One Small Thing
UNSURPRISINGLY, THEY decided to go through San Francisco.
Neither of the boys had seen the ocean, and the way they both lit up made Anthony and Reg feel like gods. Anthony knew it was both of them because he asked, charmed by the sweet smile on Reg’s face.
“I wish we weren’t running from bad guys,” Reg said simply.
“I wish I was just taking them on a trip. My nephews, Russell and Shaw, have gone camping with us since they were small. We take turns going places—Disneyland, San Diego, Tehachapi, you name it. It would be so easy to… you know, make it a bigger group. You don’t think about that all the time. ”
“Maybe afterward,” Anthony told him softly, not wanting to state the obvious. These particular boys wouldn’t be going back to the school. Nor would Reg’s art teacher friend.
But Reg’s bittersweet smile told Anthony nobody had to state the obvious—Reg was quite capable of knowing reality on his own.
“It’s still something to work toward,” Anthony said, with dignity.
“You’re a lot like Chance,” Reg said, patting Anthony’s shoulder in comfort. “You’ll find that pony, and then you’ll take us all for a ride.”
Anthony shrugged. “What’s the use of finding the damned thing if you can’t share it, right?”
“Right.”
If seeing the ocean was the pony, navigating through the city was the horseshit.
San Francisco traffic was a tricky prospect during the best of times, but listening to the boys react as they paused on the top of a hill to look down at the bay, spotting both bridges in the dazzling sunshine, was a treat.
At Anthony’s direction, Reg parked across from Pier 39, and they crossed the street to Fisherman’s Wharf, searching for the place that made sourdough bread bowls filled with clam chowder.
It was still early on a weekday, and they ate their lunch leaning on the rail that overlooked the ocean, keeping a wary eye out for seagulls as they did. Anthony wished they could let the boys explore for an hour, but that wouldn’t be wise by any stretch of the imagination.
Still, after stretching their legs, dodging into a couple of tourist stores, and being thoroughly cleansed by the chilly sea air, gazing out on the ocean held a certain peace.
Or it did until Reg, who had just returned from tossing their food boxes, stiffened at his side, his eyes on Ilia.
Ilia saw the glance and dropped his head. Leaving Reynaldo to finish his lunch, Ilia approached the two of them, holding his phone out.
“I didn’t take it off airplane mode,” he said gruffly. “I… she texted me. I don’t know how.”
Reg’s eyebrows went up, and even Anthony knew that took a bit of computer skill and some power that your average everyday PC user didn’t have.
“What did she say?” Anthony asked gently, not liking the pinched expression on the boy’s face at all.
“She said she would meet us in Portland,” he said, his voice thick. “But… that wasn’t in any of the plans, was it, Mr. Royal? Mr. McCauley?”
Reg and Anthony looked at each other and shook their heads.
“No,” Reg said. “But don’t tell her that. She… she knows we’re on the road. Somebody probably told her to find out where we’re going.”
Ilia held the phone out to Reg as though begging him to take it, to take the terrible choice out of his hands. “What should I do? You answer her. Pretend you are me. What should I―”
Reg held up his hands, not taking the phone.
“Ilia,” he said, sounding firm, like a teacher. “You need to take a deep breath. She—or whoever has her phone right now—knows where we are. We need to leave here, and we need to do it without the phone.” Reg reached out and squeezed the boy’s shoulder.
“And without me,” Ilia said thickly.
“I didn’t say that,” Reg told him. “If we leave you here with that phone, your mother, your uncle, they will come pick you up. They’ll ask you where we’re going—and I’m giving you permission right now to tell them if that’s the road you choose. But that’s only one choice.”
“What’s my other road?” Ilia begged, and Anthony ached for him. Oh God—what a terrible choice.
“Our road,” Reg said, smiling a little. “You chuck the phone into the ocean, play games on my phone if you have to, and come with us.” He swallowed. “Reynaldo will forgive you. I will still wish you the very best, no matter what you choose. But you have to choose it now.”
Ilia’s face contorted for a moment, and then to Anthony’s shock, he pivoted on his back foot and yeeted the phone as far into the bay as he could reach.
“Holy cow,” Anthony said, after a long whistle.
“You are surprised?” Ilia asked, sounding hurt as he wiped his eyes.
“No, just, you know—why art? Why not baseball?”
Ilia laughed, tears sputtering from his full lips. “The boys in baseball are all muscles and sinews.” He glanced at Reynaldo, who was staring at where the phone disappeared with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Art boys, they are soft and sweet. They blush. It is charming.”
