34. Lilah
34
LILAH
I couldn’t remember the last time Rafe had cooked a meal. Was it because he was trying to be nice to Matt? Make him feel welcome?
I didn’t want to read too much into it. Jude and Nolan had promised it was okay if Matt stayed at the house and Rafe hadn’t objected, which was an improvement from when I’d landed on their doorstep I guess.
We ate outside on the deck, the sun sinking in the west. It was almost June and the days were getting longer and warmer. The mountains were in bloom around us, trees budding and birds singing. The grass around the house had turned green, edged and mowed every week by a guy who wore Hawaiian shirts and towed a riding mower behind a giant truck.
The crickets were just starting to chirp for the night, fireflies rising from the long grass at the edge of the clearing. Every now and then a bat swooped down to eat a mosquito, then disappeared into the twilight sky.
I tried to make conversation by asking Matt about school and encouraging the guys to talk about the adventure stuff that I thought might appeal to Matt.
Not that Matt had ever been on an adventure, but I thought he might like to have one someday, and he did seem interested in Rafe’s stories about jumping out of planes in the military and the time Jude had hit his head on a rock while kayaking and was carried downriver half a mile before Nolan and Rafe found him.
I’d spent the whole day with Matt, coaxing conversation out of him while we wandered the aisles at Walmart looking for jeans, T-shirts, underwear, and socks. Luckily for my bank account, all the guest bedrooms in the Bastards’ house were stocked with toiletries even though I’d never seen any evidence that they ever had guests.
Now Matt seemed to warm up, asking questions and even laughing a little now and then. I wondered if it was weird for him, being in the company of three big men after growing up with just me and my mom. My worry about Matt had always been about my mom’s religious fanaticism, but now I wondered if he’d been lonely for male company too.
By the time Jude broke out the ice cream, Matt seemed almost comfortable. We stood around the island while Jude dished from cartons of Chunky Monkey and Tonight Dough.
“You could come with us if you want,” he said, handing Matt a bowl with a scoop of each.
Matt picked up a spoon. “With you where?”
“Kayaking,” Jude said. “We were going to put the boats in the water tomorrow.”
“I have school.” Matt sounded almost disappointed.
“We can go after,” Jude said. “If it’s okay with Lilah, I mean. Don’t you get out of school around two?”
“Two-fifteen,” Matt said.
Nolan looked at me. “You work until five tomorrow right?”
I nodded.
“We could pick Matt up for you,” Jude suggested. “Get him out on the water for a bit before dinner.”
I didn’t know why the thought made me nervous. Was this what it was like being a parent? Was this how my mom had felt all those times she was insanely protective?
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the Bastards. In fact, they might just be the only people I did trust (weird, I know), but what if something happened? What if Matt fell out of the boat and hit his head like Jude that time?
They were looking at me expectantly, even Rafe.
Except it wasn’t my call. For once, Matt could make his own decision.
“Do you want to go?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Sounds fun.”
He was trying to play it cool, but I could tell he did want to go, the first time he’d shown any real enthusiasm for anything since I’d picked him up outside the deli the night before.
“It’s your call.” I looked at Nolan and Jude, then Rafe. “You sure you don’t mind?”
I was surprised when Rafe was the one who answered. “No biggie.”
I forced myself not to make a big deal of it and tried for a blank expression, but in the end it didn’t matter.
He turned away without another word.