Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“I appreciate what you did for me last night. Riding to the rescue of a complete stranger. That was kind.” Steven set a mug on the coffee table in front of Myles, then sank into the couch across from him, tucking a foot under him and wrapping both hands around his own gigantic mug.
Just around one of the stacks, they could hear Jet reading to Shelly in a quiet voice, changing cadence and tone with each character. Occasionally, Shelly would ask for a crayon she couldn’t reach, or for Jet to repeat a section.
“He’s very good with her,” Steven observed.
“He is.” Myles refrained from adding when he feels like it, because to be fair, Jet hadn’t once shrugged his sister off since they’d arrived.
“One of the moms who comes in regularly for a book club told me the Y has a half day, two days a week art thing for kids her age. Apparently it’s how she gets anything done during the summer.”
“We can manage.”
“But you don’t have to, I think is the point,” Steven said. “Looking after a kid twenty-four seven is hard. I know. Steph and I had each other. I can’t imagine doing it alone.”
“She needs me.”
Steven set his mug down on the table as he leaned forward. “You need you too, though. If losing our parents like we did taught Steph and me anything, it’s that sometimes, you have to take a break for your own sanity.”
“Their mom’s only been gone a few months.”
“No dad?”
Myles shrugged. “All the legal stuff says they signed away parental rights and all contact except for dire medical emergencies.”
“So, if they need a kidney, you’re golden, but day-to-day dad stuff, you’re on your own.”
“So was Nat. She preferred it that way. I honestly don’t know much about either of the men.
Knew Jet’s dad when we were younger, but wasn’t a fan.
I was pretty much out of the picture when he and Nat got together, but it didn’t last long.
When she took in my sorry ass, Shelly’s dad had been and gone already too, and I didn’t feel like I had a right to pry.
Then it was too late to find out. The lawyer sent them both notice that she’d died and appointed me guardian. Neither of them responded.”
Steven sighed and settled back. “Drink your coffee. Relax. For right now, they’re fine.”
Myles smiled thinly and sipped his drink.
The shop fell quiet except for Jet’s voice as he read. Myles took a moment to really look around. The wooden shelves filled with books held a strange kind of comfort, homey and relaxed. Maybe the odd choices of bookends on a lot of the shelves helped with that relaxed atmosphere.
A stuffed fish held up a row of books on fishing with its tail, while an old-fashioned iron propped up books on sewing. He could appreciate the attention to detail and the time it took to find just the right themed items to serve the purpose.
Some things he didn’t get, like a glass jar of small metallic and coloured items—washers, nuts, buttons and paperclips—at the end of the shelf filled with books about birds.
Maybe Steven hadn’t found just the right item to replace it with and had filled the jar with things to make it heavy enough to do its job and still be visually interesting.
“I have an idea.” Getting up, Steven took his mug in one hand and scooped up MJ, who had settled into his comfy chair with him, in the other. “Come on. You’re going to take this mutt for a walk.”
“I shouldn’t just leave them.”
“Jet is perfectly capable of looking after his little sister for fifteen minutes, and I’ll be here. It’s the least I can do to repay you for coming to my rescue last night.”
“I should ask him.” Myles got up and turned to find Jet leaning on the end of the stack.
“Go,” Jet muttered. “We’ll be fine.”
“Do you want to come?”
“Just go.” He conceded with all the eye roll and slouch he’d likely been storing up since the night before.
“You’re sure?”
“You want to make it up to me, you can buy me an LP of my choice.” His gaze wandered to the bins of records standing near the back of the room.
“Within reason,” Myles warned.
Jet held up both fingerless-gloved hands and nodded, red bangs flopping into his eyes. “Fine. But be back in time for our cooking lesson with Kreed.”
“He’s really doing that?”
“He’s really doing that. It’s for all our good. Trust me. This is something you need to know if we’re going to survive. I’m tired of grilled cheeses and cans of tomato soup.”
“I love grilled Jesus!” Shelly piped from somewhere behind him, making Steven snort.
“I know you do, Shells.” He grimaced at Steven. “This place is like an echo chamber.”
“What’s an echo chamber?” Shelly asked. “Like you can grow new books out of these old ones?”
Jet sighed. “E-cho, not ee-cho,” he said, turning away from Myles towards his sister. “How’s that picture coming along?”
