Page 68 of The Pilot

He probably could’ve talked all night, but he didn’t even complain. Simply nodded and said, “I’ll tell you all about the M57 Ring Nebula we saw tomorrow. It was so cool!” He grabbed the bag of posters Harper had leaned against the stairs. But after going up two steps, he turned and said, “Oh, and the pizza was the bomb! We’ll have to stop there again next time we go through town so you can try it too!” Then he ran the rest of the way up the stairs.

“Posters tomorrow,” Harper called up after him. “Not tonight.”

“Okay, Mom!”

Harper looked at Linc with a sheepish grin.

“Sounds like he had the time of his life.”

“I love watching him get so excited about the things he enjoys. Why anyone would want him to be anything other than who he is, I can’t imagine.”

“You talking about your dad? Or the bullies at school?” Linc asked with canny insight.

“Both. Although my dad has gotten a lot better about nagging him to get involved in sports.”

“You had a good talk with him about school?”

Linc knew she’d planned to see if she could get Kash to open up a little more about what was going on at school with the bullies.

“I don’t know that I’d say it was good, but I do feel a little better about it. Kash said Donny and Ginger broke up, and that for now, at least some of Donny’s attention is on winning her back. Which is something, I suppose. He’s also looking forward to him graduating and being gone by the time Kash joins the high school.”

“Sounds as if he’s taking things in stride.”

“I guess.” Harper turned to Linc and dropped her face into the place where his shoulder met his neck. “Karma sucks. I never spent time thinking about how you and the others we made fun of must have felt. All I knew was that it made me feel better to be part of some stupid clique. I didn’t want to rock the boat with my friends and speak out against what we were doing. I was a horrible person, and my son is paying for it today.”

“Shhhh,” Linc soothed, running a hand over the back of her head.

She appreciated that he didn’t minimize what she’d done. That he didn’t insist she hadn’t been that bad. Because she’d been a terror.

“And you should know, I talked to Kash about how I was . . . what I did to you.”

“Wow. And? How’d he take it? Are you two . . . okay?”

Figured Linc would be more worried about the relationship between her and Kash, and not about whether her son would look at him differently for being bullied by his mom. “He was surprisingly cool about it. Totally let me off the hook, which is crazy, considering his school life is being made so miserable by bullies.”

Linc took her face in his hands and gently tilted her head up so he could look into her eyes.

“He’s a good kid. And smart. Too smart to let Donny and Ginger and whoever else get to him. He has the ability to let that shit run off his shoulders and not affect him. And you’re his mom. He loves you, as do I, so it’s easy for him to forgive you just like I have. You want to know why?”

“Why?” Harper whispered, gripping his sides.

“Because he knows what’s important in life. Food, shelter, love. He knows without a doubt that you love him and will do anything for him. That I will. That he has my brothers. He has a whole tribe behind him now, and the self-confidence in him has risen tenfold since Lobster Fest and winning the crate race. He’s coming into his own, and I can see it in him. He doesn’t give a shit what others think. He’s gonna do what he loves and to hell with everyone else.”

“You had your brothers behind you, and I still made your life miserable,” Harper couldn’t help but point out.

“Kash isn’t me. I didn’t have half the brain your son does.”

“He purposely didn’t answer questions on his Spanish test to throw the curve, so the rest of the class wouldn’t be mad at him,” Harper blurted.

“See? He knows how to work the system. He’s going to be fine, Harper. I know it.”

“I hope so.”

“You look tired. How was the traffic?”

“Fine. No accidents and the roads were dry. There was some snow in a few parking lots, but nothing major.”

“Good. We’re supposed to get cold this next week again.”