Chapter Thirty-Five
Jason
"Hey, what's going on?" I heard someone say. I looked from Damien on the swing. A man with a baby strapped to his chest in a carrier was standing next to the swing. Unless he was talking to Damien, he meant me.
"Hey," I said.
"Miles," he said, offering his hand for me to shake. "I've seen you and your boy here a few times." I nodded, figuring that he wasn't trying to sell me anything. The baby on his chest looked bigger than Damien, maybe closer to six months, I wasn't that good at guessing yet. Little boy with a pacifier in his mouth. His dad looked like, well, a dad. I was guessing my age, fit but with less time to devote to lifting six days a week.
"Yeah. He likes the swings. His mom and I try to bring him once a week."
"Same here; the kids get to come a little more often but not with us," he said, looking over his shoulder. I looked over where he had, seeing another man holding a ball, crouched down talking to three kids. Two boys and a girl. "Our nanny's usually with them during the week."
"How many are yours?" I asked.
"Two of them. Sam and Jodi are four. Wilson's five months," he said. Twins, and then the little one who was strapped to his chest.
"Wow," I said. "Sounds like a handful. I'm Jason, by the way."
"I recognized you," he said, smiling. "I didn't know you had kids."
"Just the one. Damien," I said, lifting Damien out of the swing. This was different. The guy seemed friendly, so we kept talking, not about me, about our kids. He mentioned a parenting group that connected parents in the neighborhood. That had been how he and his husband had found the woman who nannied their kids and how he'd managed to set up playdates with parents whose kids were similar ages to his. His two older kids were on a playdate right then with another kid. People who had approached me in the past had never done it to talk about setting up a playdate for our sons who were similar ages. First of all, I had spent far more time in the past at parties, rather than parks and there, I had attracted mostly women who wanted to fuck, sometimes an occasional man, but usually they had wanted to do drugs. By the time I was walking over to Shelby at the usual picnic table, I had the guy's phone number and email address.
"Make a new friend?" she asked as I placed Damien in his carrier seat. She had packed a lunch for the two of us; the spread was out on the table. Chicken pesto sandwiches and a pasta salad. Living alone sucked that much more knowing how great a cook she was.
"You saw? That guy, Miles, he was just telling me about his kids and this parent group that a bunch of other families in the neighborhood use."
"That sounds nice," she said.
"Did you know people did that?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. That was how I found Paula, Damien's old sitter. She worked for a woman who used to bring her daughters here before she moved and Paula couldn't work for her anymore."
"Shit. Is that how parents make friends? Through their kids?" I asked. She laughed.
"The guy you were talking to, did he try to set up a playdate between Damien and his little boy?"
"Yeah. I said I'd run it by you and let him know."
"Hm," she said smirking, "and his kid's how old?"
"Damien's age, a little older."
"So neither of them are walking or talking. What do you think they'd do on a playdate?" she asked. I frowned.
"Don't people do that?"
"Yeah, for older kids to make friends and socialize. With babies, a playdate is usually just an excuse to make friends with other people who have kids."
"Seriously?" I thought about it. People used their kids as icebreakers to make new drinking buddies.
"Mm-hmm. Think about it. Having kids, you're constantly surrounded by other people’s kids, playgrounds, daycare, schools. None of your childless friends know what it’s like. It's nice having friends who get it. Bonus when they can take your kid for date night, and you don't have to call a sitter." Whoa. I had had no idea. Suddenly, I felt stupid. Your social life didn't end when you had kids, of course, it fucking didn't.
"That's... honestly, pretty cool."
"Right? So? What did you think about Miles? Guy you'd want to leave Damien with when we go out?" she asked. My phone rang before I could answer her. I pulled it out of my pocket, checking to see who it was. I didn't recognize the number. I told her I'd be right back and got up, answering it.
"Hello?"
"Hello. Am I speaking to Jason Bowman?"
"Can I ask who's calling?"
"My name is Greg Waters. I'm calling from KCRQ. We were interested in offering you a position at our station."
"KCRQ?" I asked. Hadn't heard of it before.
"We broadcast regionally in the majority Los Angeles area. Following your departure from WRTC, you've most likely gotten more offers like this than you can keep up with." Actually, I hadn't. The initial shock of the photo scandal had died down, but since I hadn't exactly been making the effort to continue being part of that whole world, I was going to say a lot of people were still keeping their distance. As soon as I was attached to anything new in any case, the pictures would be dug up again.
