Page 91 of Icarus

“To answer your question, yes and no,” Icarus said, picking up where he’d left off. “I don’t think my dad knows you guys were in our house, but he has been acting kind of strange. He’s been taking phone calls in our storage room and being kind of . . . nice? He made me breakfast and dinner a couple times this week. That hasn’t happened in a really long time.”

Luca rubbed his runny nose and Icarus decided to bring tissues to class tomorrow in case they had to be outside again.

“Do you really cook every night?”

“Yeah. It’s less terrible than you’d think. Cooking every night means I also get to eat whatever I want every night as well. You just kind of fold it into the rest of your chores.”

“God, I wish. My mom makes the nastiest casseroles and then cries if we pick at it.”

Luca sneezed.

Icarus took off his jacket and draped it over Luca’s shoulders.

“What? No, dude, what about you?” Luca said, trying to wriggle out from under it.

“You’re almost blue. Just put it on. Wear more than a sweater tomorrow,” Icarus said grumpily.

He stopped walking until Luca put his long arms through the sleeves. They stuck out like a scarecrow.

He looked at Luca hard again as Luca tried and failed to button the jacket up. He really was close to Helios’s size.

“Do you mind doing me a favor? I have some equipment that I need to test and it looks like it would be about your size. Do you mind helping me with it?”

Luca shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I’m free tonight? Maybe tomorrow? Friday is the—oh, wait! Has Celestina asked you yet?”

Icarus shook his head. “Asked what?”

“She wants you to come to dinner at her house on Friday,” Luca explained. “She usually has the girls over every Friday, but this one is for us. Me, her almost boyfriend, and you, her . . . well. Her something.”

Icarus grinned and stared up at the clouds. Her something. Well.

He would have to come back to this town, chase them down, huh.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Frill

Luca was the first person in his life who demanded more and stuck to it. Who looked Icarus in the eyes and said that he wanted more from him, even if it was embarrassing. It was only fair that he would be the first to know.

About this, about him.

About Helios.

Icarus came home and threw the makings for chili in the slow cooker before gathering up the harness. He knew his father was doing something with all this cooking for him. But after three and a half years of being responsible for dinner, he didn’t feel comfortable not trying. It would be almost ready by the time Icarus was back and he could start baking some buttermilk corn bread to go with it.

He slung the harness into a black duffel bag and scampered out the door. The wind was picking up speed, cutting and dry as he walked the five blocks down to Luca’s house. It felt so strange coming this way while it was still light out.

The only memories he had of Luca’s house were fuzzy at the edges. The yard looked so much nicer when there weren’t drunk kids lying on it. There were flowerpots full of withered plants, bushes turning red in the chill, small trees heavy with winter berries. It was probably picturesque in summer.

Icarus knocked and waited until Luca’s freckled face appeared.

“Hey, man, come in!” He threw an arm over Icarus’s shoulder and Icarus leaned into it, easily.

Luca pulled him upstairs into his bedroom, which was a bit messy. Clothes on the floor, sports paraphernalia on the walls, backpack slung across the bed, comics spilling out from a box under his desk.

It smelled richly of Luca. In the same way Helios’s bed smelled of Helios. Was everyone’s room like this? Icarus didn’t know.

“What do you have for me to try on?” Luca asked, sitting down on his bed.