“Mom, your phone is ringing.”
“I know, Archer.” She reached in and grabbed her purse off the passenger seat and flung it over her shoulder after she pulled her phone out.
Tucker.
Twice in less than a week.
She was hoping he wasn’t going to tell Archer already about the trip. It was too soon in her eyes.
But she wouldn’t be that divorced parent to keep her son from his father.
She put the phone to her ear and answered. “I thought you were going to send me to voicemail,” Tucker said. “I waited until you were out of work.”
“I’m just walking in the door now,” she said. “Archer, go put your stuff away and finish any homework you’ve got.” She dropped her purse on the island. “What’s going on?”
“Homework,” Tucker said sarcastically. “Do you even check it over to see if he’s finished it?”
“Of course I do. But he doesn’t need me holding his hand every night. I ask him, I ask to see it, he knows it’s a spot check, not a military inspection.”
“That’s the problem,” Tucker snarled. “You need to stay on top of these things. I just saw his report card.”
She bit her lip and counted to five. “The one from February? Almost two months ago? Because the next one is coming next week so no way you saw it.”
Leave it to Tucker to be so far behind. He had access to Archer’s school portal. She gave it without him even asking so that he couldn’t ever say she wasn’t cooperating.
If her ex chose not to be that involved, that was on him. It wasn’t like he was here helping with schoolwork and never had.
“So that means this next one is probably worse,” Tucker said. “I want to talk to him.”
“What do you mean worse?” She looked around and didn’t see her son anywhere, which meant he was still upstairs in the loft where he had a desk and did his work.
“Farrah, he only had two A+’s. And one was for physical activity. That’s inexcusable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tucker. He had three A’s also.”
“And a B+. I’ve never had a B+ in my life. He gets that from you. You need to make sure he buckles down and does fewer physical activities and more learning clubs. And that B+ was science. No, not acceptable.”
She growled. “He’s not us. He’s his own person. His other A+ was math. I was never good at math, but was in science. No one says he has to follow in either of our footsteps. Let him be him. He’s eight!”
“I want to talk to him right now. He shouldn’t be rewarded with games, toys, and activities if he can’t get his grades up.”
“Don’t you dare tell me how to parent our child that you see less than a handful of times a year and barely talk. Then you call to lecture him. No. I’m not going there.”
“Farrah, don’t push me. I can go back to court with you.”
She laughed. “Really, Tucker? You’re going to play that game? Because you and I both know that my lawyer could have gotten a lot more for what happened and I cut it off because I didn’t want to go through it anymore. I never did, nor did I want to subject Archer to it. I believe the judge also praised me and my statement in court for that.”
Tucker snarled on the other line. “I meant to get Archer more.”
“When you cancel every third time you have him?” she asked. “Sure. Go ahead. Don’t think I don’t have records of everything. Not to mention your schedule. Aren’t you the one who hires people to stay with him because you’re working so much? Do we want to go down this path?”
“Don’t be a bitch, Farrah,” Tucker snapped.
He’d never lost his patience or cool with her until the end. Until she accused him of cheating and he’d told her she was a fool and an idiot to think that.
The minute those insults were out of his mouth, she was dead set on proving she was none of those things.
Maybe she hoped she was wrong, but her gut said she was spot on.