"I've retired largely from broadcast," I said, not getting into any more detail that wasn't the guy's business. I have a job now that lets me focus on my family, and I'm more interested in that than being on anyone's TV.
"I see," the man said. "KQRC lacks the scope of the last station you served, but your considerable experience and profile would be taken into consideration when we discuss compensation."
"That's a kind offer. Thank you, but I have to decline. I have another engagement already and doubt I'll be making a return to broadcast in the near or distant future." The guy was silent before he thanked me for my time anyway. I hung up, heading back to the picnic table. Another anchor job. If he had come to me a few weeks back, in desperation, I might have said yes. If I had though, I probably wouldn't have been here today at the park with Shel and Damien. The job in broadcast and all those perks it had come with had been what had fucked me up in the first place. I couldn't say that the industry at large was at fault, no, I was responsible for what I had turned into. Going back would have meant the long hours, constant exposure and not enough time for Shelby and Damien in the long run. I wasn't going back to that. When I had had nothing but myself to live for, maybe, but now, some things were more important.
"Who was that?" Shelby asked as I came back to the bench and sat. I hadn't been far enough away that she wouldn't have heard me, I hadn't been trying to hide from her. I told her.
"It was a station here in L.A., smaller, regional; they wanted to offer me a job."
"Oh yeah?"
"Anchor position."
"And you told them no."
"I already have a job."
"Not as an anchor," she pointed out. "Isn't that what you wanted? To get back into broadcast eventually?"
"Even if I had wanted it, it wasn't the place for me. I think I understand that now."
"Would you have left if I hadn't asked you to?"
"Eventually, wanting to be close to you and Damien, I know I would have left. That's the whole point. That old job had made me feel important, but it didn't give me anything. I had been fine there, content, I guess, but it hadn’t been good for me. Here, I have you guys and a job that challenges me and doesn't let me get away with just being Jason Bowman."
"You think so?"
"Yeah," I said, thinking about it. "When it all came down to choosing, I left that job without a second thought. I didn't need it. I thought it was who I was, but I was wrong. Moving on might have been the best thing I could have done."
"I'm glad you feel that way," she said. "I'm really proud of how far you've come. I never could have imagined you making playdates in the park on a Sunday afternoon."
"I'd rather be here than at a news desk," I said, shrugging. "I don't need to be that guy to have what I want."
"Do you have what you want?" she asked. I nodded.
"This is what I want," I told her. She stood and came around the table and sat next to me. I turned so I was facing her. She kissed me.
"I know it couldn't have been easy giving everything up. Thank you for choosing us."
"Choosing you?" I asked. She shrugged.
"We don't come with a million-dollar penthouse, fame, nothing. Just poopy diapers and nursing bras." She smiled wryly, looking down.
"It wasn't just you; I chose myself too. All that stuff didn't make me happy; it just made me feel like I didn't have to look for anything else. Anything deeper. I don't even recognize who I was back then. My head was so far up my own ass; I didn't realize the kind of person I had become. The kind that you had to move across the country to get away from."
"I didn't move here just to get away from you, Jason."
"But you did hide Damien from me," I pointed out. "Shel, when you told me that you didn't think I would have cared about the birth of my own son, it just... you gave me the kick in the ass I needed to get over myself, you and Lake did. I had been told too long that I was the most important person in the world and that just wasn't true. I didn't like who I'd become, especially since it meant I couldn't be part of your and Damien's world." I reached for one of her hands, holding it. "Seriously, how did you put up with me?"
"By moving across the country," she said with a small smile. "But then you followed me." I cupped her face and kissed her.
"I don't know what would have happened if you had given up on me."
"I tried. You were pretty persistent," she laughed.
"I mean it, Shel," I kissed her again, "thank you."
"Thank you for not making me regret letting you back in." We ate our lunch, and after nursing Damien, we headed back to Shelby's apartment. I had slept over the night before, and we had taken my car instead of hers. It was later in the afternoon when we got there. I took Damien out of his car seat, and she took the picnic basket. I walked into the house after her, heading to Damien's nursery while she went to the kitchen. I turned his sound machine on before I put him on the table and changed his diaper. He generally took two naps, one in the late morning and another mid-to-late afternoon. The night before, he had slept the whole night without getting up once. His schedule wasn't airtight, but it was important for him to have some sort of routine, us too.
Shelby walked in as I placed him in his crib. In five minutes, he had fallen asleep.