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IT’S two days before I have my first class and three days before the Kid makes the move to the fifth grade with the awesome David Trent. Otter’s at the studio for the morning, getting reacquainted with the daily grind after having had a four-month vacation. He’d climbed over me when the alarm had gone off, nuzzling against my ear before heading off for the shower. I’d have joined him, but it was way too early, especially since he’d decided to hit the gym before going into work. I did my own workout by pulling the covers back over my head and sinking back down into the warmth. By the time I wake up again, he’s gone, but there’s a cooling cup of coffee on the nightstand next to me with a note that says some stuff I won’t bother repeating. Let’s just say Otter obviously thought he was writing into Penthouse forums when he’d authored that lovely piece of smut. And apparently he has more faith than I do with just how far I can bend my body.
I don’t need the coffee after that, to be sure.
I hear the familiar sounds of CNN from the living room as I stretch and walk down the hallway, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, wondering just how much more I should unpack today. There’s still a shitload of boxes, and they’ve been sitting there for a while, and I know if I don’t get started now, they are still going to be there sixty years from now. I’m lazy. Sue me.
“Morning, Kid,” I say, yawning as I enter the living room. It’s empty.
The kitchen is too. There’s no note on the table, and I’d be lying if I say my heart doesn’t stutter in my chest. It’s unrealistic, I know, to expect whatever is going through my head right now to happen, but the last time I’d lost track of the Kid, it had been a waking nightmare, one that I’m not ready to relive so quickly. It’s not that I’ve gotten complacent, but more that I’ve finally started to believe in a future that had never seemed possible.
Calm down, I tell myself. He’s around here somewhere. No need to panic over nothing.
“Kid?” I say louder, waiting a moment to see if I get a response. None comes. “Ty?”
I’d also be lying to myself if I said I don’t believe the world is a scary place anymore.
I’m about to walk calmly (read: run) to his bedroom when I hear his high-pitched laughter coming in through the open window in the kitchen. I look out and see him talking to someone just out of sight. He’s talking animatedly, his hands rising in the air like he’s giving another sermon on the state of the economy (don’t ask). Something about this rubs me the wrong way, not knowing who he’s talking to. If it’s one of his friends, fine, although I don’t know how many live around here. If it’s a neighbor, cool, even if I hadn’t met any myself. If it’s some guy from the Internet named BigTony225 who promised him gifts of edamame and a trip in a windowless van, then we’re going to have a big fucking problem.
I throw open the front door just in time to hear him say, “Dominic, my brother’s not going to care if you come in. He’s not that scary. The scary one already left this morning. Besides, you’ve got to try the Kashi cereal I have. And then I can introduce you to the wonders of CNN in the morning.
It’s better then because they haven’t quite hit the stupid fluff pieces they do later on. Those make me want to shoot myself in the foot. Who cares about the top ten ways to land a man? There’s a war going on, people! Priorities!”
Dominic. I remember that name. Ty had included Dominic in his thank-God prayer over at the Thompson house. I wonder again if Ty has an imaginary friend, until I hear a gruff reply, a voice much deeper than I would expect from one of the Kid’s friends, those that he has. He has a couple of buddies that he hangs out with every now and then, but that seems to have tapered off a bit. I had asked him about it, only to have him shrug and tell me that sometimes they just weren’t on his same wavelength. I had reassured him that no one was on his wavelength.
“Well, yeah,” the Kid says, sounding slightly exasperated. “But they’re not home so what are they going to do? You don’t have to tell them.”
And since the Kid now sounds like he’s trying to convince someone to do something they shouldn’t, I make my presence known by closing the door behind me. The Kid doesn’t jump like he’s guilty; instead, he smiles at me and waves and then says something else and reaches out and grabs onto an arm and pulls as he walks toward me.
The person following him is someone I haven’t seen before. He’s big, bigger than a kid his age probably should be, which I’d estimate to be fourteen or fifteen. He towers over Tyson, his dark eyes watching me warily under bushy eyebrows, but still allowing himself to be pulled toward me, like he’s resigned to whatever is about to happen. His dark hair is shaggy around his face, spilling onto his neck, above the neckline of a stretched and worn shirt. His jeans have the knees blown out and his right shoe is untied, the laces frazzled and dirty as they drag behind his shuffling feet. Who the hell is this and why is Tyson grinning like that?
As soon as they reach me, the Kid lets Dominic go and jumps up into my arms, his hands immediately going to my hair as he babbles away about something or another. I hear him, halfheartedly, my eyes drawn to the new guy in front of us, who has stopped a few feet away and is looking down at his feet, kicking at a rock, his arms behind his back like he’s at parade rest.
“… and I think he might be my best friend in the whole wide world so you have to be nice to him,” I hear the Kid say as I tune back in. “He’s awesome, but really quiet, and I try to get him to talk more, and he’s starting to, but I think he’s really shy, and mostly he just sits there and listens to me, so that makes him my favorite kind of person, and I think you should let him come in and have breakfast with us, but you can’t be mean and do that whole ‘I’m Bear. I’m an adult, so you have to do whatever I say’ thing that you always do because sometimes, Papa Bear? Honestly? You gotta just let me be me.”
I can’t help it as I chuckle quietly. “Take a breath, Kid,” I tell him as I set him down. He looks up at me and grins as he holds onto my hand. “And I always let you be you,” I remind him as he jerks my arm toward the other boy, who is now looking nervous, chewing on his bottom lip as we approach. “Anyone else would have put you up for adoption by now.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Too soon, Bear. I’m still emotionally scarred and that was in poor taste. It probably just set me back at least another couple of years. Hey, at least it’s more fodder for my therapist.”
“Uh-huh. Keep the act up, Kid. I’ll take you down to open-mic night if you think you’re that good.”
He scowls at me, if only for a moment, before a wide grin splits his face almost in half as he looks back at his friend. “Dominic, I’d like you to meet my big brother. Don’t let what you just heard fool you; he can actually be almost funny. Sometimes. Bear, this is Dominic. He lives a couple of houses down.”
The other kid in front me glances up at me quickly and sees me watching him expectantly and drops his gaze back toward the ground, mumbling something under his breath.
“Sorry?” I say gently. “Didn’t quite get that.”
The Kid sighs. “He said it’s nice to meet you, and he likes the Green Monstrosity because it’s the color of sea foam, and that’s one of his favorite things to look at because it’s always shifting.”
I know he actually didn’t say all of that, not unless I got trapped in a time vortex and lost six seconds while standing in my front yard (weirder things have happened), but I can’t help catch the quick look he shoots the Kid, the small smile that quirks one side of his mouth, how one eyebrow arches quietly before his forehead smooths out again and he looks back down at his shoes.
Huh. Odd.
I hold out my hand, and it sits there for a moment before the Kid whispers something to Dominic, who sighs and reaches up and grabs my hand, pumping it up and down just once, his grip warm and calloused, his huge hand engulfing my own. He lets go and hazards another glance at the Kid, who nods at him and laughs like it was the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
“So, Dominic,” I say as the Kid quiets. “Haven’t had a chance to meet any neighbors yet. Have you lived here long?”
He mumbles something I can’t make out.
The Kid starts to translate, but I shake my head. “Couldn’t catch that, Dominic. You’ll have to speak up. I’m an old guy, hard of hearing, wouldn’t you know.”
