Jade’s laughter carried down the corridor as the footsteps of the duo left. We waited until after we finished breakfast before checking the front door. I almost went out of habit but Vatten pointed to the towel clinging for dear life around my waist and went out instead. A few minutes later, he carried two large baskets back into the kitchen and then returned to the door.
“You are really popular or Jade is really wealthy,” Vatten said, setting two more baskets onto the table. “There are four more.”
“Some of these are just baskets from the farm. We all get weekly deliveries. Well, everyone connected to the farm. Canton always says if someone goes hungry off the farm its either because we forgot to bring the food in or we didn’t share. Do you want me to grab some pants and bring in the rest?”
“No, you start sorting stuff and putting it away. I don’t want you to wrestle someone in the hallway,” he said.
“I only want to wrestle you,” I said as he headed out of the kitchen again.
A few of the baskets were obviously from the farm. It was all fresh produce with a few mini pies from Ears or his kids. The others were undoubtedly the ones Jade and Jondi left. They not only smelled like them but had all the hallmarks of a kid helping put them together from the drawing of a giant kitten that took up the whole sheet of paper that I stuck on the fridge to the boxes of candy. There were also fresh baked loaves of bread, sandwich fixins, and other things that were easy to snack on. In a little glittery zipper pouch, was several packs of condoms, lube, and other ‘I don’t know if you want kids or not, but just in case’ items.
“This whole basket is filled with pies,” Vatten said, his eyes growing larger with each passing second. “This one has danishes. This one has laundry. I think its from your parents. Do your parents do your laundry?”
“No, a laundry service does. It probably just got mixed in with the others when they dropped it off,” I said, taking the baskets from him.
“You pay someone to do your laundry?” he blinked at me.
“It’s good for the economy. The service is really just a single parent making extra money,” I said.
“You better not be talking about Jade,” he shook his finger at me. “If you make your best friend do your laundry because he needs money, I’ll kick you in the shin.”
“No, Jade runs a play center for flying kids,” I said. “And I’d give them money too if they’d take it but it’s more about feeling like they’re part of the community by doing something helpful. Everyone needs a purpose. Yeah, I know. Raising two kids isa purpose all its own but everyone needs something outside of their kids.”
“So… You pay someone else to wash your underwear?” he blinked.
“No!” I shook my head. “I’d never send my underwear or dirty socks to someone else. Most of those need handwashed anyway.”
“But there’s a washing machine here.”
“Yeah, I know,” I nodded. “Look, their kids go to Jade’s play place. They asked him if he knew anyone who would like a laundry service. So a bunch of us decided to do it after Jade asked us to.”
“It’s sort of sweet but if I was a single parent and I had to wash everyone’s laundry to feed my kid, I swear I’d start cursing people,” he said.
“No one is making them and no kid is going hungry. Not here. Not in the GGB. Not with the leadership or with Canton’s farm brat program.”
“Huh? Farm brat? That sounds mean,” he said, his eyebrows knitting together.
“Oh, it’s the program’s nickname. It’s a program that sends a certain amount of produce per child or college aged person to every family who signs up free of charge. The nickname might sound mean but I don’t think the kids care as long as they’re eating. We’ll get it too.”
“But we have money and can go out and—”
“That’s the thing, though. When in theory everyone has enough – those who don’t speak up in bigger places or ask for help, usually get it too. Like I’m not going to get through all the produce on my own. I’ll take what I know I won’t eat out to the table at the end of the corridor and leave it there. Maybe some weeks I take something someone else left there because it looks good. Then someone takes what I left. The goal is feeding people who are too stubborn or afraid to ask for help,” Eran said. “I’m not explaining it all that well. I grew up with it. I was one of the kids who went to school with three lunches. One for me and two in case someone else was hungry or didn’t like their lunches or what the school free lunch was. Since I grew up with it, I guess it’s hard to explain it.”
Vatten started to tear up and I blinked in bemusement.
“Mate, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” I said, walking over and pulling him close. “The school lunches here really aren’t that bad.” I wasn’t sure what made him cry.
“It’s not that,” he sniffled. “It’s—I just imagined you up at the tail crack of dawn making extra lunches for our kids to take to school and,” a sob tore from his throat. I kissed his forehead. If we had met more recently than yesterday, I may have suggested a pixelated baby pregnancy test but even if my swimmers were equipped with compasses and found the eggs without delay, they couldn’t have implanted and caused enough hormonal changes to show signs of pregnancy yet. Plus, there was the little detail of my being in a rut. That didn’t normally happen if your mate was pregnant.
“You’re just going to be such a good dad,” he said and his whole body vibrated. “I tried not to vibrate because I don’t wantto knock stuff over. Then I cried because that’s what happens when I can’t wag my tail.”
“Do you have the zoomies?” I asked.
He hesitated and I wondered who in his past had told him that was a bad thing.
“No one,” he said over our mating link. “It’s just… We live in an apartment. The neighbors don’t want to hear that.”
“The neighbors below us have five bear cubs under five. If they can hear anything over them it’s a miracle straight from the Other World. Plus, use the corridor. Seriously, it’s like Zoomie Lane out there. No one will care.”
