Phoenix (Standalone Novels #3)

Chapter 1 – Age 6

“Julian, this is Torrence. Stay here and play with him. I need to get some work done with his mother.”

Big blue eyes in a dirt-streaked face looked up at him.

The boy was sitting on a weird bed, which wasn’t made, and he was wearing his daytime clothes.

They looked filthy. There was a big hole on the shoulder of the shirt and both knees of his jeans.

So much was wrong with the scene that Julian was too distracted to argue with his father and demand that they go home.

His mother had bought him the new Pokémon game the night before and she said he could play it as long as he was being good.

He hadn’t broken anything or yelled at anyone at school that day so he should be in his playroom enjoying his new game.

Instead, he was in someone else’s room. Someone else’s small room.

He could fit four of them in his bedroom.

It was crowded with two sets of bunkbeds. It smelled funny.

“Your bed’s weird,” he said to the boy. The bunkbed didn’t look like one Julian had ever seen. The bottom bunk wasn’t a bed at all, just a mattress on the floor with a rumpled blanket. The top bunk didn’t have a rail to keep the person safe. The wood looked splintery.

“It’s a bunkbed,” the boy, Torrence, said.

“I know it’s a bunkbed,” Julian snapped. He wasn’t stupid.

“My brothers built it. I helped.”

He considered that statement. “You built your own bed?”

Torrence nodded. “We found a bunch of pallets. Had enough to make a couch too.”

“What’s a pallet?”

The boy’s face scrunched together and Julian started getting mad. He wasn’t stupid just because he’d never heard of a pallet.

“I’ll show you.” Torrence stood, walked over, and tugged at his shirt. “Come on.”

“My dad told me to stay here,” he reminded Torrence.

“So?” he shrugged.

Julian decided he liked him. He followed Torrence out of the room, down a short hallway, through the living room or family room or television room, Julian couldn’t tell which it was.

He stopped walking and looked around. There was a lot of furniture crowded in the space, but he could pick out the couch Torrence said he built.

It had the same type of strange wood as the beds, stacked in a row with cushions on it.

“You coming, Julie?” Torrence said. He stood a few steps away, staring at him.

He felt his skin go hot. “My name’s Julian.”

“That’s too long.”

He stomped over to Torrence and pushed him.

“Julian’s a boy’s name. Julie’s a girl’s name.

Don’t call me that.” There wasn’t an adult around to punish him, but Torrence would cry and run to his mom and she’d tell Julian’s dad, and then he wouldn’t be allowed to play his Nintendo when he got home.

That made him even angrier, and he punched Torrence in the stomach.

“Wow, Julie,” he said, smiling instead of crying. “You’re strong.” He tugged at Julian’s shirt again. “Come on.” He pulled a confused Julian into the kitchen and out the back door.

The backyard didn’t have much grass, mostly dirt and rocks and a couple of trees. There wasn’t a sport court or a playground set but there was stuff everywhere. He followed Torrence around the maze of piles until they reached an area with the same wood he had seen inside.

“These are pallets,” Torrence said. “They use them to move blocks and plants and shit.”

He snapped his head to other boy and his jaw dropped. “That’s a bad word.”

He shrugged like he had inside. “Want to play a game?”

“Do you have Pokémon?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

He was surprised that Torrence didn’t know but he hadn’t made fun of him when he didn’t know what a pallet was, so Julian didn’t tease him about it. He couldn’t show him the game because it was at home, so he explained, “It’s a Nintendo game.”

“Oh. I don’t play video games.”

“Your mom doesn’t let you?” he asked, understanding.

His mother hadn’t either. She used to say screen time was bad for him.

But then one day, she gave him the Nintendo and said he could play it if he didn’t get in trouble at school.

He could share that idea with Torrence and maybe his mom would get him a Nintendo too.

“My mom’s almost never here. She’s only been back for a week this time.”

“Um.” He tried to understand but wasn’t sure he did. Maybe his mother traveled for work a lot, like his mom. “Your dad doesn’t let you?”

“He never lives here,” Torrence said, shaking his head.

“Why?”

“Video games cost too much,” Torrence said, misunderstanding what he was asking.

He grasped Julian’s wrist and pulled him through the yard.

“Come on. This’ll be fun.” As they walked, Torrence stopped and dug through piles.

