Chapter 37
Dean
“Are you sure you don’t want to be here when they discharge him?” Mom asked, glancing at Dad’s room. “I can take care of things at home.”
I shook my head hard. “We’re going to make sure things are in order when he gets back. There’s this system I found that will let Dad open the drapes without getting out of his chair.”
“You shouldn’t spend your money on that. Here.” She started to reach into her purse, but I put my hand over hers.
“I’ve got it, Mom. It’s not fancy or anything.”
She huffed but didn’t argue. “Fine. While you two are out, could you stop at the store for me? I haven’t gone grocery shopping.”
I saw the way her lips tightened, her pride warring with her need for help. She pulled out her wallet, and even though I wanted to decline, I didn’t have all that much available money.
“We’ve got it, Teresa,” Oli said as he stepped out of Dad’s room into the hall.
She tried to pass me the money, but Oli shook his head at me. When she moved to put it in my pocket, he pulled me backward and shook his finger at her.
“Don’t be like that,” she pleaded. Her eyes dropped to his neck, but she didn’t say anything about the mark there. Maybe she didn’t know what it was, but I wasn’t counting on that.
“We’ll take care of everything,” Oli called as he dragged me down the hall.
It was hard not to laugh. Clearly, stubbornness didn’t only run in my family.
The ride he’d called pulled up after only a few minutes, and I rushed to open the door for him. He waggled his brows before he ducked inside, and I shook my head as I slid in next to him.
“I can’t get too much by way of food,” I admitted. “But we should be able to make it work.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I sighed. “You’re not paying.”
“You’re right.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Brooks gave me money.”
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell? That guy needs boundaries.”
“Yeah, well, it’ll give your parents a house stocked with food for a while.”
“I think you’re severely underestimating the cost of, well, everything in this city.”
He pulled his wallet out and opened it to show me the stack of cash inside, mostly hundreds. I stared at it, just blinking for a full minute.
“How much did he give you exactly?”
“Fifteen hundred.”
“Fifteen hundred?”
“He just had it on him,” he laughed. “This wasn’t even all of it.”
“God, he could use a dose of reality.”
“Pretty sure Tilian gives him that every day.”
“He’s a goddamn maniac. Fuck.” I knocked my head back against the seat. “Now I have to . . . thank him.” I tried not to gag. “I hate this so much.”
Turning to face me, Oli planted a kiss on my cheek. “Pull the stick out of your ass, baby.”
Ever since I’d called him that yesterday, he’d been using it religiously. Any time we were alone, he threw it at me. And every time, my stomach had a rave.
“Ooh, if we hurry,” he said, “we can get some practice in.”
“Practice? Oh.” The way his eyebrows went up and down made my cheeks heat. “I’m going to say no to doing that right before my parents get home.” Cupping his jaw, I kissed the tip of his nose. “But after dark, all bets are off.”
The way he grinned made my stomach do somersaults.
“Let’s make a couple of stops,” I suggested.
“Are we bargain hunting?”
I didn’t respond, too busy thinking about all the years I’d spent in this city. If I had to narrow them down, which moments had impacted me the most?
Grabbing Oli’s phone, I updated the address for the driver. Neither of them seemed bothered by the change of plans, and as we headed toward the other side of town, I tapped my fingers on the seat impatiently.
When the car came to a stop, I pushed the door open and dragged Oli out with me. He laughed like it was the most exciting experience of his life. Even when he looked at the boring old bricks that made up the high school, his eyes were full of light.
“Is this where you trained that big brain of yours?” he asked.
“Yup. It’s not all that interesting, but if you want—”
“Obviously.” He grimaced. “Sorry. I’m listening.”
I grunted, not believing him. After pointing to a bench at the far end of the building, I crossed my arms. “Right there, I had my first kiss.”
“Ah. I thought I’d like this trip down memory lane. I don’t.”
“Does it help if I tell you I hated it?”
“Why?”
“She had broccoli stuck in her braces.” I shuddered at the memory.
“It helps,” he said with a sharp nod.
“There.” I grabbed his hand, dragging him toward the stretch where the buses would line up after school. “I was standing here when I learned what it felt like to get punched in the face.”
He looked at where I’d planted my feet. “How’d you earn it?”
“Who says I did?”
The mischief in his smile drove me on, so I raced down the sidewalk with him on my heels.
“Mr. Beauford lived there,” I said, pointing at a house that had been updated since I last saw it.
The sight made a sickening sense of nostalgia flicker at the edge of my mind, and I let it drift closer.
“He used to sit on the porch most of the day, and after practice he’d give me a sandwich and a glass of milk.
I think he just wanted someone to talk with him for a bit. ”
“That’s sweet.”
“I learned a whole lot about history that they didn’t tell us in school.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s just say there are rarely any good guys in war.”
“This is why you’re so cynical.”
Continuing down the street, I chuckled. “Probably. But he did tell me, ‘When you know better, you do better, and if you don’t get the chance to look the bad sons of bitches in their ugly mugs, you can never learn what better looks like.’ I think he might’ve been a little crazy now that I think about it. ”
“Well, consider me a convert. Mr. Beauford was the modern-day Aristotle.”
Turning down another street, I nodded toward a gas station. “I tripped on a scooter right there and limped for half a mile on a broken toe before someone stopped to ask if I was okay.”
We reached a run-down building with boards on the windows.
“We had my eighth birthday there when it was an arcade. That’s also where I learned that clowns are literal demons. Blake still talks about how I screamed like a girl.”
Oli was still laughing when we made it to the community basketball court. There was a group of guys inside the fence playing a heated game.
