Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Pat was happy to walk the kids and dog to the hot dog cart and let Myles not strain his hip. Instead, Myles retrieved his pail of floor water and dumped it down the sink without even finishing the task he’d set himself.
The house didn’t care if there were crumbs on the floor. The kids didn’t care. The dog cared only because they might be delicious. Or they’d make him puke, but puke was, apparently, delicious, because dogs were both necessary and disgusting.
If Pat cared about crumbs, she would have swept them up when they’d been dropped there. She hadn’t, presumably, because she had been more focused on the people whose company she was enjoying, and wasn’t that the whole goddammed point?
The only person who cared about crumbs was Myles. He could choose to let it go.
It did leave him wondering about Steven’s house, though, and the outcome of Ozzy’s roof investigation.
He tried calling, but Steven’s phone went to voicemail.
A quick check of the time and he realized that wasn’t surprising.
It was the middle of the day, and this wouldn’t be the first time Steven hadn’t answered because he was working.
He’d call back when he had a chance.
On impulse, Myles called Ozzy instead.
“Myles? Everything okay?”
“Grand.”
Ozzy hmmmed. “Putting you on speaker. Tris is here.”
“Sure.”
“What’s up?”
Myles took a deep breath and let it out. “Just tore a strip out of Priory for how he was dealing with Jet’s visits, and school. He tell you about that?”
“He did” was all Ozzy said, and in such a neutral tone there was no way to discern what he thought about it.
“Okay. Just asking if you knew about it, not what you think about it.”
“Good. Because I wouldn’t tell you.”
“I know.”
“Okay.” There was a short pause, then: “You shouldn’t undermine their relationship, though.”
“I know. I think—I don’t know what I think. Maybe it hit him how much he has left to do in life without his mom. How much she loved him, contrasted with how Priory treats him. It really upset him.”
“This surprises you?” Tris asked, sounding slightly confused.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Well. Not me. Oh. Hey. You have that fancy lit degree, right? Huckleberry Finn. Yeah or nay for the classics shelf at the Cabin?”
“Always assuming you can get kids these days to read it, maybe a good conversation starter about why it’s extremely problematic now, but also a product of its time. I’m a huge proponent about not censoring what they read, but also about talking to them about it.”
“Hmm. I’ll put it in the maybe box. When you get back here, we can see about you leading these discussions.”
“Tris!” The sharpish note in Ozzy’s voice startled Myles almost as much as Tris’s assumption and left him more thoughtful than immediately resistant to the idea.
“When I get back?”
“Well.” Tris chuckled, but it sounded strained. “You know. To visit. I assume you’ll visit, right?”
“That is where my people are,” Myles said before he even thought about it. And hearing himself say the words out loud startled him even more. “Well, shit.”
“Don’t worry,” Tris whispered, and giggled so Myles could imagine him trying to keep the phone away from Ozzy. “We knew you’d get there in the end.”
“Whatever. Ozzy?”
“Yeah,” he called, as if from across the room.
“What did you find in Steven’s attic?”
“OMG,” Tris all but squealed. “Would you believe kittens?”
“Seriously?”
“He had to tear out half the ceiling to get to them, too.”
“Tris!” Once more, Ozzy’s tone turned sharp.
Tris didn’t seem to notice. “No mama cat, though, which was sad. But we’re looking after them at the Cabin, so—hey!”
“Gimme that, brat.” There was some crackling, then: “Myles.” Ozzy’s voice was much more immediate, as if he’d taken Myles off speaker.
“Half his ceiling?” Myles asked, his stomach churning uncomfortably for Steven’s sake.
“Listen—”
“Is he okay? Is that why he didn’t answer my call? Is he freaking out? Shit. I should be there. And he was doing so well with his plan. Where is he staying? How is he—”
“Stop. Talking.”
Myles clamped his mouth shut, though the questions brimmed over and made him pace across the living room.
“He’s fine.”
“He said something would happen if he left her alone.”
“He only found them because he was in the attic room at the Oaks and saw one of them crawling through a broken bit of his soffit.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Delivering some records for Lucky. And it’s a good thing he did see it, because he did not need dead kittens in his roof, and there was a leak that needed fixed that would have caused a lot more damage if it had been left much longer.”
“So he’s okay.”
“He’s okay.”
Despite the slow calming of his worry, he still needed to hear Steven’s voice to know for sure. “When you see him, tell him to call me?”
“I will.”
“Thanks.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Are you okay?” Ozzy asked.
“Is it weird that it feels a bit like my life is happening there without me?”
“Your people are here,” Ozzy parroted.
Myles sighed and dropped onto the couch. “Why can’t I get this right?”
“What are you getting wrong?”
“Maybe I should have stayed there?”
“Jet had to meet his father, and he has to choose for himself how he wants the rest of that relationship to go.”
“But dragging them back and forth across the country like I have.”
“Hey. You know that airplane safety thing. Put your own mask on, first. That’s all you were doing.
No one thinks otherwise. It isn’t selfish to look after yourself first so you can look after others.
The difference here is that you ran to your own rescue.
That’s the part you’re not used to. Now you’re okay, you can focus on what the kids need. ”
“I suppose.”
“And whatever you might think, the fact he told you how Priory’s meddling made him feel tells me a lot about who he really trusts. Who he thinks will have his back when he’s unsteady.”
“I miss Steven with my whole being.”
Ozzy said nothing.
“But not enough to rush them through deciding where we want to be.”
Still, Ozzy remained quiet.
“And not so much that I can’t function. I mean, he’s doing good, right?”
“He is.”
“Somehow knowing that is enough. For now.”
“Myles.”
“Yeah?”
“That doesn’t sound like an addiction to me. Sounds like love.”
“He said to trust us. That it would be okay.”
“Sounds smart.”
Myles sighed. “He is smart. And pretty. And brave.”
“Okay. I’m hanging up before this gets weird.” But he sounded like he’d put the phone back on speaker.
“Tell him—”
“No chance. Tell him yourself.”
“Oz.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you guys too, you know.”
“Yeah. You made it weird.”
“Love you too!” Tris called. “And I’m saving Shelly a kitten.”
“I’ll see you later,” Ozzy said.
Myles chuckled. “See you.”
He was so preoccupied with thoughts of Steven, he didn’t even notice that seeing each other wasn’t something that would happen very soon. Maybe it didn’t occur to him that it would be that long. Maybe a part of him knew something he hadn’t completely allowed himself to think out loud yet.