by Witt, L. A.
This time, I came to the park with them, since I didn’t have to be at Old Country for a few hours. While Brennan helped Tariq with his helmet and pads—and mouth guard, this time—I leaned against the railing and watched.
They were on a very small ramp at the end of the skate park where things didn’t seem quite so extreme. Nothing too steep or high. The skate park equivalent of a shallow end, apparently.
Some of the other guys kept throwing glances toward Brennan and Tariq. At first, I was a little uneasy. Why were they so interested? But after a while, I realized they were just keeping an eye on traffic. They redirected other skaters so they’d stay on the far side of the park. If someone headed toward the tiny ramp where Tariq was skating, the guys would stop them and send them back the other direction.
They were doing the same with some other younger kids too. On a somewhat more advanced ramp than this one, two girls who were probably Tariq’s age were skating under the watchful eye of one of Brennan’s coworkers. No one went near them.
Slowly, I relaxed. Even if skating was inherently dangerous, it was comforting to know that people here took safety seriously, and that they were protective of the younger and less experienced kids. And Brennan had told me they’d all helped out when Tariq got hurt.
I released a breath and turned my attention back to Brennan and Tariq.
At the top of the ramp, Brennan balanced on his board, all four wheels in the air with only the end of the board making contact with the pavement. Then he shifted, and the wheels came down. He rode the board down the ramp, up the other side, and back to where Tariq was standing.
My heart was in my throat, but I forced my expression to stay neutral in case Tariq looked my way.
Do I trust Brennan? He wouldn’t actually make my kid do something dangerous, right?
I turned toward the other guys. They were watching, but didn’t seem alarmed. Then again, one of them had done a somersault in midair earlier, and another had wiped out before getting up and doing it again, so we might have had different definitions of “dude, that doesn’t look safe.”
I chewed my lip and watched my son again.
He stood on his board and started to shift the same way Brennan had, but he overcorrected. My heart lurched.
No, no, no—
The board buzzed down the ramp and up the other side, but Tariq was safely at the top, Brennan’s arm around his waist as he got his feet back under him.
“You okay?” Brennan asked as he carefully let go.
“Yeah. Just screwed it up.”
“It takes some practice. You’ll get it. Don’t worry.”
Tariq nodded. He collected his board and tried again. This time, he didn’t overcorrect, and I held my breath as he rode the board down the ramp. He made it partway up the other side, but then wobbled.
And fell.
I started toward him, but he casually got up, dusted off his knee and elbow pads, righted his board, and rejoined Brennan at the top of the short ramp. My heart was still racing, and he was already on the board, ready to try again.
Brennan patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, dude. Falling is part of learning.”
“I know.” Tariq’s brow furrowed. He tried the trick again, and this time, rolled down the ramp, up the other side, and back up to where Brennan was waiting. His dismount wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t lose his balance and the board didn’t get away from him.
“All right!” Brennan high-fived him. “Was it fun?”
“Yeah!” Tariq’s grin made me laugh. Apparently he had found a new hobby. Right then, I was pretty sure I heard my bank account screaming for mercy. But hey, my kid was happy. I’d find a way to pay for the gear to keep him that way.
As they continued with their lesson, I sat back and watched. And I had to admit, I was watching Brennan almost as much as I was watching Tariq.
A weird prickly feeling climbed my spine. In the three weeks since Tariq’s fall, I hadn’t been able to shake the question he’d asked the next morning.
“Is Brennan your boyfriend?”
The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that, no, we weren’t dating. But I kind of wanted us to be. And watching him with Tariq wasn’t doing much to make that thought go away.
Everyone I’d dated had gotten along well enough with my son—I wouldn’t have continued seeing someone if they didn’t—but there was something different about the way Brennan and Tariq interacted.
Brennan had the kind of patience I rarely saw in someone who didn’t have kids of his own. He walked Tariq through every step, and gently corrected him whenever he made a mistake. If Tariq fell—which he did several times—Brennan made sure he was okay, but didn’t criticize him or tease him about it. When Tariq got it right, and he accomplished the trick he was trying to learn, Brennan high-fived him and cheered as if he was equally excited.
Brennan could do things with a skateboard that blew my mind. And yet, when my son managed to clumsily but successfully kick his board up into his hand while landing on his feet, Brennan congratulated him as if he’d just mastered one of the more complex tricks everyone else in the park was doing. But he also did it in such a way that it wasn’t patronizing or condescending.
My mind wandered back to the night Brennan had called to tell me he and Tariq were at the ER. I’d had millions of horror movies rolling simultaneously inside my head—all kinds of visions of my son being hurt, scared, traumatized—and I’d walked in to find them relaxing over a video game. Yeah, he’d been hurt, and yeah, he’d been scared, but Brennan had him calm in spite of that day being the sum of Tariq’s biggest fears. Without me, in a hospital, with blood everywhere . . . he was fine. Whether he was teaching him a trick or comforting him, Brennan had a calming effect on—
“Hey!” Brennan’s sharp voice jerked me back into the present. My head snapped toward where he and Tariq were.
Tariq stood behind Brennan, cowering just slightly, and Brennan was right in another skater’s face, stabbing a finger at him and snarling something I couldn’t hear.
