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“This is just so hard. Why do we have to pay the price for the crazy crap of some spaz-natch terrorist?”
Franz exhaled hard, aiming for a Jon Val Jean vibe—gruff but gentle. “That, my girl, is the ten-million-dollar question.”
Mia raised her head. Wet tracks etched her cheeks. “Are you going to talk to him?”
At that, he did smile—mostly for lack of anything more confident. He wasn’t on an inch of familiar ground right now. What was the etiquette of calming down two hormonal teenagers at once? Things were a hell of a lot easier when soldiers pulled this shit. They got told to suck it up and shut up, end of story. At least he had an excuse for checking in on Luke without setting off Mia again.
“Yeah.” He palmed the top of her head again. “You okay with that?”
Well, hell. That almost came…easily. Maybe he was getting better at this communication shit.
“Totally,” Mia replied. “I’m glad you are, actually.”
He hitched a wider smile. “Cool.”
“Hey.” She rose, awkwardly twisting the fingers peeking out from beneath a baggy sweatshirt emblazoned with a barfing unicorn. “When you—can you—tell him I’m sorry for the nickname thing?”
Franz gave her the benefit of his quiet assessment for a long moment. In a matching tone, he responded, “I think it’ll mean more coming from you.”
Her pout returned. Not so much snark this time. “You’re probably right.”
“Tell you what? I’ll let him know you want to play him a few matches next. Sneak it in between sets. It’ll go a lot easier.”
Her watery grin melted half the damn anvil. Franz smiled back, imagining he looked a lot like Pops after he or Lino had finally understood some important life lesson.
Okay…this communication shit was kind of cool.
He just hoped he still thought that after the showdown with Luke.
He found the kid slumped against the island in the middle of the kitchen, picking at the end of a banana and sulking like Pompei had just fallen. Or his new video game was on delayed release. Same thing in the world of a fifteen-year-old.
Franz leaned elbows to the opposite side of the island. Waited another measured moment before murmuring, “Hey.”
Luke glanced back up—the kid’s eyes were so much like Tracy’s, it was a bit freaky—before turning back to his banana picking. “Hey.”
“You all right, man?”
A one-shouldered hitch. Gawky but defiant. “Sure. I will be, I guess.”
“You guess?” He underlined it with a direct stare, not that the brat was paying attention. Again, so much like his mother. Defenses went up and not even the fiercest infantry was breaching the barricades.
“Yeah, I guess.” Luke tossed his head, a mutinous pony fighting his harness. “I mean, I’m not allowed to be anything else, right? That’s what everyone expects, so—”
“I’m not everyone.”
“You might as well be.”
John pushed up. “Oh, fuck that shit.”
Luke’s eyes blew up to the size of quarters—then silver dollars—as Franz planted hands to his waist. He was dressed in his usual now, a black form-fitted T-shirt and black cargo pants, which probably played to his favor in the shock-and-awe department—as well as the special plans he’d made for Tracy tonight.
Stow it, asshole.Not the time for a fresh hard-on.
“Don’t pretend your virgin ears are scalded, mister,” he growled into the boy’s stunned silence. “You’ve heard worse on line—just like you know, in your gut, how awesome your life is compared to a lot of kids your age.”
“Okay, okay.” The defensive tone was mitigated by sullen shoulder hunches. “I know, I know.” Another swift gray glance, accompanied by some twitchy teenager kicks at the floor. “Seriously, dude. I get it.”
“And I believe you.” Franz lowered his arms. Went on, while sidling around the island until they were diagonal from each other, “So don’t go after yourself with a cat-o-nine about it either.” He clapped the kid on the shoulder. “It’s been an unusual week for everyone. Nobody’s expecting you to handle it all with a rosy smile and a Bob Fosse show-stopper.”
