*Before…

I was definitely getting some looks from Victoria and her crew and Anika and hers as well and even Peter Miller from the Seniors and student council was looking at me.
I wonder what he wants?
Classes were classes and in between was all the same with people still coming up to me and things and talking and everything.
The only thing different was study hall where I looked up stuff for some of the places to shop for clothes around town, sort of thinking about this Saturday with April.
Alex’s practice was great with the A/V guys there and recording stuff and Amy Dixon that wanted to interview me there too.
She wanted to get a story on how what we’re doing will plan in on things and I went into detail on how HC King and Queen should be doing more than just be this figurehead kind of rep. That the office should be an office and take all of that and all of the HC Court and do stuff for the school.
That we should work as part of the student council as a school rep and not just for certain groups or for like the classes that right now is what they represent.
And she gets her story and I get it on video with help from the A/V guys.
It was all pretty much a winning day.
And now it’s going to be going home and then going out to dinner with Adam and April.

*And Now….

I ask Alex to swing by to pick up a coffee before we get home. I need the energy and the mindset.
We pull into one of the Second Cup on the way home and I get a coffee and we talk about HC but we drive round for a little bit too and just unwind together before we end up going home.

Then it’s finding out where we’re going from the e-mail that April left me and I actually look the place up before I decide what I’m going to wear.
And what I want to look like there and with Adam.

Yes I know we’re a lot on better terms but there is still this professional guy and hardass in him and even if it’s not a business diner it’s Adam so everything is sort of a business diner.

And school for us is business to him.

Or at least that’s the way that I’m looking at how he appreciates things with Alex and me.

He does I think in the end mean well but he likes things in a neat compartment that he can deal with.

And with everything he’s been through as a husband and as a father chaos is bad, it’s never been a force of good for Adam.

So it’s getting what I want to wear out and Alex’s stuff too and I dig out the ironing board and I give everything a good ironing and edging so that we look extra good instead of just throwing on whatever.

Alex is wearing a nice blue dress shirt and a grey tie that matches my dress and his black collarless suit jacket and dress pants and actual shoes instead of sneakers.

I dress in a blue-grey colored set of underwear and matching slip and that’s all under a sleeveless brushed steel dress with almost a business cut, open sleeves and a scoop neck but a tight torso panel and a pencil skirt part of the dress and I wear some nice stockings that go with it a smokey grey with a nice dark seam and a pair of black shoes that i match to a black chunky stone necklace that I have looped three times.

I do my hair really straight and simple and I keep my make-up to a light blending foundation and a little powder and do my eyes in simple eyeliner and mascara and no eyeshadow. All clean looking and some really nice just muted red lipstick.

I like make-up, I usually like being a colored tips semi-goth girl and that’s sort of my old comfort zone but this.

Doing this as much work as it is and as fancy as it is, there are benefits.

The more I’m like this the more distant I am from my meth head mom.

We get all ready and we meet up with April and Adam and we have a driver this time and we end up going downtown to London Chop House.

I am immediately charmed by the place.

It’s an Old steakhouse.

Old steak house with that smell of top quality steaks and old wood, leather, it’s white shirts and black pants and skirts of the servers and it’s whisky and scotch and old drinks in highball glasses.

It has a cigar bar and lounge with pool and billiards.

It is so far on the other side of everything that it’s like I slid out of my seat in the towncar and was escorted into the place like it was a movie from the 1950’s like film noir kind of stuff, like Turner classic movies stuff.

I can’t help but be charmed by the place because it’s a place that never would have even been a dream for me.

Seriously these places were fiction or might have well been.

Since 1938 on the door and the build was old Detroit downtown brick.

Alex is quiet but he’s taking this all in like he’s not really been here either and I can see him drinking it the place and all the design.

It’s all old wood panelling and mouldings and everything about it has been preserved as this old deep classic.

Adam might not see it in Alex but I can see that look in his eyes as he’s taking it all in.

We get shown to our table and drinks are ordered and I go with a hazelnut black iced coffee that is actually offset with carbonated water and is unsweetened. Normally I like the sugary drinks but this was recommended from the bar as a non drinker.

Sharp and that nutty flavor completely went with my first bite of the steak tartare that we had as an appetizer.

Steak tartare… raw beef and onions, pickles and some other things and it is on it’s most screwy end like meat salsa.

