His first real job, if you let him tell it.
He lovedFuture Seeds, loved what it represented—a place in the community where he’d watched so many neighborhood children grow up.
So many of them had gone off to high school and college, and it always warmed his heart to see them pop back in, their baby pictures still on the bulletin board his mother kept by the door.
Xander walked through the open door of his mother’s office.
He found her sitting behind her desk, her glasses resting on the bridge of her nose as she typed on the keyboard of her computer.
He stopped in front of the couch she kept in her office and dropped himself onto the cushion, sighing loudly.
Michelle removed her glasses and turned her chair away from the computer to focus on her son.
Xander dropped his head back against the couch and turned to look her way.
“You look like someone stole your smile.”
“Hmph.”
“Who I gotta go see and fuck up?”
Xander hollered a laugh. A laugh he really did need in that moment.
He shook his head a second later and said, “I’m just tired.”
Obviously not true.
But there was no way he could get right to it after she said that.
Although Rylee’s words had cut like a hot knife to his heart, he loved her… and he loved that his mother loved her too.
But this?
It was eating him up.
And it had only just happened moments ago.
“Mmm-hmm.” Michelle leaned back in her seat and folded her arms. “Tired, huh? You only come here on your days off to fix something or when you need to talk. So I know it gotta be more than you being tired, Xander. What’s up?”
He inhaled a deep breath and puffed his cheeks as he exhaled.
She sucked her teeth. “Boy, if you don’t…”
He snickered.
“Out with it.”
Xander sat up, then ran his hand across the back of his neck and said, “Rylee’s pregnant.”
Michelle gasped so loud, her reaction echoed around the room.
“What?!” she shouted, her smile so big Xander could see all of her teeth. “Oh, baby!” she squealed. “I’m so happy…ahh! That’sawesomenews?—”
“She might not keep it.”
“Oh,” she whispered, blinking a few times before nodding quickly. “Oh… okay.”
Her chest visibly rose and fell a few breaths before she closed her eyes, inhaled deep, and sat up.
