5
Back home, after they’d talked through it all again—at length—Jem said, “Am I a bad person?”
“No,” Tean said. Scipio was halfway into his lap, sprawled on his back and accepting tummy rubs. “Of course not.”
“But I did something bad.”
“Well, I don’t like the fact that you broke into someone’s house. You could have been arrested. You could have gotten hurt.”
“But I didn’t,” Jem said, because this seemed like an important point.
The way Tean’s eyebrows scrunched together made him think Tean didn’t feel the same way. But what Tean said was “Jem, I know you don’t like your job.” The hard line of his mouth couldn’t really be called a smile. “I mean, you hate it.”
“It’s fine. I don’t hate it.”
Tean shook his head. He was silent for what felt like a long time before he said, “You have all these…skills that other people don’t have.
And you know so much about the world that a lot of people don’t know.
Might never know. You’ve lived a different life from most people, and that makes you different. ”
“I’m not going to do it again,” Jem said in a rush. “It was a one-time thing. And I know it was wrong, and I shouldn’t have done it, and I made a mistake—”
“Jem—”
“—and I messed up your day, and I—”
“Jem, hold on.” Tean scratched Scipio’s stomach, and the soft rasp filled the space between them.
This time, it was a smile, and his voice was gentler when he said again, “Hold on. That’s not what I was trying to say.
What I’m trying to say is—” His hand stilled on Scipio’s tummy.
“I think there are a lot of ways you can help people. But I’m also scared that something could happen to you. ”
Jem didn’t answer right away.
“And you don’t need to ask me if you were bad,” Tean said. “You’re not a bad person. You’re a very good person.”
“Not that good.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I stole a lot of money from people. I don’t do it anymore, but it was a lot, Tean.”
“I think that’s understandable, considering your situation at the time.”
“And I let that guy with the nose hair buy me underwear.” Jem felt like he had to offer a counterpoint to his own argument. “But I didn’t try it on for him, or mail him my old ones, or anything like that.”
Tean looked like he was trying not to smile. “My point exactly.”
“And a couple of weeks ago, when they put an extra twelve-pack of nuggets in our bag, I told Sheila, and she said we could keep them anyway.”
“I’m more worried about the fact that you’re on first-name basis with the staff at McDonald’s.”
“Holy shit,” Jem said. “I am a good person.”
“Well, swear jar. But yes, you are.”
“That one doesn’t count,” Jem said. “Because it was a dramatic realization.”
Tean nodded, but he said, “I’m still not clear on the swear jar rules—”
“I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to mess things up. Our life. Us.” His voice sounded small when he said, “I don’t want you to be mad.”
It felt like a long time before Tean answered, and when he did, the words were tight with an emotion Jem couldn’t put his finger on. “Jem, I don’t love that you called me because you got stuck in a tree while you were stealing something—”
“Stealing something back,” Jem put in, but he felt himself trailing off at the end.
“—but I want you to be you. I want you to be happy. What I don’t want is to see you stuck in a dead-end job that makes you miserable. And I think you’ve been miserable for a long time. I meant what I said: I think you can help people in a lot of ways other people can’t.”
The January day was graying out. Shadows crept up the street. Scipio flopped onto his side and started to snore, and Jem ran a hand down the Lab’s side.
“It’s not like I’d know how much money I was going to make,” Jem said.
He felt like he was answering a question Tean hadn’t asked, or like he was responding to something neither of them had put into words yet.
But there was also…something. A tumbling little electricity in his chest that made him sit up straight.
“And I’d have to be careful about what jobs I took.
And I know I’m not supposed to break the law. Well, not too much.”
“You’re a good judge of character,” Tean said quietly. “And you’re very creative.”
“I could always ask you before I said I’d help someone. Just in case.”
“You could. But you don’t have to.”
“I wouldn’t do anything that could get us in trouble. You and Scipio come first.”
Tean nodded.
“This isn’t weird?” Jem asked. “Shouldn’t I go work at a bank or get a job as a salesman or learn how to fix air conditioners?”
“Do you want to do any of those things?”
“God, no.”
Tean laughed about that way too hard, and Jem even caught himself smiling. When Tean recovered, he said, “Jem, what do I know about normal? I don’t care about any of that. If this is something you’re interested in, I think you should try it.”
“But what if it’s just this one time? It’s not like people are always showing up asking for help.”
“Then we’ll figure something else out.” Tean reached across Scipio to squeeze Jem’s hand. “Something that doesn’t make you so unhappy that you have to take a personal day just to keep from going crazy.”
Jem laughed. But his eyes stung, and he had to turn to wipe his face on his shirt. When he said, “Thanks,” his voice was thick.
Tean just squeezed his hand more tightly.
Jem’s phone buzzed, and he worked it out of his pocket. The screen said Maybe: Adaptation Comics. He answered.
“Hey, Jem, thanks again for today,” Rockford said. “I know this is weird, but I was just talking to my sister, and there’s kind of a situation. Her ex-boyfriend borrowed her car, and he claims somebody stole it right off the street, and I was wondering if you could help.”
Jem gave Tean’s glasses a tug, and Tean broke out in a smile.
“Yeah,” Jem said, getting to his feet and heading for the spare bedroom they used as their office. “I think we could figure something out.”