Chapter 27
The parents were gone, and the living room was creepy quiet. I sat in Mr. Quinn’s recliner, my legs splayed out, an orange Gatorade sitting on the floor next to me as I read an article on the Cardinals offseason moves.
Gavin walked into the room wearing a blue and yellow Akron RubberDucks shirt with bright pink shorts, shin-high orange socks, and, of course, his red Crocs. Good lord, this kid. I had been hoping he’d start matching now that he had a girlfriend. I’d hoped wrong.
“Wanna play The Show downstairs?” he asked, chewing on a granola bar.
“Let me finish this article,” I said, not looking back up at him.
“Nope, I’m bored,” he said, grabbing my phone and running toward the stairs, laughing as he went.
I sprinted after him, my bare feet hitting the shaggy carpet, trying to catch the gremlin I now lived with. I’d have been madder at him if I hadn’t pulled the same stunt yesterday when I’d needed him to throw me batting practice.
When I got to the basement, I realized we had company. Zach sat in front of the TV, his hand on the Xbox, setting up the game. Something about the setup prickled at the back of my neck before I could place it—like I'd walked into this exact situation before.
Gavin let me pass him, and I sat on the loveseat, leaving space between myself and Zach. My hands pressed into the seat, and my eyes darted to Gavin, who hadn’t left the bottom of the stairs.
Then I saw his smirk and realized he was trying to pull the same stunt he had last year when he’d locked Tanner and me in his room.
That had worked out rather well; neither Tanner nor I would have ever had the guts to start being friends again if he hadn’t forced us on each other.
I’d never thanked Gavin for that, but I was pretty sure what he’d done was technically kidnapping, so I wasn’t going to go out of my way to thank him for committing a felony.
Zach and I needed to mend things, too, and I figured the present would be as good a time as any. Zach didn’t have a clue what was going to happen, though, as he continued to fidget with the system.
“Hey, Zach,” Gavin said, his teeth showing in his smile.
“What?”
“You and Easton have been dicks to each other since he moved in. You’re arguing all the time. I think you guys need to fight this one out.”
Zach stood, his chest flexed, his shirt a size too tight. It used to belong to Tanner, and Zach had long since gotten bigger and stronger than him.
“No.” He walked toward the stairs, dismissing Gavin’s plan completely. I swung my body in the seat, expecting fireworks to go off in the basement, wishing I had a bowl of popcorn.
Gavin stood his ground, puffing his chest and looking well out of place. He’d started to put on muscle of his own and had grown another couple of inches, but Zach’s strength still dwarfed Gavin’s by a country mile. “You two need to make up.”
“Move, Gavin,” Zach said, his hands balling into fists.
“No. Just talk to him,” Gavin said, his own hands forming fists at his sides, everyone in the room knowing Zach could beat Gavin to a pulp if it ever came down to it.
Zach grabbed Gavin around the waist with his right arm, his left arm going to Gavin’s throat, and he lifted Gavin into the air.
My mind snapped between the present and memories I wished I could forget—visions of my dad doing the same motion to my mom. His hand had tightened around her throat days before she’d strung a rope around her neck and hanged herself.
“STOP!” I screamed. Blurriness stung my eyes as I dashed between the past and the present. Whether I was yelling at Zach or Dad, I wasn’t sure. “Let go!”
Sweat poured down my arms as I tried to regain focus. I had to protect Gavin, to save him, to stop him from using the rope. If I steadied myself and was stronger, I could get there. I begged my feet to move, to get to Gavin, to protect him like I hadn’t been able to protect Mom.
“Whatever.” Zach’s voice came through to me from the distance.
I fell to the floor, my breathing erratic and my vision still impossible to find.
I was back in the past, hearing Mom’s screams after Dad had punched her then, later, her voice desperate for air as his hand had squeezed her neck.
I felt my heartbeat pounding in my chest, trying to escape, to be anywhere but in my body.
“Easton,” Mom said. Or was it Gavin?
My mind kept swirling, the nights mixing.
“Easton, are you alright?” he repeated. Gavin.
I shook my head, more to shake my thoughts back to the present than to answer him. The basement came back to me: the blurry TV, Gavin the rainbow, the smell of chalk from the pool table.
“What happened, dude?” he asked, sitting across from me against the wooden TV stand.
“I just... I thought he was hurting you.” I pulled my knees up to my chest, goosebumps on my arms. My breathing refused to stabilize, switching between half pace and double speed.
“He was just messing with me. He’s done that to me a million times before; he didn’t hurt me.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Yeah.”