Heart pounding, I pushed myself off the rail and hurried closer.
“All right, all right.” The other guy put up his hands and took a step back. “Take it easy, man.”
Brennan shot him a murderous look, and the guy skated off in another direction.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Brennan shifted his attention to Tariq, squeezing his shoulder gently. “You okay?”
My son nodded.
My chest tightened. “Brennan? What’s going on?”
He faced me. “Just some idiot who wasn’t paying attention. He just got a little close. Clipped Tariq when he went by.” He glared over his shoulder, but the other guy was staying well away. To me, he said, “That stuff usually doesn’t happen here. Been a run of bad luck lately, but I’m going to talk to my boss about tightening the safety rules.”
“Good idea.” I looked down at Tariq. He had his board on the ground, and was testing it with one foot, arms out to the sides. Shrugging, I said, “Well, he doesn’t seem to be any worse for the wear.”
Brennan’s eyebrows rose.
“Tariq,” I said, “you want to keep skating, or are you done for the day?”
“I want to keep skating!” He gave us both puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”
I turned to Brennan and winked. “See? He’s fine.”
Brennan swallowed. Then he nodded. “Okay.” To Tariq, he said, “You ready?”
My son nodded vigorously.
“Okay, you’ve got”—I checked the time on my phone—“twenty minutes, and then we have to go. All right?”
“’Kay, Dad.”
I returned to my spot at the railing, and they continued skating. As Brennan guided Tariq through another skill, I kept replaying that weird exchange between him and the other guy. The skaters probably snarled at each other like that from time to time. A bunch of young guys on Red Bull and adrenaline? Yeah, that had to be par for the course. Someone
got in Brennan’s way while he was trying to give a lesson, and he put the guy in his place and sent him packing. He was annoyed. Territorial because someone had invaded his space.
It was not that grizzly bear protectiveness of a kid.
Was it?
After all, almost everyone here seemed to be vigilant about the kids. Some of the other guys even gave the idiot a dirty look as he returned to the more advanced side of the park.
I shook myself and watched Tariq’s lesson. I was just reading too much into Brennan’s reaction. Way too much.
Wishful thinking, Zafir. Get over it.
* * *
The next night, I was drumming my fingers on the counter at Red Hot. My shift would be over in twenty minutes, and I wasn’t working at Old Country tonight. Since Brennan was also off, he was coming by to meet me. Then we’d pick up Tariq from the babysitter and go out to a movie.
In fact, Brennan was probably on his way right now.
My stomach fluttered. I kept glancing at the door, fidgeting as I alternated between watching for him and looking for something to do to pass the time.
Mostly, though, my mind kept gnawing on everything going on between me and Brennan. The more time we spent together, the harder it was to ignore that innocent question Tariq had posed over a pudding-cup breakfast.
Was Brennan my boyfriend?
And if he was . . .
My heart sank a little. Gnawing my lip, I played at the edge of the counter with my thumbnail.
Tariq loved Brennan. No two ways about it. Maybe it was just the novelty of having a semipro skater at his disposal to teach him tricks, but the two of them got along really well. All I had to do was mention Brennan’s name, and my son’s eyes lit up.
I was playing with fire. Tariq had been hurt too many times. I wanted to find someone and fall in love with them, but how many times could I let my son get his heart stomped on? How many times had I promised myself I wouldn’t introduce a partner to Tariq until I was sure they’d stick around for a while?
But Brennan wasn’t supposed to be a boyfriend. We were friends. And if I could get that through my head, I’d be a lot saner.
Funny—I knew before he did that he was asexual, and I’d still gone into this as if I were making friends with a straight guy. Someone who was completely off the table. I’d just assumed he was heteroromantic. However he identified, it had never once occurred to me in the beginning that we might connect like this. Otherwise, I never would have brought him anywhere near Tariq.
But I had, and now the cat was out of the bag. Tariq and Brennan hadn’t just met, they’d bonded. Tariq obviously trusted him, or he would’ve been a hysterical wreck when I’d finally arrived at the ER that night.
Which left me two choices.
One, play it safe and stay friends with Brennan. Nothing more.
Two, let this thing happen the way it wanted to happen, and see if there really was something to the way my heart skipped whenever Brennan walked in the room.
This was one of those times I wanted to fall back on my faith—remembering that Allah had already decided how this would all play out. And if our relationship was even one He approved of, which would be a subject of hot debate if my father found out about this.
Same-sex relationship aside, from where I stood the future was a giant question mark, and what happened next hinged on what I did or didn’t do. And I couldn’t stomach the idea of just sitting back and letting things happen. Not when my kid was involved. Maybe that meant I sucked at being a Muslim, but I was determined to be a good father.
So was I being a better father if I distanced myself and Tariq from Brennan? Or if I let Brennan in?
The bell on the door jingled, and the hair on my neck stood up. We’d had a steady stream of customers all day long, but somehow I knew.
And when I turned, my heart skipped.
“Hey.” Brennan smiled as he came up to the counter, skateboard under his arm as usual. “I’m a little early. I hope that’s okay.”
I’m so glad you’re here.