“Good choice,” Anthony said, winking. “I like the art boys myself.”
And with that, Ilia went striding toward Reynaldo, saying, “Hurry up, slowpoke—we don’t have all day to watch you eat.”
Reg and Anthony shared a grim gaze, and Anthony said, “Did I ever tell you I took tactical driving courses before I opened the gun range?”
“That’s absolutely fascinating,” Reg said with no inflection. “Does this mean you’d like to drive?”
“Yeah, but before we leave San Francisco, you need to figure out where we’re sleeping tonight, even if it’s off a sideroad.”
“I can tell you one thing,” Reg said. “It’s not going to be anywhere near Portland.”
And with that they were off.
GETTING OUT of the city before twelve was a good move, Anthony decided later.
They stopped once for gas and chocolate, chips, gum, and every other snack known to man, and once for dinner at a fast-food place along the way, and then they had a half hour before coasting into a little mom-and-pop lodge north of Crescent City in that hazy hour before sunset.
The boys were cranky and exhausted, and Anthony couldn’t blame them. Reg was the one who suggested they take a walk down to the beach after loading their knapsacks in the small cottage and parking the SUV behind the tiny bank of rooms so it couldn’t be seen from the road.
Anthony didn’t tell any of them, but he’d tucked his very legal .22 in the back of his pants after locking their stuff in the room. He had a license for concealed carry, and after Ilia’s phone turned on like it had, he didn’t want anybody going anywhere without protection.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the deep sand and pounding waves as Ilia and Reynaldo took off their shoes and played race-the-surf.
Reg stood in his bare feet as well, attention on the boys as he executed some very regimented yoga poses.
Anthony watched him for a moment, fascinated. It looked like he did this a lot.
“You’re making me self-conscious,” Reg muttered, switching poses smoothly.
“You’re turning me on. We’re even.”
Reg stumbled and turned to glare at him before catching himself and turning back toward the boys in the distance. “I run in the early morning,” he said. “Yoga at night.”
“I approve,” Anthony told him. “It makes your boyfriend a happy boy.”
“Are we boyfriends?” Reg asked suspiciously. “I do read social media. There’s a lot in there about how many times two guys have to sleep together to be boyfriends, and I seem to recall missing that part.”
Anthony chuckled. “I just committed to follow you cross-country to do illegal things. I think that ranks as boyfriends, don’t you?”
Reg gave him one of his classic guarded looks. “You can always break up,” he said, as though giving permission. “It’s okay if you change your mind.”
Anthony chased away his first charge of anger. “Do you really think so little of me?” he asked, feeling like a wronged Regency era gentleman.
“I think the world of you,” Reg snapped, and it didn’t look like the formality of language bothered him at all.
“This is just… you know.” His voice took on the timbre of an adult lecturing a child.
“You can rescue the cat, Reg, but you have to give it away. You can rescue the dog, but we need to give it back to the people who lost it. Yes, you can bring your friend over to sleep, but….” He turned away angrily and checked on the boys again.
The boys were fine—not that Anthony didn’t share his paranoia about keeping them in sight at all times—but Reg, it appeared, was not.
“Is this one of those things?” Anthony asked softly, coming up behind him to wrap his arms around Reg’s waist.
“Sure,” Reg muttered. “Do you really need one a day? I think after this one we get to skip tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Anthony said, resting his chin on Reg’s shoulder so he could keep an eye on the kids. “You can have a day off. We have enough challenges this week.”
Reg grunted, and then, like he had the night before, seemed to relax into Anthony’s arms. “Jeremiah Chambers.”
“Okay….”
“He was my best friend in first grade. We did everything together—even watch Chance. He thought babies were cool.”
“Should I be jealous?” Anthony teased, hoping for a little more relaxing, a little less intensity.
“He’s dead.”
“Yikes!” Anthony straightened. “Jesus, Reg, warn a guy!”
“Well, he went home one Friday night over a long weekend, and the next morning he was sick, and four days later he’d gone septic, and his parents took him to the hospital, and he never woke up.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Anthony felt traumatized just hearing that.
“So he went home Friday night,” Reg said bitterly, “and he never came back to school, and we never got to play the new game Dean brought me for my birthday, and remember how I thought bad children got lost?”
“Oh my God.” Anthony had no idea he could hurt this badly for somebody who had seemed to be okay a moment before.
“I kept telling my mom that he was sorry, whatever he’d done, he was sorry, he needed to not be lost anymore, because he was a good kid and he was sorry.”