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“Then maybe you should consider using what my daughter, who is in preschool, knows is called an ‘inside voice.’”
“Ok,” John-Henry said, words muffled by the door. “Come on.”
“They might be plotting—”
But his voice faded, presumably because John-Henry was shepherding him away.
“Are you hurt?” Jem asked. Then he remembered the shadow that might have been a bruise. “Your arm.” He slid onto his knees, taking Tean’s arm in both hands, and he turned it. The mark was above the elbow, still red, starting to darken. “Oh Jesus.”
“Jem, it’s fine.”
“Does it hurt? Do you need ice?”
“It’s nothing; it doesn’t hurt.” Jem opened his mouth, but Tean said, “Jem.”
It cost Jem a lot to swallow, to surrender everything he wanted to say. The sting in his eyes was worse.
“Stop it,” Tean said, fingers brushing at Jem’s hairline. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is. It’s exactly my fault.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m trying to say that you took a risk. And I know you’re smart. And I know you’re competent. You’re so good at everything you do—”
“I’m not very good atJanefuckingEyre.”
“Maybe you don’t have to work your way through the entire AP Lit suggested reading list,“ Tean said, and for some reason, that brought a huge smile to his face as he continued to brush back Jem’s hair. “My point is that I got angry because I was scared. And I don’t like you lying and stealing—”
Jem rolled his eyes.
“I don’t!”
“Yes, sir.”
Tean fought a losing battle against another smile, and it was obvious when he spoke that he was trying to make his voice firm. “I don’t. It’s unethical, and it’s immoral, and the cornerstone of civilization is—”
Jem gathered Tean’s hands and kissed his fingertips. “I’ll be good. I’ll try so hard to be good.”
For another moment, Tean smiled at him. Then the light in his face winked out, and he said, “Do you know what I thought, when—when that came out, when John-Henry wouldn’t stop asking you, and you—” He stopped. Apparently, Jem’s behavior had been awful enough that he couldn’t even bring himself to describe it.
So, Jem nodded. To spare them both.
“What if something had happened? To you, I mean.”
“You’d be fine,” Jem said, but his voice was husky. “That twink at the afterschool program practically dropped his panties for you last week.”
Tean wrestled a hand free and cuffed Jem—not hard, but not totally a joke either. “I don’t like that kind of thing.”
“Ok!”
“I don’t like you joking around about that stuff!”
“I give up! I yield! Where’s the white flag?”
Tean glared at him for another moment. Then his face softened. “I would die—”
“No dying.”
“—like that farmer under his tractor—”
