Our Last Dance

11.

Before the four of them could place their dinner orders, Stevie suggested that she and Lindsey move to another table to chat so they could give the kids some space to talk about things since Shelly had dropped a major piece of news on them and everybody complied with ease.

"I can't believe my baby is gonna have a baby," he shook his head, looking at his daughter from the distance.

She looked over her shoulder, more than happy to see Leo's arm wrapped around the girl.

"It's crazy to think about, huh?" she grinned. "But very exciting, nevertheless."

"It is..." he shifted in his seat to better face her. "I hope I didn't sound too doom and gloom. Of course I'm happy for her, but..." he trailed, twiddling his thumbs.

"I understand. And no, you said all the right things, although I do hope you're not angry she told me first... I don't even think she meant to tell me first, but I caught her on her run to the bathroom to throw up and I figured she hadn't told anybody..."

"No, really I'm not upset at all," he shook his head. "She hasn't had a mother figure and when her grandmother died, even more so. It really crushed her when my mom passed."

"I'd imagine," she nodded in agreement.

"She had to rely on me for things I knew nothing about. I knew she really felt alone when she was thirteen and getting her period. Yeah, that was fun..." he rolled his eyes to himself and brought the alcoholic beverage to his lips. "A few years back, at the time, thankfully, the girl I was seeing; she was able to give Shelly the talk about boys and sex and everything else I wasn't comfortable doing," he shrugged. "She was also really trying her best to be friends with Shelly and thankfully for me, my daughter is friendly with everybody and didn't mind having those conversations with her. But she was a homebody in high school and that is a trait she definitely gets from me."

She followed along easily, smiling at his last comment because she could hear his sense of humor behind the last statement. "Luckily, my husband beat me to that, so I didn't have to have that conversation with Trevor... Phew," she swiped her forehead with a small giggle. "My husband knew everything about Trevor; girls he was seeing and all and I didn't care to because I really didn't need to know."

He chuckled. "Sometimes it's better that way... My brothers and I would always tell each other; What mom doesn't know, doesn't hurt her," he smirked, taking a sip of his bourbon.

"Exactly my point. And every once in a while, when I kept hearing that teenagers from his school were getting pregnant; the way word gets around, as you know..." she rolled her eyes, "I would just randomly be going; You're using protection, right? And he'd go; Yes, mom... Who's pregnant now? with attitude because he was a teenager," she smirked. "I'd just throw him a thumbs up and we'd be good to go."

"That's funny... You've dodged some bullets."

"Oh, yes..." she assured, bringing her glass of red wine to her lips. "Despite it all... I feel like when Trevor's father died, all we had was each other, but at the same time we didn't trust each other enough with those kinds of things. I can honestly say I was in a very dark and fogged period when he did die that I don't remember too much..."

He nodded.

"A lot of people told me it was normal to not remember..." she paused, almost hoping for confirmation so she didn't sound like a terrible and disassociated mother.

"It is normal..." he agreed. "I don't remember my dad's funeral at all. But I do remember parts of my mom's..."

"Yeah, grief does a number on some people... Unfortunately, I was one of them, so quite frankly I don't remember seeing Trevor too much till his wedding... And that was almost four years ago..."