Watermelon

Mommy

"Hey...can I, uh...can I talk to you about something?"

Jace stood in the doorway of Shawn's bedroom where he had been folding and putting away some clean laundry. Maggie had just gone down for her nap which was typically when Shawn would get some tidying up done around the house, but it also meant it was a good time for Jace to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with his foster dad.

"You can talk to me about anything," Shawn said sincerely as he folded a t-shirt. Jace stepped into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I wanted to ask your advice on something...but like, I don't want you to get all weird about it."

"Um, okay...?" Shawn chuckled. "I'll try my best not to be weird about it." Jace cracked his knuckles nervously and cleared his throat, glancing around the bedroom just to avoid making eye contact with Shawn.

"H-how long did you wait before asking Camila to be your girlfriend?"

Shawn grinned knowingly but tried not to be too obvious; he tried to play it cool.

"Honestly, we made things official pretty quickly. I think I've told you how we met before but basically we met on vacation and even though we only spent a week together, I fell hard for her. We spent almost two years apart and honestly I thought I'd never see her again so when I bumped into her at the store I knew that I didn't want to let her get away. We went on our first official date a couple days after I bumped into her then our second date happened shortly after that. We made it official the day after our second date."

"Hm." The teenage boy seemed to think it over for a minute. Shawn still wasn't sure if Jace and Chloe's movie and pizza night was technically a date but that had been almost two weeks ago at this point and surely their relationship had to have progressed at least a little bit since then. He knew they had been hanging out more. "Was it scary? It seems like a scary thing to ask. Like, what if she would've said no?"

"I guess she could've...but I also knew that she wouldn't. She knew I had strong feelings for her and I knew she had similar feelings for me. Don't get me wrong — asking for a relationship to be made official is still an intimidating thing to do...but as long as you're confident the other person likes you as much as you like them then it's a lot less scary." Jace seemed to think over his words for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip. Shawn couldn't help but smirk a little bit. He had never seen Jace have feelings for a girl before and now that he was getting to witness it a little bit he couldn't help but feel a little proud. "Do you think Chloe likes you?"

Shawn worried momentarily that he may have pushed things too far with that last question but those worries were quickly depleted when Jace blushed and tried to hide a smile.

"I mean...yeah. She seems to."

"Then I think you should go for it," Shawn grinned. "Just be honest with her and tell her how you feel. I know it sounds intimidating but I promise it's not as scary as it sounds. You've got this, kid." He held his hand out for a fist-bump which Jace happily gave him. "Does Marty know?"

Jace's mood clearly shifted, making Shawn fear the worst.

"Um, no. Not yet. We kind of decided we didn't want him to know anything was going on between us."

"Do you think he'll be upset?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "At first I was worried that he'd be upset if he found out I had a thing for his sister but now I'm worried that he'll be more mad that we decided to keep it from him, ya know? I don't know what the right thing to do is. I have no idea how he'd react."

"It's definitely a tricky situation but I'm sure everything will work out fine. You and Marty are close friends so clearly he thinks you're a pretty good guy."