****
Janet was absolutely not going to lose her cool about this. While she might not technically be smarter than Zach, (because she could see that the kid was crazy brilliant) she was older and wiser and she should be able to figure out this cussing problem without alienating him. So why not start now?
And with that in mind, she pursed her lips as she gave him her full attention. “It sucks shit, does it?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
One side of his mouth lifted in a twisted grin, but he didn’t comment.
Jesus, he was such a cute kid—a younger replica of his father. Sure, the kid was irritating at times but that didn’t stop the affection she had for him. His cussing wasn’t just bothersome, she wanted him to be the best he could be. She wanted him to be happy and grounded and well liked by his peers. She wanted only the best for him. She wanted him to have everything he wanted in life, everything he deserved because he was such a special kid.
Dear Lord—her affection for him was quickly turning into solid maternal love.
Pushing the realization aside, she took a deep breath and tried to tackle the problem at hand. “You do realize that you’re cussing the wrong way?”
He reared back like she’d said something completely stupid. “What?”
“It’s true,” she shrugged as if it meant little to her as she began putting out the silverware. “You’re not cussing in the correct manner.”
“The correct manner?” he questioned sarcastically. “How so?”
“Well, first of all, you’re using too many bad words. Hasn’t anyone told you that if your vocabulary is constantly littered with curse words, the effect of those words is diminished?”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. You want to use words for effect. If every sentence you utter has a shit or hell or damn or son-of-a-bitch in it, what words do you use when you’re really angry? When you want to make a point?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
She lifted a shoulder as if she didn’t really care. “Can I ask you a question?” She didn’t wait for his agreement. “I assume you speak this way in front of your buddies at school, but do you do it in front of the girls as well?”
His face flushed just the tiniest bit as he shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, which pretty much told her he did.
“I just think you should be careful about the way you speak in front of women and girls. And this is the important part, Zach. Girls like to feel special, to feel respected. Now, I’m not saying you should clean up your language in front of me—I already know all the dirty words. But I definitely think you should rethink when and where and how often you toss out a bad word.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said under his breath, rolling his eyes once again.
She ignored the eye-roll as if she hadn’t seen it—that was a problem for another day. “Thank you, sweetie—you won’t regret it, I promise. And like I said, don’t worry about me. This is your home and you should continue doing just as you like—” Janet cut off her words as if she’d just had a horrible thought.
“What?” Zach asked, right on cue.
“Oh, dear Lord,” Janet mumbled, her eyes slowly shifting to Hannah and then back to him.
“What?” he asked again, glancing at Hannah for a second.
Janet felt her mouth screw up in a laugh that escaped her. And truly, it really was too funny when you thought about it—so she went with it—because, after all, she was flying by the seat of her pants, but she was trying to get Zach to understand. “I just had a vision of Hannah in Kindergarten,” she said through laughter. “I’m envisioning our little angel starting her first day of school.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And she’s tapping her little foot as she says to her teacher, “Where are my goddamn crayons?”
Zach studied her for a moment and then he looked at Hannah again in her high chair. And then he cracked up, his laughter ringing across the room and making Hannah chortle with glee.
“I know, right?” Janet asked through a grin, feeling such a warmth and closeness to him that she almost couldn’t believe how quickly she’d become addicted to being his—almost mother. But then she slowly sobered and finished what she needed to say. “But seriously, kiddo. It won’t be my fault if cuss words are her first words.”
He bounced his head up and down, as if an understanding was beginning to dawn.
“Okay, so just to make sure we’re on the same page—and Zach—I’m not joking about this. So here’s the deal—and I’m serious. If Hannah starts Kindergarten cussing like a sailor and the school calls me in about it—I’m taking you with me! You can explain the reason our little golden-haired child has a foul mouth. How’s that for a fair deal?”
His lips twisted as he nodded his head. And then the little shit paused for effect just perfectly. “Pretty damn fair, Janet,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. He strolled over and patted Hannah on the head while tossing out to her, “Okay, I got it. I’m not going to cuss in front of Hannah anymore and better yet—I’m going to go write a subpar essay that shows limited intelligence on a subject that my teacher knows next to nothing about.”
With that, Zach left the room, his boots ringing across the tile very reminiscent of his father’s footsteps.
That boy was going to be a heartbreaker someday, whether he intended to be or not. She just prayed she’d have what it would take to do right by him during his formative years. He deserved a good mother, and by damn she was going to step up to the plate, not just for him, but also for her, because he’d carved a spot out in her heart that belonged to him alone.
Chapter Thirteen
As Jeff stood just inside the mudroom, he was floored by the conversation Janet had been having with his son. He didn’t know how he felt about it. Why was she using manipulation to get what she wanted? And did it mean she was the type of person who would use manipulation with anyone—with everyone—to get what she wanted? He hadn’t seen the trait in her before.
As she turned in an arc to face him it was easy to read her expression. How long had he been standing there? How much had he overheard?
He studied her, a frown pulling his eyebrows down, undoubtedly making the damn furrow between his eyes even deeper. He paced into the room and looked out toward the living area, making sure he wasn’t about to be overheard.
He could almost feel her anxiety level spike as he leaned against the counter, facing her. “You manipulating my son into doing what you want?” He aimed the low, heated words to get her attention—to show her right off the bat that he wasn’t happy.
But, for whatever reason, his question seemed to both startle and relieve her as she let out a huge breath, pressing a hand to her heart. “Well, yeah.”
He was taken aback for a moment at her easy admittance, his shoulders tensing up as he crosse
d his arms over his chest. “Doesn’t seem quite right.”
“How so?” she asked, taking a step back from him that irritated the shit out of him.
When he didn’t answer she responded, “Well, I don’t know of another way to go about it. You’ve got way more experience at this parenting thing than I do,” she added in a blasé kind of tone. “So how do you think I should handle it?”
Well, shit, he didn’t know, exactly. And he didn’t know what to say, but he had to say something. “Manipulation is wrong.”
She shrugged a shoulder as if she knew that already. “Okay. But if you don’t use manipulation, how do you get kids to do what you want them to do without a fight?”
“Manipulation is wrong,” he repeated, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“How else do you get them to do what you want?” she asked, like a dog refusing to let go of a bone. “Seriously, I’m not being sarcastic. I really want to know. From one parent to another, tell me another way to handle stuff like this.”
Son-of-a-bitch. Why was this backfiring on him? “Well, shit, I don’t know.”
She looked flabbergasted. “You don’t know?”
He gritted his teeth. “No. Maybe you should just tell them your expectations.”
“Okay. I agree with that to a certain extent, but we’re in a new situation—a different situation. I want Zach to like me. I want to co-parent him, yeah, but I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot and I’m afraid if I start making demands this early on that I might alienate him.”
“I get that, but it still doesn’t seem right.”
“So, you don’t know of a better way? When you find one, I’m all ears.” With that, she turned toward the oven and began to open it, obviously moving on from their conversation. But then she stalled and turned around, giving him a sad little look that made him feel guilty as hell. “And by the way, he was our son the other day at the school.”
Well, shit. Now he’d hurt her feelings and the way that made him feel was so fucked up it made him sick to his stomach. He needed to figure out how to keep his head out of his ass before he fucked up completely, because at this point, he didn’t think he could even contemplate life without Janet in it.