“Yeah. Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Just, uh, have to wrap a few things, and then I’ll be ready to roll.”
“Sweet.”
As she always did when Brennan came by, Violet practically shoved me out the door, and not five minutes after he’d shown up, we were heading to my car.
I glanced at the skateboard under his arm. “You really do take that everywhere, don’t you?”
“Well, my grandma would shit herself if I brought it to church, but otherwise . . .”
We looked at each other and both laughed.
“You know, I could teach you too.” He thumped the board with his knuckle. “If you wanted.”
I eyed the board warily, then shook my head. “No, I think I’ll pass. Tariq’s tooth might not have deterred him, but I think it turned me off skating forever.”
Brennan grimaced, his cheeks coloring. “How . . . how is that healing, anyway?”
“Oh, it’s fine. I think it might’ve been a blessing in disguise, actually.”
“What? How?”
“He had to go into the dentist for X-rays a few times to make sure it wasn’t getting infected or anything.” I shrugged. “After the second or third trip, he didn’t bat an eye at going into the dentist’s office.”
“Well, I guess that’s a plus. I still hate going to the dentist.”
“Tell me about it.” I shuddered. “So, I’ll pass on skating, but Tariq obviously enjoys it.” I paused. “Thanks for doing that for him, by the way. He’s been having a ball.”
Brennan smiled. “I’m happy to teach him. He’s really got a knack for it.”
“I don’t know if that should worry me or not.”
“Well.” Brennan grinned sheepishly. “The very first time he skated, he got his tooth knocked out, and he still came back for more. So, uh, one of us created a monster. I’m not sure which.”
“Great.” I chuckled, then shrugged. “Hey, as long as he’s happy and he’s got someone to show him the ropes safely, I can’t complain.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
“I guess this means I should start investing in some equipment for him, so you don’t have to keep supplying him with loaners.” I grimaced. “Maybe for his birthday. That gives me a few months to save up.” Which means I’ll have enough for, like, one kneepad.
Brennan rubbed the backs of his fingers along his jaw. “You know, I have an employee discount. I can hook him up with some starter gear, and then if he wants to get serious later . . .”
“I can’t ask you to do that.” I swallowed. “Even with your discount, I . . . probably can’t swing it. Not for a while.”
He shook his head. “It’s no trouble. Whenever. Honestly, we can work something out, and my boss doesn’t mind me letting you use the discount as long as we don’t abuse it.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. I’d rather make sure Tariq’s got the gear he needs.”
“I . . . Thank you. It’ll mean a lot to him.” I paused. “And to me.”
Brennan smiled. “Don’t mention it.”
We reached my car, and I drove us over to my apartment. As we stepped inside, I zeroed in on Tariq, who was playing a video game on the living room floor.
He paused the game and turned around. “Brennan!”
“Hey, kiddo!” Brennan’s eyes lit up, and my stomach flipped.
They really have bonded, haven’t they?
Tariq vaulted over the back of the couch.
“Hey!” I eyed him. “What have I told you?”
He stopped, lowering his gaze. “Go around the couch, not over it.”
“Uh-huh.” I gestured toward the living room.
With a slight pout—he knew better than to stomp or huff—he walked around to where he’d been playing, then came back to us.
“That’s better.” I smiled and ruffled his hair. “Grab your jacket. We have to go.”
He disappeared down the hall
.
Kelly chuckled as she gathered her coat and purse. “He’s been pretty good about not jumping on the couch. But I’m not surprised today.”
“Why’s that?” I asked as I counted out her money.
“He’s been crazy excited all afternoon about going out this evening.”
Even as I chuckled, my stomach flipped again. “Has he?”
She nodded. “Hasn’t stopped talking about it. Or, well . . .” She gestured toward his game. “Up until he started playing, I mean.”
“Figures.” I rolled my eyes. “The video game is like kid hypnosis.”
“Doesn’t just work on kids,” Brennan muttered.
“You too?”
He nodded. “I sit down for ten minutes of Call of Duty, and the next thing I know, it’s like next Thursday.”
“So he’s not going to grow out of it?”
Kelly laughed. “Sorry, Zafir. Little boys do not grow out of video games.”
“Great . . .”
After Kelly left, Tariq came down the hall, pulling his jacket on as he did. “Are we going to eat before the movie? I’m hungry.”
“Yes, we’re going to eat before the movie.” I looked at Brennan. “You in the mood for anything in particular?”
He shrugged. “I’m game for anything.”
“Can we go to the Anchor?” Tariq asked.
“Oh, that place is awesome.” Brennan shot me a puppy-dog look. “Can we? Please?”
I groaned. “Are you sure you don’t want to go someplace with crayons?”
Tariq clicked his tongue. “The Anchor has crayons, Dad.”
Brennan gestured at him and shrugged as if to say See?
Shaking my head, I gestured at the door. “All right, all right. Let’s go.”
We piled into my car, and I took us over to the Anchor. Tariq didn’t give the kids’ menu so much as a glance—he went straight to the regular menu and ordered the big fish and chips. I cringed, but it wasn’t because I thought his eyes were bigger than his stomach. My sister had warned me about this phase—when a growing kid started eating everything in sight.
