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"No! I mean, yes!" Alex yelled back. "Go away! Uh… please?"
There was a strange thumping sound coming from Alex's room, almost like… like someonehoppingor suchlike.
"Okay," Jakob said to the door. "I'll, uh — I'll be fixin’ dinner, alright? Got something to ask you, when you have a minute."
He beat a hasty retreat for the nominal safety of the kitchen; the thud of his cane alternating with his footsteps on the wooden boards running down the length of the hall.
Peering up at the clock, Jakob decided it was close enough on towards dinnertime that it wouldn't hurt to get a head start on prep.
By the time Alex made his appearance, slouching through the kitchen's doorway, Jakob already had the onions and peppers diced and sizzling in the pan.
He glanced over at the teen as Alex dropped into a chair at the little kitchen table; taking in his hunched shoulders and the scowl Alex seemed to habitually wear, like it was some sort of armor.
"Hey, uh — " Jakob started, clearing his throat uncomfortably. An awkward feeling was fluttering around inside his windpipe; he tried to focus on adding the ground beef to the pan to cover his reaction. "We don't know each other all that well, but… I’ve got to be sure you're being safe while you're under my roof. Do we need to have, um — the drug talk or… or anything?"
"No," Alex replied as he reared back in his seat, obviously aghast at the thought. "We donot.I…no."
"Okay, good," Jakob exhaled, relief flooding through him. "It's just — You heard that lawyer on the call this morning. We gotta keep our noses clean while they look into your case; get all this documentation stuff sorted out."
"I wasn't doing drugs!" Alex huffed.
"Oh.Oh," Jakob realized, feeling his eyes going wide. Quickly, he tried to backtrack with a rather clumsy, "Umm, if you — "
"I wasn't doingthateither!" Alex said in a rush, his own eyes suddenly large as he sat bolt upright in the chair.
"I mean, it's… it's fine if you were," Jakob told him. He was trying for reassuring, but suspected he probably sounded just as uncomfortable as Alex now looked.
Fuck, it's not as if he didn't already have one teenager. You would think that would give him an advantage here in knowing what to do. Make this sort of — of boundaries thing easier, wouldn't you?
He glanced at the pan.Dammit, he'd nearly put in too much paprika.
"That's your room, and — and I want you to feel comfortable here," he stammered. Hastily, he tried to remember how all the parenting sites said this talk should go, back when he'd last had to do this about a million and four years ago.Open and honest and supportive, right. But the actual words?Oof. Crickets.Well, here goes nothing."So if — "
"Nooooo.OhGod, nonono. This isn't happening," Alex whined from behind his fingers; his hands covering his face. "I was… I was just — Look, I was only… trying on some of the clothes. From the swap. Yesterday."
Abruptly, Jakob remembered the skirt Alex tried to hide under a gray hoodie and it felt like something suddenlyclicked; the knot he had sensed forming between his temples melting away.
Oh, thank God.
This, while obviously a prickly subject given the keyed-up way Alex was sitting, was still far easier ground for Jakob to cover. Familiar territory, as it were.
"So how did you like them?" Jakob asked as he washed up a container of grape tomatoes he had bought earlier that week from Mrs. Brown's vegetable stand over by the fairgrounds. He tried to keep his tone as neutral as he could manage; light and casual. Like they were simply talking about everyday things, andnotsomething he could tell from Alex's posture the kid was obviously feeling anxious about enough already. "Any of the clothes… fit you?"
"They're… alright, I guess," Alex said, slumping over the table and tracing the wood grain with the tip of his index finger. "Some of them, I mean. I don't… I don't know if some of the others are… mystyle."
Jakob hummed noncommittally as he rummaged around in the cupboards.
"I remember those days," he finally admitted, staring sightlessly at the tin of cumin he'd been looking for. "Can feel like there's almost too many options, all of a sudden. And there's you, excited to try something new, sure. But also under all this — thispressure.Like you're behind, somehow expected to have it all already figured out. Maybe a bit of a worry there too — like, 'what else is this gonna change', right? All the while, feeling as if you've no idea how you're supposed to even start. Any of that ringing a bell?"
"Yeah," Alex sighed as he slumped back in his chair, the word so quiet it was nearly a whisper.
The silence stretched in the little kitchen there for a while. Jakob struggled to keep his eyes focused on the task in front of him. He knew he needed to give Alex plenty of space to think it all through. Still, it was hard not to glance over at him to see if he was still there, or pry, or meddle any more than Jakob already had…
"What're you making?"
"Tacos," Jakob replied easily enough.
"Can I help?"
