Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He spent the next few days diligently not thinking about what it meant that he wanted to spend every minute with Steven. The end of the summer loomed in a way that made him feel too desperate. Too on-edge.
Thankfully, Jet spent most of his waking moments either with Wyatt in the backyard, or at the Cabin helping with the finishing touches Ozzy was putting on the place to ready it for more residents.
It was a good distraction for him and gave him some much-needed time away from his little sister in the company of someone his own age.
For her part, Shelly had enamoured herself of every other Oaks resident and a few neighbours, so she had no end of people willing to entertain her when she was home from her YMCA classes. It left Myles with time on his hands. Time to spend with Steven, and he took it.
That only left his nights, alone in the dark listening to the kids sleep, to fret over his situation.
Or, if he was alone in the room behind the kitchen because he’d overdone it and his hip didn’t want to do three flights of stairs, he got to listen to the house creak like she was judging him and finding his efforts wanting.
He’d stopped asking the house for her opinion. She was wont to remind him where he’d come from, and he couldn’t tell if that was to contrast that dismal past with what he had now, or a warning that if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up back there.
Or maybe he was reading too much into the groaning and settling of an old house.
“But why would I?” he’d asked the ceiling one night. “Why would I end up back there? The others didn’t. They’re fine. I can be fine too.”
He wanted to believe he could be fine, and the kids could be fine, even back in Calgary. That the ties they’d established over the summer would be enough.
The house sighed and creaked unhelpfully around him.
Frustrated, he tossed his blanket off and sat up.
A window at the back of the room, looking out over the backyard, clattered. The curtain covering it billowed into the room, then fell flat again.
“What, Lassie? Should I go look out the window?”
The glass rattled with such force for a second, Myles thought it might shatter.
“Fine. Okay. Don’t wake everyone up.”
He went to the widow to gaze out through the fluttering array of leaves.
The yards shared by the Oaks and the Cabin basked in a combination of moonlight and streetlight glow that left them colourless and eerie.
To his surprise, he saw a familiar figure slumped on a picnic table in the backyard of the Cabin.
“Oz?”
The figure was scrubbing the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other. That gesture, too, was familiar. And worrying.
Tossing on sweats, Myles hurried out of the room and down the back hallway to slip out into the semi-darkness of the backyard.
Ozzy was still sitting on the picnic table when he arrived.
“Hey.” He sat on the tabletop next to his old friend. “What’s this, then?”
Ozzy grunted.
“You need to talk?” Myles could listen. Maybe someone else’s problems would distract him from his own.
“I’m fine.”
“Because sitting alone in the dark when you have a perfectly devoted boyfriend who would fight dragons for you and thinks you walk on water seems fine.”
“He’s perfect,” Ozzy whispered.
“Poor you.”
“Are you going to listen or mock?”
“Sorry. I’ll shut up.”
Ozzy knocked Myles’s leg with his own. “You’re all right.” He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It isn’t him, really. Although some days, I wonder how it is that he’s still here. Still putting up with me.”
Myles literally dug his teeth into his tongue to keep from saying anything, and a bubbling silence formed around them.
“Go ahead, say it,” Ozzy said. “Sort of set myself up for it.”
Myles laughed, and a second later, Ozzy joined him. “He’s still here because he loves you.”
“So did you.”
“Still do.” This time, Myles nudged Ozzy. “Truly. Maybe more, with perspective and distance.”
“From where it’s safe?”
“Literally.” Myles reached over and took the hand Ozzy was diligently scrubbing, lacing their fingers together. “I thought seeing you again was going to push me back into that hole.”
Ozzy squeezed his hand.
“I didn’t let myself think it might be the same for you, seeing me.
I had to believe Lucky when he said you’d be okay.
I had to, because the fact was, I was more afraid of staying there alone than I was even of hurting you.
The kids—” His throat closed so suddenly it hurt, and he couldn’t have forced another word out if his life had depended on it.
“I am fine.”
Myles nodded.
“I’m not sitting out here because of Tris.”
“Me?” Myles croaked out.
“Tangentially.”
Myles waited. He knew Ozzy well enough to know he would speak his mind, given enough space.
“I know that you know that Jet has been talking to me, because he told me he told you.”
“I believe that statement to be true,” he deadpanned.
Ozzy leveled a look at him.
“Yes. I know he’s been talking to you.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Again, Ozzy looked at him, waiting.
Myles extracted his hand from Ozzy’s. “He told me he was talking to you, and I told him if it was helping, he should do it. He’s not a stupid kid.
He knows about my past, knows my father was an alcoholic, so he’s seen it his whole life.
It makes sense he might want to talk to someone not me about probably being scared of me relapsing. ”
“And you’re okay it’s been me he’s talking to?”
“Oz, if there is one thing I know about you, it’s that you take this shit seriously. If you can’t help, you’ll find him someone who can.”
“I need to know you’re okay with me doing that. Yes, he can make his own choices here, but you’re still his guardian for another couple of years.”
“This isn’t about me being his guardian, though, is it? It’s about me being me, and you being you.”
“Us being us. You never liked me making suggestions in this area.”
“Perspective and distance.”
“And if I told you I think you probably need to speak with someone?”
“You’d be right.”
“Don’t put if off, Myles. Please.”
