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Please, guys; this is all I have now. Dad would have wanted us to get back together! For old time’s sake! Mmmbop, ba duba dop—
Shut up, Tito!
“And I’m not crazy,” I add.
“Who is Tiffani and why is she a whore?” Dominic asks me quietly, his eyes almost amused.
“Dominic, don’t get him started!” the Kid begs. “You don’t know what you’ll unleash!”
So I explain my entire logic line to Dominic and the Kid, who by the very end has his face pressed hard in his hands, like he’s trying to smother himself to get away from me, and Dominic nods with each of the points I make. His dark eyes do a little dance when I say the names of the Kid’s kids. For a moment, I think he’s just humoring me (but who cares if he is?
He’s, like, only fourteen, and I can do grown up stuff when and if I want to without having to ask anyone permission. Okay, I usually ask Otter first, but that is so not the point. Crap. I usually ask the Kid too. Fine. That was a bad example. Whatever). But when I finish, Dominic is not running in the opposite direction, screaming as he flails his arms over his head. He’s not even looking slightly petrified as people normally do when I open my mouth and words fall out. No, he’s watching me like he’s taking me seriously, and before I can call him on it, he turns to the Kid and says gruffly, “Makes sense to me. Tiffani is obviously a whore.”
The Kid’s jaw drops as he glances between the two of us, starting to sputter in such a way that only he can do, so filled with righteous indignation that you would have thought we had lambasted every core ideal he’s ever fought for. Maybe there’s something to this Dominic besides an uneasy façade.
Before I can tell the Kid to calm down, before I can so much as form a thought to put his mind at ease, Dominic reaches out a hand and drops it on the Kid’s shoulder, and wonder of all wonders, the Kid silences almost immediately. I’m sure this has to be a momentary thing, that the Kid will start up again, his protestations louder, his eyes wider, and his stance almost combative, but it doesn’t happen. The Kid stops talking, takes a deep breath, rolls his eyes, and shakes his head.
And that’s it.
Who the fuck is this kid?
Apparently, he’s God, the voice says, slightly amused. Because only God himself could have shut the Kid up that quickly. And that easily. Lord knows you’ve never been able to do that.
It’s right. Holy shit, maybe he is God.
“Do you want to come in and have some Kashi?” I hear myself ask. “If that sounds gross, it’s probably because it is. I have Lucky Charms, instead.”
“Papa Bear never had a childhood,” the Kid explains darkly. “So he’s trying to have one now. It only gets worse from here. Trust me. Pretty soon, he’ll have you watching SpongeBob and your brains will be leaking out your ears.”
“You used to love SpongeBob,” I remind him. “You even had that SpongeBob blanket when you stayed—”
“Bear,” the Kid groans, drawing my name out for six or seven syllables.
I’m further amazed when I realize he’s blushing. “Do you have to tell him everything? We’ve talked about this. Better seen, not heard. You know this.”
I grin evilly at the Kid and he looks fearful. “I’ve even got some pictures of the Kid as a baby,” I tell Dominic conspiratorially. “There’s one of him playing in the bathtub when he’s like four, where he made a beard out of soap on his face and he used to call himself Major Awesome of the Awesome Brigade.”
The Kid starts after me, and I take off running back toward the house, laughing at him over my shoulder, a look of pure murder on his face as he shrieks after me, his voice high-pitched and hilarious. We reach the door and I throw it open, sidestepping the Kid neatly. He runs past me before he can stop himself, his shoes sliding on the tile in the entryway, and I pull the door shut in his face, holding the handle as he yells at me through the door, trying to jerk it back open.
Kids. Mother Nature’s hilarious miracles.
“You coming?” I call out to Dominic, who’s still standing where we left him, that quiet smile still on his face. At hearing my words, the smile fades slowly, and he looks over his shoulder, glancing down the street as if undecided. “Look,” I tell him. “I don’t want you to do anything that’ll get you in trouble. Do you need me to call your parents or something? Clear it with them? I should probably meet them at some point if you’re going to be around here. Gotta make sure they’re okay with it, you know?”
He turns back to me quickly, schooling the troubled look on his face a little too late for me to miss it. Dominic smiles quietly at me again and walks toward me, waiting to speak until he’s standing next to me, looking at the door that’s still shaking against the Kid’s wrath. “They won’t mind,” he tells me, averting his eyes. “I can tell them later.”
So he’s big. And quiet.
And a liar.
Great.
THE Kid calls a truce momentarily as he watches with an almost religious euphoria as Dominic takes his first bite of Kashi and pronounces it palatable. The Kid immediately runs to the fridge and pulls out every bit of his diet we have in the house, sure that his new friend ( best friend, I hear him whisper in my head) will want to try tofu at nine in the morning.
Dominic just watches him, sampling everything the Kid puts in front of him, quietly telling him it tastes good. He even looks like he means it.
I’m about to tell him where I hide the Lucky Charms when my cell phone rings, playing a polyphonic rendition of “Achy Breaky Heart.”
Fucking Otter, I think as I grin and reach for the phone. I leave the boys at the table and look down at the display. Speak of the devil.