I stared at a spot on the floor. Gavin had been my biggest supporter (non-Tanner edition) since day one. Didn’t he deserve the truth at this point? “I never told anyone this. Not even Tanner. So don’t repeat it.”
“Okay,” Gavin said. He lay on the ground now, his hand propping his head up as he made a triangle with his arm.
I exhaled slowly then started. “I lied when I told everyone I only saw Dad beat up Mom once. I saw it all the time. Including her last night. He choked her all the time, too. So, when Zach choked you, I freaked out. I saw her getting choked again, not you.” I looked away. There was no taking that back.
“Whoa, dude,” he said, sitting back up. “Swear he didn’t hurt me. It’s a game we’ve played for years when I piss him off. I’m sorry you had to see all of that, though.”
“It’s okay. I’ve never had that happen before.”
“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“I won’t tell Zach everything, but can I tell him to stop acting like he’s choking me? That it reminds you of your mom?”
I paused, debating letting someone else in. “Sure, kid.”
Gavin sat with me for the next twenty minutes, managing to stabilize me in reality, his laugh refusing to let me go back to the past.
He walked upstairs when we finished talking, and I wasn’t shocked in the slightest when Zach came down five minutes later.
“Sup, bro,” Zach said, his voice soft as he jumped onto the couch.
“Hi, Zach,” I said, unsure what else to say.
“Gav told me,” he said, his hand running through his hair. “No more acting like I’m choking him.”
I nodded. “Thanks. I don’t get how choking him is a game, though,” I said, sterner than I meant.
Zach’s voice was calm. “Funny story for that one. So, when I was, like, nine, Tanner and I started beating up on Gav pretty good. Not hurting him, but enough he cried all the time because of us. Mom and Dad got sick of it, and one day Dad snapped. He told us the three of us are on the same team forever, and instead of fighting each other, we should be protecting each other. Team Quinn. Said it was the most important team we’d ever be on. ”
“Right,” I interrupted, “I forgot you guys live in a Disney movie.”
“Shut up,” he said, his body relaxed in the loveseat. “Let me finish. So, for, like, the next month, every time we’d start to fight, Dad would come and ask us what team we were on, and he’d expect all three of us to say, ‘Team Quinn.’
“It worked well for a while, but then Gavin really pissed me off one night. I dunno why. But I actually hurt him, and he started to cry. Dad came in and asked the question, and I knew I was screwed. So, I wrapped one arm around his waist and one arm around his neck and jumped onto the couch like I was powerbombing him and screamed, ‘TEAM QUINN.’ Gavin thought it was hilarious, forgot he was hurt, and we didn’t get in trouble.
So, every time Dad asked after that, I’d do the same move.
I haven’t done it in years, but it sort of became the way I’d tell Gav he pissed me off but it didn’t matter.
Because Dad was right. Team Quinn, and all that. ”
I grinned, imagining what it would have been like to grow up with brothers, with parents that gave a crap. “Cool story, bro,” I said.
Zach raised his eyebrow at me. “Cool face.”
The sounds of our laughter commingled, only drowned out by the boards above us creaking as Gavin ran around the first floor.
“I’m sorry I ghosted you two years ago, man. I had a lot going on, and you didn’t deserve that crap from me. And I’m sorry I let Gavin drink that beer. Not cool on my part.”
Zach closed his eyes for a second, and I could hear him let out a breath. “It’s fine. Not a big deal.”
Zach meant it, too. I’d pissed him off by not apologizing, but doing it now was all he’d needed. He didn’t want to rehash everything like Tanner would have.
“And thank you for letting me live here. I’m not trying to replace you. Just trying to find a way through all this junk.”
“It’s fine, Easton. I want you here. I’ve just been in a shit mood, and you pissed me off that night by skipping practice to drink. I like having you around, except when you cause chaos. That’s Gavin’s job. I don’t have enough energy to deal with two of you acting like idiots all the time.”
“I’ll try to chill.”
“Good,” he laughed. “And tell your little minion to never try to force me into a room for a conversation again. I’m not Tanner; that shit isn’t going to work on me.”
“Well, we still ended up talking.”
Zach looked me over, his lips curling, a twinkle behind his eyes. “It only took a mental breakdown from you to make it happen.”
I smiled, happy he was back to making fun of me to my face again. “Not cool, man.”
“Too soon?”
“Just a tad.”
We both grabbed controllers and started to play the game Gavin had promised us earlier; it was the first time we’d faced off since I’d moved in.
We didn’t talk—we really never did, or at least not like I did with Tanner and Gavin.
And that was okay. Things felt back to normal.
Like the barrier we had both put up was coming down, letting us be friends again.
Freaking Gavin.