Page 90 of Hilarina and the Ogre

It horrified him that Hilary didn’t sound entirely like he was joking. “We’re keeping yours.”

Hilary did make an effort to fill him in on the things he’d missed. There was a quick rundown of the parents. “They’re on the west coast now. Dad’s mostly retired but works a bit as a handyman to keep out of trouble—his words, not mine. Mom’s got another studio. She shares it with a woman who leads pole dancing classes, and yes, dad jokes about her being the replacement for the mailman.”

“Do they know?” He wasn’t sure how to articulate the question. “The phone call. When I answered.”

“I figured we could call them together later. When you’re ready.” And at the look on his face, added, “I shot off a text to them this morning, so it’s not a rush. Trent, they’re not going to punish you. Why are you making that face?”

“Because I…” The blurry eyes were there again. “I promised to take care of you.”

“And you did. You do. Trenton—”

“You could have died. You don’t know—you didn’t see how you looked. I thought maybe I was too late. I thought—”

And he understood what Hilary meant about not being tight enough. He, too, would have sacrificed his spleen if he could have traded it for security. The knowledge that it really was safe now. That no further harm would come.

“You saved me. Stopping them. And before then, too.” Hilary was using his assertive voice. The I’m-a-serious-adult-so-listen-to-me-about-this voice. “Just having you there—knowing you were there with me. It helped.” Hilary’s voice was shredding a little, but only at the edges. “And your arm. I don’t know how you did it. None of the detectives could believe it. All on your own when you were so hurt. Like those moms who lift cars off their babies.”

Trenton couldn’t bear it. This talk. Those memories. It was acid in his throat, burning through the tissue, more painful than whatever breaks and bruises he’d suffered that day. “I remembered her. My sister. Because of you.”

“Amelia.” Hilary spoke the name for him, and he did it with understanding. He must have done his research. The police reports and the detectives involved. Police and social workers and all those other faceless people he could no longer remember.

Trenton nodded.

Hilary pressed his face there against his shoulder, the other hand on his back. “We could adopt,” he said after some moments had passed. “If you wanted.”

“Adopt?” Trenton could only repeat the word as if he’d never heard it before. And honestly, in relation to him, the concept might as well have been entirely unknown.

“We have to marry anyway,” Hilary said, like he was going for the record of most-shocking-things-said-in-less-than-a-minute. “To get you on my health insurance.”

Trenton’s brain was still stuck on the previous thing. “You want kids?”

Hilary gave that about half a second’s consideration. “I don’t not want kids.” And then, as if to smooth it over. “If it were with you, it would probably turn out alright. Dad would be over the moon.”

He could picture it. Albert with his little assistant. “And Mom?”

Hilary didn’t seem to find anything weird about his calling her that. Apparently, fifteen years wasn’t long enough for your honorary son card to expire. “She’d have lectures ready. Mostly because she’ll suspect I plan to leave all the childcare to you. I don’t, by the way. Just most of it. And anyway, I’m not saying we should. Just that it’s an option.”

Everything was an option to Hilary, who would, without a second’s pause, pluck the moon from down from the sky for his partner if he asked for it.

“I never thought I could be a parent.”

“You never thought you’d go to college either, or that you’d spend your life with a ballerina.”

It was the thing he’d been wondering about all morning and had no idea how to ask. “You still dance?”

In the journals, and throughout his entire new collection of memories, there had been not one mention of Hilary with ballet. It was another thing he suspected he’d ruined along with the poetry.

Hilary smiled. A little shy, a little mischievous. “I was considering picking it back up.”

For the third time in so many minutes, Trenton’s eyes were prickling again. “I’d like that.”

Hilary was already straining to get at him again, pulling him in for a kiss. “I thought you might.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A Call to Arms

There was no tape that afternoon. Hilary left him there at the door, already a few minutes late, and kissed him while the rideshare threatened to pull away. To keep the anxiety at bay, they’d decided to stay connected by phone. They couldn’t talk much while Hilary was working, but it seemed just having him on the other end of his Bluetooth was a comfort to them both. It was nice just to hear the ambient sounds of Hilary’s workplace—even if those sounds included screaming monitors, disoriented patients, and irritated staff. The best parts were whenever Hilary was charting. There would be mostly quiet except for the soft clacking of the keyboard and the occasional, “Trenton?”