And this is my first taste of super lean and dry aged beef that is chopped by hand this fine and then April is explaining what shallots are and cornichons and capers are to me because I honestly didn’t know and then there was the whole thing of this egg yolk on the top the waiter cut super fast with his knife and it dragged likes through it turning it from a yolk to this sunburst thing and then there was fresh ground black pepper.

Yes, yes really hecking fancy and so were the oysters and I liked both.

And it’s not the fancy stuff either, it's the fact that I feel like a person. April explains things as we eat our shared appetizers and so does Alex but this is kind of this whole other level of adulthood, and I know I’m not an adult.

But it’s like this whole seeing me as someone worth being here, like I am good enough and grown up enough to be here.

Like I have this much on the ball.

And looking at Adam it’s more of a test and it’s training too.

If I’m going to do more, be more, he’s going to have me armed.

So if I end up in these places I’m not going to be scared or floundering or drowning.

I love April.

I Love and am in love with Alex.

But Adam...it feels like I need him.

I need that intangible father thing, that hardass thing that he has in my life.

I think I’ve known this for a while.

The food is excellent and we eat and I learn.

And we talk.

About classes and school and homecoming and what we want to do and the interview that we did.

“I think that this has really changed since I went to school.” April said. “We never had thought out school elections like this.”

Adam nods. “We didn’t and we should have. Sadly school for me was like a hold over to college and law school. There were only a handful of things that I liked and none of those were very well received by the popular set. If it wasn’t football or basketball it wasn’t cared for too, too much.”

April. “Cheerleading for my high school and football but hockey too.”

I look at them both. “You both turned out well enough look at some others.”

They look at me and I share looks at them.

Adam takes a drink of his scotch. “True, and all of this points out well to your abilities Hunter.”

I look him in the eyes really hard. “Thank you Adam. I’m really getting set on having a life, my life and that includes going to college.”

“Good.”

“And law school.”

Adam looks at me. “Law school?”

I look at him and take a drink of my coffee. “Law school...and maybe if Alex is busy getting his degree in architecture then I can get my law degree and come and work for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes, for you. And keep it going when you retire maybe.”

He drinks all of his scotch in one gulp looking at me and I’m saved by the steaks arriving.

Steak, a real steak and sizzled and small but thick and covered in ground pepper and those salt crystal flowerettes and then the sides.

I have that with a cauliflower and gruyere cheese.

Then this drink that is tomato juice with dunks of carrot and celery juices fresh from the bar and mixed with salt and pepper and a little horseradish?

I can’t drink and Alex pointed this out.

My traitor boyfriend and his feeding me veggies all the time.

It’s actually not bad though spicy.

We eat and we share looks and Adam is looking at me as he eats and looking at Alex too.

“Architectural not art school?”

Alex looks at him. “It’s both, I like both but yeah I like buildings and design.”

“Really?”

They’re staring at each other in that father and son stand off thing they still have and I reach out taking Alex’s hand.

“I know you’ve been studying babe, and I seen you smile looking around here so what's technically cool about this place.”

He looks at me and he looks at his dad and then me again and I hold his eyes.

“C’mon I know I like this place but I seriously don’t have the words.”

His eyes soften and then he starts talking about the place.

About the old america brick, about that post world war two way of building things and about that midwest style that you only find in select places here in the city but it’s this midwest only sort of aesthetic that you only really see in Detroit and Chicago and Cleveland and how this whole thing was part of this other school.

He named names of designers and of places that I’ve never heard of but Adam nodded like he’s been to them and then there were design features in the place that he talked about.

No not talked like waxed poetic about and include things on the bar, the bar mirror, the doors, the glass in the windows and all the mouldings.

I don’t know if Alex saw it but I saw it in Adam.

This look of him realizing that Alex was smart.

That Alex actually loved this and that he really knew what he was talking about.

And Adam didn’t stop him either. He even asked questions about this place and other places that he mentioned and he listened as we all ate and then one the food was gone Adam got up.

“Let’s go shoot a couple of games of pool, you can tell me about the pool lounge and cigar hall.”

I watch them get up and Alex kisses me really deeply and then he heads off with his father into this other area that looks interesting and promising.

April orders her and I the caviar service.

“That was good Hunter, seriously good. I don’t think Alex could have gotten all of that out at first unless he was talking to you about it.”

“I know, he’s still angry, still tied up and they’re both awkward.”

“Which is why they need us.”

April passed me the shot of vodka that came with the caviar service and we toasted with her and her drink.

“And that’s why the need us.”