Page 11 of Hilarina and the Ogre

They stared each other down, and Hilary remembered about the necklace and about how Trenton had carefully sealed the pearls into a packet of paper and put them into his pocket. “Why’d you take the blame for it?” he demanded.

“I thought it would be easiest that way,” Trenton said.

“Easiest for who?”

Trenton smiled. It didn’t look like one. His mouth only went up at the corner, and only for a moment, almost like blinking his mouth, but Hilary was pretty sure that’s what it was—a smile.

“Goodnight, Hilary.”

Hilary didn’t know why that annoyed him so much. “The couch is shit on your back,” he called out after the boy, but Trenton only raised a hand, already halfway down the hall.

Chapter Four

Call Me Dad

Hilary woke to Trenton’s bulk blocking out the faint morning light. “Hilary.”

Again, it startled him. “Christ.”

“I can order the cab.”

“Give me a minute.”

Hilary stumbled into his clothes, still half-sleeping, and accepted the paper bag Trenton put into his hands. “What’s this?”

“I can drive.”

Hilary didn’t think that was a good idea. “She’s temperamental.”

But the car purred to life under Trenton’s touch, annoying Hilary still further. He didn’t see why everything was progressing so smoothly. “How’s your back?”

“Fine.”

“Fuck off.”

Trenton might have smiled again—annoying. Hilary opened the bag and then understood why it was warm. It was a breakfast burrito, freshly made, steam still curling up from it. He supposed that was worth putting up with a little annoyance, especially once he tasted it. “You can cook?”

“A little.”

A little meant scraping eggs out of a pan that were only partially burned. This wasn’t like that. “I hate false modesty.”

Trenton’s expression was its usual neutrality, but Hilary had the sneaking suspicion the boy was enjoying himself. “Okay.”

It didn’t take long to get to the bike at school, which meant he ran out of time to say anything he might have wanted to say—though he wasn’t sure what that was.

Trenton leaned over the car, just kind of standing there. There was a morning mist, and it was already collecting on the boy’s eyebrows and hair. “I finish at six,” Trenton said. “Can you do math then?”

It felt weird to be offered that. Like he should have been the one asking instead, and it made Hilary kind of shy. “Yeah.”

Trenton pushed off the car’s roof. The boy didn’t say goodbye, just unlocked his bike and pedaled off, an ogre commuting to work.

Hilary could have gone home. Instead, he went to the studio. It felt like it had been a long time since he’d done that, even though it hadn’t been. His mother would be there soon to open the morning class, but for now he was alone. He gave the floor a quick wipe, then decided to do the bar, and then the mirrors too. That had always been something he’d done, but not recently. Lately, he’d just been running away. He pulled out a mat from the ones in the corner and began to stretch. Things were tight, of course, joints and muscles showing irritation at their neglect, but there was too much time and practice in them to be angry for long.

“Oh,” his mother said when she came in. “Smells like lemon. You must have been busy.”

He stood and realized he’d been waiting all morning, maybe since last night, to say it. “I want to teach classes again. Like I did in the summer.”

She paused in the act of pulling off her scarf, a little surprised, but mostly by his intensity. Then she smiled. “I knew you’d like him.”