“You’re sitting out here fretting because you’re worried what will happen back in Calgary?” Myles frowned.
“I was fretting over how to talk to you about this. Historically—”
“I punched you for bringing it up.”
“Broke my nose once.”
“Sorry.”
“‘Get a fucking shrink, you drunk shithead’ was maybe not the most productive way to put it.”
Myles snorted. “We’re past all that, right?”
“God, I hope so. I’ve missed you so much.”
“He can—” Myles swallowed hard and grimaced at the lump making his chest hurt. “He can still talk to you, right? When we go back. FaceTime, or call or—”
“You can, Myles. Anytime you need me, you can.”
“I think his father wants to meet him,” Myles blurted, instead of addressing the change of pronouns or pointing out that Ozzy could still read him like that and know what he was really asking without him having to ask.
“He told me about the letter, but he didn’t say anything about a meeting.”
“Well, that’s a guess. But why else would he be trying to contact him now?” He held up a hand. “And before you say anything, I know I have to tell him.”
“So tell him.”
“And put him on the spot over something else he can’t control? A parent who wanted nothing to do with him his whole life, and is only contacting him now to what? End up hurting him?”
“You give him the information and let Jet decide what he wants to do. He may surprise you.”
When Myles didn’t respond, Ozzy sighed.
“You can’t protect him from getting hurt, Myles. Sometimes life just sucks and hurts. What you can do is make sure he knows you’re there when it does.”
“First my father, then me, then his mom dying, now this. The kid deserves a fucking break.”
“Believe it or not, so do you. And maybe being a family together is exactly the break you’re both looking for.”
“Because I’m a prize parent.”
“The fact that you care this much? Yeah. Makes you a pretty big windfall in the parental lottery. Just ask Tris and Rod. Or look at your own father. And Jet’s.
” Ozzy took his hand in both of his this time and held tight.
“You know me well enough to know that if I thought you were a truly bad parent, if I really and honestly thought there was a problem after everything Jet has told me about you, about his life, I would speak up. I would do something to protect him. The best thing I can think of to do for that kid, and for his sister, is make sure you know that you’ve got this.
You’ve got them. And when it’s hard, you have all of us, no matter where you call home. ”
“And get a shrink,” Myles said.
“Yes. And that. Really. That’s important.”
“Yeah, I know.” He smiled at Ozzy. “I know. And I will. Promise.”
“Good.”
“And to think I came out here to check on you.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, this is exactly the conversation I was trying to figure out how to have, so it worked out.”
Myles could believe, given their history, that telling him to get professional help had been weighing on Ozzy’s mind.
It had been one of the many things that had brought them to blows in the past. A lot of anger had washed away under the bridges they had both crossed since then.
He could be grateful now that they hadn’t burned any of them behind them.
“On a completely unrelated note,” he said, “how’s Wyatt doing?”
“Jesus. That kid.” Ozzy let go of Myles and scrubbed both palms down his thighs.
“He’s so fucking wholesome he makes my teeth hurt.
It makes me want to punch someone to know that all some kids need is someone to tell them they’re okay just the way they are, and no one in their lives could be arsed to do that for them. Just that.”
“So I don’t have to worry about Jet hanging out with him.”
“No. Not from what I can tell. Literally all Wyatt wants is to finish high school, get a job and be a human in the world who isn’t getting shit on for being who he is.”
“Well.” Myles straightened too. “That’s why we’re here, right? To give them a safe place to do that. Make one small corner of the world less shitty.”
“It is.” Ozzy got up at the same time the back door of the Cabin opened, and Tris came out in bare feet and boxers. “Hey, babe.” Ozzy waved and smiled such a warm smile Myles’s heart hurt a little bit, but it felt more like a growing pain than regret.
Tris smiled back at him. “Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Am now.” Ozzy held out a hand to his boyfriend. “Sorry if I was keeping you up.”
Tris shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I think Wyatt had a nightmare.
Heard him rummaging through the fridge, so we were chatting a bit over celery and Cheez Whiz.
He’s gone back to bed now. I think he’s still getting used to having a roof over his head when he sleeps.
” He frowned at that. “I hate that he went through that.”
Ozzy pulled Tris against his side. “He’s here now. We can help him.”
Tris nodded. “Coming inside?”
Ozzy looked at Myles, who held up both hands. “Don’t let me keep you up.”
“Are you okay?” Tris asked him, squinting through the gloom.
“Definitely getting there.” He waved as he turned back to the Oaks. “Night.”
“Night, Myles.”
When he looked back, it was to see Ozzy and Tris sharing a kiss that wasn’t any of his business. He smiled to himself and went back inside.
This time, he made the effort to climb the stairs, stopping half way when his hip refused his weight, but eventually making it the whole way up.
When he lay down, thoughts of Steven didn’t send him into a tailspin, which was nice in itself.
And hearing the kids’ breathing softly in sleep was enough to calm his own nerves and think maybe Ozzy wasn’t just trying to make him feel better, but really did mean he believed in Myles.
He poked mentally at the sore spot that had always been that failed relationship. The usual ache didn’t materialize this time. Neither did he feel the numbness he felt when he poked at his sister’s place in his heart. He couldn’t say it was exactly warm and fuzzy, but it wasn’t painful either.
“Huh.” Was that what healing felt like?