“My dad and I would play here, up until his doctor told him he needed to stay off his feet. Blake brought me for a while, but then he left for the army.”
“How old were you?” Oli asked.
“Thirteen.”
He took my hand, and I was glad he didn’t say anything else as we continued.
I hadn’t recognized there was still grief there, or maybe I’d learned to ignore it. I couldn’t even remember the last time my family had all gathered together in our house, and I found myself wondering what it would be like when my dad got back today.
I looked up at the sky and watched a group of birds soar overhead. If Remi knew what he was talking about—and that was a big if—maybe Oli would bring us Kennedys a little bit of luck this week. We sure as hell could use it.
*****
As we roamed the grocery store, Oli pushing the cart and me directing him where to go so he wouldn’t get distracted by shiny things, we settled into a sort of domesticity.
I found myself wanting to make it the norm to buy food together.
We could budget it out and split it down the middle.
We’d get home and jot down what we spent in our spreadsheets.
He’d complain about it, and I’d remind him that he wanted a yard so he could get a dog, and having a yard wasn’t for people who didn’t have money in their savings account.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked as he scanned the items at self-check.
“Just thinking.”
“Share with the class, Broku.”
“I want a boxer.”
“Like Muhammad Ali? I don’t think he’s looking for a new home.”
“Well, he’s dead.”
“Guess we need a shovel.”
I punched his arm lightly. “A boxer, like a dog.”
“Oh. Those are cute. They have those big jowls.” He grabbed his cheeks and pulled them outward.
“They slobber a lot. Kinda like you.” I touched his lips with a smirk.
He jerked his chin away from me with narrowed eyes. “Don’t compare me to a house pet.”
Chuckling, I watched the total rise at an alarming rate. I had to remind myself that Oli had all that cash on him. Never in my life had I spent so much at once. Not even in one month.
After we’d loaded everything into the cart, we went outside to wait for our ride. The weather was starting to warm up, but there was still a slight chill in the air. I wrapped my arm around Oli’s waist and perched my chin on his shoulder.
“Would you . . . want a boxer?”
“I haven’t thought about it.” After a second, he shrugged. “Sure.”
“Well, maybe we can plan for it.”
He stroked my arm, but he stayed silent. Usually, he was the one who was trying to plan things out with me, even if it was years in the future. His uncharacteristic hesitation made my stomach flip.
“It was just an idea,” I said quickly. “It’d be years down the road anyway. I don’t know why I was thinking about it.”
“It’s just—”
The car pulled up, and he stopped talking with an annoyed sound. I tried to ignore the way the driver seemed impatient while both of us loaded the bags into the car.
Once we settled in the backseat, I turned to Oli. “It’s just what?”
“I have a hard time seeing the future.”
“Nobody can see the future,” I teased.
His lips quirked just a little. Enough for me to feel better. Not enough for me to drop it.
“You talk about the future all the time,” I pointed out.
“Things I want, yeah. I’m not saying I don’t want a boxer with you. Obviously, I do.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I was just trying to picture it. When I try to do that, no matter what I want to see, it’s just this blank space.
There’s me, then there’s Remi, but if I try to add a dog or a house, I can’t get them to stay solid.
They’re . . . dreams, but not the kind that become real.
No matter how much I want them, they just won’t stick. ”
He looked down at his hands. I took one of them and squeezed it. “Want me to describe it to you?”
He met my eyes. “You’d do that?”
Keeping hold of his hand, I put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in close. I dropped my lips closer to his ear so the driver couldn’t listen to us.
“Here’s what I see,” I said. “A house with brick on the outside. It’s old but has good bones.
We have to replace the floors immediately because there’s water damage, which means we have to patch up the roof.
It’s too expensive to do the whole thing at once, obviously.
Once it’s safe to walk in, we start making it ours. Real wood cabinets with brass handles.”
“Soft close because you get pissed when I close ours too hard.”
“It’s so goddamn loud. Same goes for the toilet lid.”
“Maybe we add a urinal.”
“That’s unnecessary.”
He harrumphed. “We can talk about it.”
“Fine. After it’s not a literal hazard to live in, we get a puppy. It’ll be practice.” Realizing what I’d said, I rolled my lips inward.
Oli tucked his face into my neck and breathed me in. “Practice, huh?”
“I mean . . . It’s just an imaginary future.”
“If we can’t handle a dog, we can’t handle a baby.”
My heart fluttered. This was so ridiculous, but if nobody else was around to judge us, who fucking cared?
“Kevin is a menace and ruins some of our new carpet.”
“Kevin?” He laughed so hard that he snorted.
“Anyway, we deal with the messed-up carpet until he’s fully-grown, then we get real wood floors because we’re moving up in the world.”
“Oh yeah? I’m betting that’s because I’m a dope psychologist by this point.”
“Exactly. You have to fund your lavish lifestyle. You’ll have a whole office to yourself with all the shelving you want for your weird collections. Manga as far as the eye can see.”
“I want it connected to your office.”
“If you say so, but your nerd shit stays on your side of the aisle.”
“Mm. I’ll get you a Female Titan figurine. I saw how you looked at her.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? She’s just screwed up enough to do it for me.”
“Is that why you like me?”
“That’s a question for the psychologist in the room.”
“We’ll circle back when I graduate.”
Smiling, I stroked my fingers through his hair. “I’ll be right here waiting, baby.”
By the time we carried the bags inside, Oli was humming some off-key anime theme and bumping his shoulder against mine. It was ridiculous and ordinary and perfect, and for a moment, I let myself believe that slice of the future might not be so far off, after all.