Dean's Life

This time around

Alex's pov

Hearing Dean call me his son made me sad and happy and scared and excited all at the same time. I've always wanted a father in my life, despite telling my mom and everyone else, including myself, I didn't. When Uncle Bobby told me the truth about my real father it hurt pretty bad, not gonna lie. Why didn't he want me? I mean, I was just a baby, actually I wasn't even born yet. What could I have done that was so bad?

Mom did her best to give me a father figure in my life, if by her best she meant parading a bunch of losers in and out of our house and our lives. I didn't get it when I was younger but now I understand why she did that. Until she asked Uncle Bobby for help, she was honestly dependent on these guys to give us a place to live. The day I was at Uncle Bobby's and he told me the truth about my dad, he explained a lot of things to me that I never knew about my mom.

Once my dad left us, Uncle Bobby said it was hard for Mom to keep a job and take care of me on her own cuz before she asked him for help she didn't have anybody she could depend on to watch me while she worked and she didn't make enough money to be able to afford daycare or even a babysitter, for that matter. It got so bad, she couldn't afford the rent most months so we got kicked out of our apartment when I was like one or two years old.

That's when things got really hard for her. We had no place to live and Mom was too proud and too ashamed I guess to ask her family for help. Mom got pregnant with me when she was only seventeen. I grew up thinking my grandma and grandpa kicked her out of the house when they found out about the pregnancy. Mom never actually said that, it's just what I pieced together from the little bits of information she was willing to share with me about them.

Turns out, Mom left on her own cuz she wanted to stay with my dad and he was leaving with some buddies of his to go to Nevada to work at the casinos, or just gamble at 'em more likely. Uncle Bobby said my dad was like five years older than Mom so he was old enough to legally work there. Well, Mom didn't tell my dad she was pregnant until they were like three states away from home and that's when he abandoned her at some diner.

From then on, Mom had to depend on whatever loser she was hooking up with to give us a place to stay and food to eat. Don't get me wrong, my mom wasn't like a prostitute or anything. Uncle Bobby said she was just young, stupid and desperate so she didn't make the best decisions. I don't remember too much about the guys she dated. I just remember we never stayed in one place very long. I guess it was about the time I was old enough to go to preschool, she finally got in touch with Uncle Bobby and asked him for help.

He made her get her GED and helped pay for her to take classes so she could get a decent job and support the two of us. According to Uncle Bobby, Mom still made a bunch of bad choices and she still had a lot of growing up to do, but she never did wrong by me in her eyes, whatever that means. Uncle Bobby wouldn't explain it to me. He said maybe when I'm older. I doubt it though. He and Mom still treat me like a little kid most of the time.

Mom has no idea Uncle Bobby told me all this stuff about her. She would flip her shit if she knew and Mom can be pretty freaking scary when she wants to be. Usually she's pretty mellow, which works out nice for me and Drew most of the time cuz she hardly ever punishes us. She mostly just threatens stuff but never follows through. On the rare occasions she's grounded me, she doesn't really enforce it, so it never lasts more than a day or two and when she puts Drew in timeout, it lasts like thirty seconds cuz he'll keep getting up and walking away and she'll just give up after awhile.

I wonder if Dean knows all this stuff about Mom. I mean I didn't find out about her past until a couple months ago when I was staying with Uncle Bobby for the weekend to help him with his car. He sat me down and told me about my dad cuz I had been raggin' on my mom pretty bad so he said it was about time I knew the truth about her and what it was like when I was a baby. He said I was gonna be a man soon and I needed to step up and take responsibility and help my mom and little brother out.

That was like right before Mom started dating Dean. Lucky for me, or I never would've found out any of this. Even though I haven't known him for that long, it's pretty obvious Dean isn't like all the losers my mom has dated, or even the one she married. I hate to admit this but he seems like a decent guy and I'm like ninety-nine percent sure he's gonna take care of her and me and Drew and be in it for the long haul, but I've been wrong before, so I wouldn't let myself believe that for certain, well not before today anyway. If he was this upset about me being in a potentially dangerous situation, knowing nothing bad happened and everything turned out okay, he must really care about me, otherwise he wouldn't have made such a big deal out of it. I'm pretty confident now Dean will never abandon us or hurt my mom.

I thought that about Drew's dad Rick and our step-dad Paul though too. Mom was crazy about Rick but apparently she wasn't the only one. He was married and already had a whole other family and even another girlfriend besides Mom. I shoulda known he was too good to be true but hey I was only like ten years old when they were going out, so give me a break. He was always super nice and would buy me and Mom all these expensive gifts. Mom gave him an ultimatum though when she found out about his wife and kids. I guess he chose them cuz we never saw him again after that night. She told him it was either us or them and he had to decide right then. She never even told him she was pregnant. She didn't want him staying with her just cuz of the baby, at least that's what she told Uncle Bobby.

A couple years later she met Paul and they dated for like a year before they got married. I thought Paul was pretty cool and he was rich. He had a really sweet Harley and he'd take me for rides on it sometimes on the weekends. After he and Mom got married, we moved into his condo in the city. It was awesome. Drew and I even had our own rooms. It didn't last long though. They started fighting a lot and Paul would be gone for days at a time and he was almost never home on the weekends after that. Mom never told me or Uncle Bobby exactly what happened but I'm pretty sure Paul was into drugs, like cocaine or some heavy shit, either dealing it, or taking it, or both and that's why they got divorced.

Things were pretty rough after that. Mom hadn't been working for awhile cuz Paul paid for everything so she didn't need to and that way she could stay home and watch me and Drew. She had very little money once they got divorced so we moved into that shit hole apartment we were living in til Mom met Dean. Mom was probably too stubborn or proud to ask Uncle Bobby or Aunt Rachel for help. I guess it's good Dean came along when he did, or we'd be living in an even worse dump right now.

It's not great he just beat my ass but it did feel kinda good hearing him refer to me as his son. None of the guys before him ever did that. Not even Paul, come to think of it. I was always just Amy's kid, never anyone else's. Till now. This is gonna take some getting used to, having a real father in my life full-time. I don't think I'll be able to get away with nearly as much but at least I won't have to babysit Drew all the time.

"So what do you have to say to me?" Dean asked, bringing me back to the here and now. He was standing squarely in front of me with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face.

"I didn't even want to go with those guys when I found out they wanted to race again," I explained, looking down at my hands as I nervously picked at the small scab on my thumb.

"Alex, look at me," Dean ordered, but he didn't sound angry now, it was more like he was concerned.

Maybe he really does care. I looked up at him like he asked.

"I don't ever want to see you sittin' in a car I pull over again. You got that?"

Nodding, I said, "I won't do it again. Ok?" He raised one eyebrow at me so I amended my response. "I meant yes sir."

Dean smiled at me, saying, "That's better. Thank you."

I nodded slightly.

Before closing my door on his way out, he turned to me and said, "Goodnight, son."

"Goodnight," I replied, letting myself think, I might actually have a dad this time.