“How do you draw white hair?” she asked, and Myles let them be, and brought his attention back to Steven.
“She is a smart cookie.” Steven had attached MJ’s lead to his collar and he held it out to Myles now. “Take your time. They’re fine.”
Myles nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
Once outside, Myles had to admit to himself that the fresh air, along with the knowledge the kids were fine without him for a few minutes, allowed some of the tension to ease from his muscles.
His bad hip stopped clenching, and he could use the cane for balance rather than support.
He even managed to enjoy the quiet calm of small-town energy.
There was nothing like Griffon’s Elbow’s main street in Calgary.
Not that Myles had ever seen, anyway. Here, most of the century-old houses had been converted to businesses, at least on the ground floor, and most of those buildings along the street that weren’t houses were still old, though well cared for.
The town had what seemed to him more than its share of second-hand shops with clever names like Finder’s Keepers and New To You.
Each shop had a bit of everything, while specializing in one thing unique to it that the others didn’t carry so much of.
New to You had a lot of clothes, from what he could see from the street, and Finder’s Keepers leaned more towards dishes.
Another shop boasted some decent furniture, while yet another had an impressive assortment of art and picture frames.
Of course MJ found the pet food store almost immediately.
Housed in a limestone building reminiscent of miniature Parliament buildings, complete with a steep copper roof turned green by exposure, the shop had everything a pet owner could need.
It also had about a million and one things imperative to his dog’s existence, if MJ’s yapping and tugging at the leash was anything to go by.
“Let’s go in here,” Myles suggested, like it was entirely his idea. The door practically opened itself to let MJ prance inside, head up, ears forwards.
They exited with Myles’s pockets filled with treats, a new studded collar and a pleather coat Myles felt sure Jet would approve of, and a neon pink stuffed butterfly MJ carried proudly between his tiny stubborn jaws.
Jet would probably not appreciate the butterfly with the bad-ass new outerwear, but Myles liked the contrast.
Back at the bookshop, Jet stood leafing through the albums while Shelly sat on Steven’s lap explaining her picture to him. Myles tried not to cringe as she described a scene in what appeared to be a tangle of coloured lines on the page.
Steven didn’t seem perturbed by the weirdness of it, so Myles said nothing.
At the sound of the bell, Jet turned to glance at them but stopped to stare at MJ.
“What is he wearing?”
“Biker jacket,” Myles said.
“He’s a dog. Does he need clothes?”
“He needed this.” Myles picked him up, butterfly and all, to show off his new threads.
“He looks—is that a studded collar?”
“It is.”
“How punk are you?” he asked the dog, scratching behind his ears.
MJ wiggled and licked at Jet’s fingers, dropping the butterfly in his enthusiasm, then squirming to get down to it.
“I’m going to draw him!” Shelly declared, and climbed off Steven’s lap, headed for her corner where her crayons and papers were spread over the hardwood.
“Shells, we have to go,” Jet said, handing Myles his chosen record and going after her. “Uncle Myles and I have a cooking lesson at the B and B.”
“I wanna stay!” She stomped a foot and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Shelly, honey, we have to go,” Myles said. “We made a plan with Kreed, and he’s all set up to help us. It would be rude if we don’t show up.”
“Don’t care.” She stomped her foot again, face scrunching in the beginnings of a mutinous pout. “I’m not cooking.”
“Not the point, sweetheart,” Myles said.
“Come on, kiddo. Let’s get your crayons picked up to start with,” Jet suggested, taking her shoulder and gently turning her.
Steven touched Myles’s arm, getting his attention and nodding his head towards the front of the store. Myles followed him away from where Jet was having some slight success in getting her to tidy her supplies.
“I don’t want to say anything in front of her so I don’t undermine anything, but she’s welcome to stay if you want. She’ll be out from underfoot in the kitchen, and she’s no trouble here.”
“Until she is,” Myles warned. “She can be a handful when she gets something into her head.”
Steven quirked a delicately lopsided smile that made Myles want to touch the corner of it and brush his hair out of the way to see if it reached his eyes. “I’m familiar with tantrums. I can handle it, and I know where you are if needed.”
“I can’t ask you to babysit just so I can indulge Jet. He’s a grown kid. He’ll understand.”
