"I'm sorry, bub," Rhodes says sincerely, rubbing his thumb gently over my knee.
"It's fine. I've made my peace with it. And at least I get to go and do something like this, which I'm really looking forward to," I reply, placing my hand completely over his. A warm smile spreads across his lips slowly as I speak.
"Will you still spend Christmas Day with your mum?" he asks.
"The last two years I've gone up on Christmas Day. The facility she's in lets me stay the night with her. And now that she's on medication and generally doing better, it's not such a bad day for us. I'll normally get her a book or a journal, and she will knit me something before we eat a Christmas lunch made by the staff. Then we play Scrabble or some other board game until she needs to sleep. Not super Christmassy, but it's still a nice day." I do look forward to seeing her, but I always worry that she'll have a bad day and will take it out on me. It's happened before, and I'm in such a good place right now, I really just hope it goes well this year.
"I like your mum, she's lovely. And I was proper nervous to meet her."
"Yeah?" I ask him. He nods quickly.
"Of course. I know she's important to you, and I didn't want to give her a bad first impression. She and my mum got on quite well, which was nice too." He drums his fingers against the steering wheel as he talks.
"I really wasn't expecting her to be there. I wasn't expecting anyone to be there actually; it was an amazing day. You did very well." I reach my hand up and poke one of his dimples that has appeared on his cheek.