“Hold this.” He handed Julian two metal pipes and then walked off.

Julian’s shirt was definitely going to be dirty.

He considered whether his parents would be mad enough to take away his Nintendo privileges.

“Julie, come on.”

“If you don’t stop, I’ll call you a girl’s name too,” he grumbled, but he wasn’t really mad anymore. He was too curious about what Torrence was doing. “Your name is as long as mine, Tori.”

“Okay.” Torrence sounded unbothered. “Bring the pipes over.”

Julian followed his voice, and when he caught up, Torrence was dragging a piece of flat wood into an empty part of the yard.

“What are you doing?” Julian asked.

“Setting up the game,” he said, sounding a little breathless. The wood was bigger than him. He walked back to the pile of things and then hauled out another similar piece. “Put the pipes over here.”

Julian went to the spot and lowered his arms. The metal fell to the ground.

Torrence lined up the pipes beside each other and then he pulled the wood over to them, arranging each piece so it was lying across a pipe, sort of like a seesaw.

Then he climbed onto one with both legs and looked at him expectantly. “Ready?”

“What are we doing?” Julian asked as he mirrored his position on the other piece of wood.

“Seeing who can keep the wood completely off the ground for the longest time.”

That didn’t sound like any sort of game or any sort of fun, but he didn’t have anything else to do and Torrence was grinning as he shifted his body and got the wood balanced perfectly on the pipe, so Julian went along with it.

It was harder than it looked. By the time his father shouted his name from inside the house and told him it was time to go, he was laughing and smiling and having a better time than he’d had playing any video game, a better time than he’d had doing anything ever.

***

Feet bouncing with excitement, Julian looked out the rain-splattered window and tracked the now familiar route to Tori’s house. He didn’t live far but the change from their neighborhood to Tori’s was huge so Julian had learned to identify the path.

“We’re almost there,” he said to himself.

“Uh-huh,” his father responded from the front seat. “Now remember, Julian, you can’t—”

“I can’t tell Mom.” He rolled his eyes at the annoying reminder.

“I know.” His mother had a big case in Minnesota, so she had been gone more than usual that entire summer.

She came back to Phoenix for weekends, but when she was out of town, his dad worked with Ms. Dunworthy at her house and Julian got to play with Tori.

His father told him the visits were a secret every single time, like he’d forget.

“I have a good memory,” he reminded his father.

As soon as the car stopped, Julian grappled for his seatbelt.

He had gotten big enough to use a booster seat so he could get in and out by himself now.

He reached for the door handle and pushed it open.

The heat of the summer and wetness of the rain hit him at the same time.

He jumped out and ran to the front door.

At his house, he’d have to wipe off or maybe even change out of his damp clothes, but Tori’s family didn’t care about things like that, so he turned the doorknob to go in.

For the first time, it was locked. He froze, confused.

His parents’ house was always locked and their alarm set, but this was the first time he hadn’t been able to just walk into Tori’s house.

“It’s locked,” he said over his shoulder to his father, who was walking up, his head ducked to avoid the rain.

“I’ll text Vickie.” He stood on the porch beside Julian and pulled the phone out of his pocket, but before he typed anything, the door swung open.

“Hi, Julie!” Tori greeted him with a smile and immediately reached for him. “Come on!”

He quickly took his friend’s hand and followed him inside. All four of Tori’s brothers were in the living room. Julian had met Tyson, Trey, Travis, and Titan during his visits, but they weren’t usually all there at the same time.

“Hi!” he said happily. He liked Tori’s brothers.

They were mostly quiet, but they were nice.

All of their names started with the same letter, but they had different last names.

Tori said it was because they had different fathers, but Tori had the same last name as his mother, so Julian didn’t completely understand that.

“Hey, little man,” Tyson, the oldest one said. He was old enough to be in high school, but he said he didn’t go. “What’s up?” He puffed on his cigarette.

The smell bothered Julian, but Tori’s brothers always smoked so he didn’t make a big deal out of it.

“What are you guys playing?” He walked over and looked around.

There were guns on the coffee table and in their laps and they were doing something to them.

“Are those Nerfs?” He glanced toward the door to check if his father was still there, hoping he had gone to Ms. Dunworthy’s bedroom because Julian wanted to play and he wasn’t allowed to have any violent toys.