“You didn’t ask,” Steven pointed out, “and some one-on-one with Jet is maybe exactly what you both need. You can couch it that way to Shelly. She should know she has to share you with her brother. If you let her become the centre of everything, you’re the one who will end up trapped.
Nip it now. Before she gets a taste for control. ”
Myles considered his advice. He had experience Myles didn’t have. When he glanced over to see Jet chewing on his lower lip as he cajoled Shelly to do what was being asked of her, he saw the frustration simmering in his eyes, in the one tight fist he held rigid at his side where she couldn’t see it.
The fact she was petulantly dropping the crayons into their tub told him she wasn’t all that interested in colouring anymore. She was insisting on staying because it was contrary to what they had told her to do.
“Hey,” he called over to them. “New plan.”
They both looked at him, Shelly with a glimmer of triumph, Jet glowering.
“Shelly, Jet asked me to go do something with him, and that’s what he and I are going to do.”
Jet’s glower receded the barest amount.
Shelly jumped to her feet, all smiles and eagerness. “I can come too.” It wasn’t a question, but a declaration, as though she knew he would agree.
When had she figured out his buttons and learned how to push them without his noticing? If Steven hadn’t just pointed it out to him, he would have allowed her to railroad him that easily.
“No.” Myles handed the dog to Steven and went over to pick her up. “You’re staying here with Mr. Steven. He’s going to take care of you, and you are going to do as he says like a good girl, until Jet or I come to collect you. Understood?”
She crossed her arms, leaning back precariously in his arms. “I can come,” she insisted.
“No, you can’t. This is Jet and me time. I’ll have something fun to do with you another time, but Jet has done a lot of stuff with you already, and it’s his turn for some Jet time.”
“But I—”
“It isn’t always Shelly time,” Myles said. “I’m not going to stand here arguing.” He hugged her tight and kissed her hair, then set her on her feet. “If you’re good, and Mr. Steven will tell me if you are or not, we’ll make you something yummy for supper.”
“You don’t make yummy food,” she protested. She wasn’t wrong.
“That’s why I have to go learn. Jet too.” He led her over to Steven, who held out a hand to her.
“Come on,” Steven said. “You, MJ and I are going to have a nice, quiet afternoon. You can help me look through some dusty old boxes of kids’ books.”
“What’s MJ going to do?”
“Probably chew on his new butterfly and look bad-ass in his new coat.”
“Can we give him a mohawk? Wait, we don’t have food for him. Hey. The kids’ books, are they any good?”
“You sure about this?” Myles asked.
“Yes. Go while she’s distracted.”
Jet was already at the shop’s front door, so Myles thanked Steven and hurried after him.
On the street, Jet stuffed his hands into his pockets and kicked a stone. “We didn’t have to leave her there.”
“It will be easier to cook this way.”
“You won’t have an excuse when you fuck it up.”
“Language. Maybe I won’t fuck it up.”
“Did we bring the swear jar?” He scowled. “Never mind. Of course we didn’t.” Then he stopped, halfway across the road, and pointed to the album in Myles’s hand. “Did you pay for that?”
“Well, shit.”
“Eh.” Jet resumed walking. “He knows where we live. If we’re lucky, he might even hold Shells hostage until you do.” He grinned. “Maybe wait until tomorrow.”
“She’s not that bad.”
But Jet had stopped again on the far side of the road, near the walk up to the Oaks’ front door. “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“You and me time?”
“Sure.”
“Or was it just a ploy to get her to do what you wanted?”
“I meant it. You’ve been spending a lot of time with her. You’re obviously doing something right, because she hasn’t pulled any tantrums since we arrived, but you deserve a break, too.”
“She told me last night how mad she is at Mom for being gone so long, and then this morning she asked if you were going to marry a new mommy for her. Some days she gets it, and some, not so much.”
“She’s six. Some days I don’t get it, so I can’t blame her.”
“I miss her, Uncle Myles.”
“Me too.”
“About the new mommy thing—”
“Not gonna happen.”
Jet chuckled. “I’m not, you know.”
“Not what?”
“Gay.”
Myles blinked at him. “You know, I think you’re the first person to come out as straight to me.”
Jet snorted. “Just so you know.”
“Good to know, I guess.”
“Not that it matters here.”
“You think small towns don’t have girls?”
“How would that work when we go home?”
He had a point. One Myles didn’t want to look too hard at, just in case Steven’s face popped up in the question.