At least, that’s what he’d told Brian. It was getting to the point now where Jace felt as though he was keeping a secret from Noah, and he didn’t want that, either. Every time they brushed against each other, Jace felt guilty about it after. Noah didn’t know how much those little touches meant to him.
Now, he was about two minutes away from meeting Noah’s mom. He couldn’t hang around in the hall outside forever. He had to go inside.
Even though he was sure Noah’s mom wasn’t as bad as he’d made her out to be, he still felt a jolt of nervousness as he opened the door. At least if it really was bad, he could claim he needed an after-work nap to escape.
Jace headed for the kitchen, where he could hear voices, and saw Noah and a woman he would have instantly known was Noah’s mom sitting at the table. She had the same dark hair and eyes Noah did.
“You must be Mrs. Levesque,” Jace said as walked in, offering his hand with as cheerful a smile as he could offer after twelve hours on his feet.
“Ms. Harvey,” she corrected. “I’m divorced.”
That explained why it was only Noah’s mom showing up. It also explained what Noah meant about her. The way she looked at Jace when he’d gotten it wrong made him feel as though he’d seriously disappointed her. Which was stupid, because she wasn’t his mom.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. Noah gave him a sympathetic glance.
“Anyway, this is Jace,” Noah said, forcefully upbeat in a way that suggested he was minutes away from snapping. He reached out to take Jace’s hand, and Jace didn’t hesitate to offer it. Noah looked like he could use some hand-holding.
“I know,” Noah’s mom said. “You can call me Carolyn.”
Jace swallowed, unsure if that was a test. He wanted Noah’s mom to like him—as a vehicle to getting Noah to like him—but that was going to be a harder task than he’d first imagined.
“Thank you,” Jace said, for lack of anything better to say. “I love your son,” he added, for good measure.
The words came way more easily than he’d expected them to. He was in way over his head with Noah, and he hadn’t said anything to him about it yet.
“We’ll see,” she responded. Jace’s heart sank. “Noah tells me you’re a nurse?”
“Yes ma’am.” Jace nodded. “Pediatrics.”
Carolyn hummed. “Not a doctor?”
Noah squeezed Jace’s hand. Jace wasn’t sure if it was as a warning not to jump at the bait, or to stop himself from jumping at it. “I like having more hands-on time with the patients,” Jace said.
“My ex-husband was a doctor,” she said.
Jace chewed on the inside of his lip, wishing for a hole to open up under him and take him away from this situation. Everything Noah had said was true. The weekend was going to be hell.
Thankfully, it was only for a weekend. Tomorrow was the last game of the season—only a week after the previous one, because the multi-purpose stadium they used was being closed for repairs on Wednesday, and wouldn’t be reopened for three months. Carolyn was going home on Sunday night.
Sunday night suddenly seemed an eternity away. Jace didn’t have a shift between now and Monday, having called in the Thursday shift favor to get the weekend off instead of getting to pick his Christmas vacation days.
“That’s not my dad. She means my step-dad,” Noah said. “Her third husband.”
Jace knew there was no good response to that. This was clearly something between Noah and his mother, and now he was in the middle of it. Noah had tried to warn him, but he hadn't listened.
“I didn’t mean to suggest that being a doctor is bad, just that it’s a different style of medicine. I’m more of a caretaker, I like to be on the front line,” Jace said. He knew he’d be putting a foot wrong by saying it, somehow, but he was too tired to predict how it was going to go wrong for him.
“Well, he cheated on me with a nurse, so I’m not fond of any part of the profession. I’m sure you’re very nice, though,” Carolyn said.
Jace opened his mouth to apologize, but stopped himself short. That would only get him in trouble in some new, unforeseen way.
“So I hear you’re coming to the game tomorrow,” Jace changed the subject. “Ever seen roller derby before?”
“No,” Carolyn said. “Noah did figure skating in high school. I always thought he should have gone on to the Olympics.”
Jace turned to look at Noah. “I didn’t know that,” he said.
Noah shrugged. “I didn’t want to come along saying I knew what I was doing. What if I’d been terrible at derby?”
