiled. I'd heard a lot about Charlie. She sounded like a pretty cool person to get to know. "No, that's fine. I think I'd really like to meet her, too."
"She'll like that."
"And the baby? You guys decide on a name yet?"
He shook his head. "Not really. It's between Jasper, Roman, and Julian."
"Hmm." I thought about each of those names for a moment. "I think I like Roman best."
"Personally, that's my favorite, too. His middle name will be Charles, after Charlotte; that much we know for sure. I have a question for you. Do you know why Mac named you Stryker Anson?"
I shrugged. "Not really. She didn't name me after anyone specific, as far as I know. I think she just liked the name."
"It's a good name."
"I've always liked it." I studied him closely. "You're gonna do just fine, you know. With the baby, I mean. They're hard work, but most of it is instinct. You'll know what to do."
Jon arched an eyebrow at me. "Speaking from personal experience, are you?" he teased.
I shrugged. "Kind of. The twins were born when I was eleven, so…I kind of know what it's like to take care of a baby. Since they were twins, I helped Mom out a lot. Even though I was only eleven, most of it came pretty easy. I just kind of knew what to do. Anyway, don't stress yourself out. You'll be fine."
"Your mom was right. You are one amazing kid."
