Connectivity Issues with a Cobra 🐍

Chapter 3: Blind Date

At an old-fashioned vintage diner:

Johnny turned the engine off in the diner's parking lot and sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel for about five minutes. He was highly apprehensive about meeting up with his "internet friend". 

They'd grown pretty close over this past month.

He'd never really had someone he could talk to (other than Miguel and his gang of friends from when he was still in high school), and even they didn't know half the things he'd told this stranger on the internet.

Even Bobby, who he would drunkenly info dump on when things became too much to bear, didn't know about the extent of the verbal abuse his stepfather put him through growing up or how deeply his mother's death traumatized him.

Yet, for some reason, Johnny had chosen to open up to and confide in this complete stranger who he'd never met. It meant there was a lot was riding on this introduction, and he was scared to death he'd put his foot in his mouth.

Taking a deep breath, Johnny stepped through the diner's door, and his eyes immediately traveled to the red upholstered booth in the back where they agreed to meet.

Johnny's heart constricted painfully when he laid eyes on a familiar figure.

Even halfway turned away from him, Johnny could recognize those short chestnut locks and that glimpse of his profile anywhere. The boy was looking at his phone intently, reading an email, and didn't notice him yet.

'Oh, Robby,' he thought as emotion welled in his chest.

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'Well, here goes nothing,' he thought warily.

Johnny took a deep breath to calm his nerves, knowing this could potentially turn into a shouting match, and walked over to the booth. He hesitated at the edge of the table long enough for his son to lift his gaze from the screen of his phone and lock eyes with him. "AcidDropTwist66?"

Robby stared at him, perplexed for a second.

It didn't take a genius to figure out he was wondering how his dad knew his username, but then realization dawned on him, and his body grew tense with the kind of apprehension that made him look like a deer caught in headlights.

Johnny watched a flush of red creep down his son's neck, but it was difficult to tell whether it was out of humiliation or anger.

"Oh. You've got to be kidding me!" Robby looked downright furious.

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Johnny wondered if perhaps he should have been more shocked by this revelation and the fact that he'd unknowingly been chatting online with his son for over a month, but he couldn't find it in himself to be upset.

Now that he could see the whole picture, the pieces aligned for him in a way he hadn't expected, and it dawned on him that this was something he would never have thought possible even in his wildest dreams.

The time they spent talking online had opened his eyes to the possibilities of an actual trusting, open and caring relationship with his son. It was something he'd always wanted but that he'd been too afraid to have in fear of fucking it up and worsening the seemingly irreversible damage.