by Amy Lane
“The thing with Dad….” She cleared her throat. “The thing with Dad is that he’s sort of larger than life, you know? I mean, sure, he’ll tell you he’s lost his shit before, but he’s always had a plan. He’s always seemed to know exactly what to do. Even when he was trying to feed us something godawful because he hadn’t learned to cook yet, there was always a can of refried beans, some cheese, and some tortillas, you know? He just didn’t want plain. He wanted awesome, and he got it a lot. So… so when I really screwed up….”
Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hear you. Shower, honey. Get over here. I’ll stay until you’re here. Bring some jammies if you want—they’ll let you sleep on a cot.” Aaron glanced over his shoulder to where Elton was playing with his IV tube and scowling suspiciously at the bag hanging from the stand. “I think they’ll be relieved you’re there.”
AN HOUR later, Aaron looked up from his tablet where he’d been filling out his paperwork and greeted Olivia at the door of Elton’s room. Elton himself was dozing, the almost-blue circles under his eyes a testament to a really long day with a fairly climactic end.
Later, Aaron would say the look on Olivia’s face at that moment was a signal of all that was to come.
The tenseness around her eyes and mouth that had aged her since Christmas eased up, and she bit her lip, a softness in her chin telling him all he needed to know about her “random hookup” and what had followed.
No matter what her state of mind now, no matter how she’d felt when the relationship began, she cared for this boy. She cared a lot. All that remained to see was why she’d pushed him away.
Aaron stood and opened his arms, like he did for Christiana and his own daughters, and Olivia rushed into them without hesitation. It was a gift, he thought, from her father, that she could accept affection so easily—at least from father figures.
“How’s he doing?” she asked quietly.
“He’s sore and tired.” Aaron shrugged. “Hurt.”
Olivia grimaced. “Okay. My job. I need to fix that. I’ll wait until he wakes—”
“Olivia?”
That quickly, her attention was diverted. “El? You okay?”
She wiggled out from Aaron’s arm and snagged the chair he’d been sitting in so she could pull it close to the bed. Aaron stepped in and lowered the rail so she could talk to him intimately—he got the feeling they were at that stage.
“You’ve got snow here, Olivia. What in the fuck is snow doing in California?”
She hmmed and stroked his hair back from his eyes. “What in the fuck is a desert dweller doing in the mountains?” she chided. “Seriously, El—what were you thinking?”
The hurt on his face was hard for Aaron to see. “I was thinking I missed you. We hung out for months and… and one good night and… bam. No you. Wanted you back.”
“Aw, Elton,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I… I put off, you know. Being with you. ’Cause….” She swallowed. “I wasn’t in a place to be with anyone, you know?”
Elton nodded, then grimaced, and Aaron moved back toward the door, torn between going to get him a nurse with some pain meds for his head and staying here and watching through this intimate window to get a glimpse of what was going on inside Larx’s daughter.
“You kept saying,” Elton said. “And I didn’t press, and then, Thanksgiving and you were so sad and—”
“And I… I just wanted to make the pain go away,” she finished, her voice choking. “And you were so kind. But I didn’t want to pull you down with me. And then things got complicated. I’m so sorry. I know I hurt you, but I thought you’d get over me. I just… I didn’t want to keep hurting you, because I’m… I’m not good inside.”
Elton raised a shaking hand to her cheek, and Aaron took his cue to go get the nurse. It wasn’t until he felt the cool air hit his own cheek that he realized he was crying too.
Oh, Olivia. Why couldn’t you say something?
AARON HAD pulled himself together by the time he got back with the nurse, and Elton squinted up at him as she added some painkiller to his IV.
“Olivia, I thought your dad worked at the school?”
Olivia sniffled and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, smiling a little when Aaron offered her a Kleenex. “This isn’t my dad—he’s more like my stepdad. But he’s nice too.”
“Your stepdad. But… but you don’t live with your mom….”
Olivia’s mouth twisted in amusement, and she raised her eyebrows at Aaron, mouthing “Five… four… three… two… one….”
“I don’t understand,” Elton moaned.
“He’s my dad’s boyfriend,” she said, holding her face carefully neutral, and Aaron suddenly knew what that cost her.
“Oh.” She had her back to Elton, but Aaron saw the sudden comprehension his face. “Oh! Oh! I get it!” He looked confused again. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s sort of cool!”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she turned toward him again. “That’s sort of cool that you think so,” she said. She took a step toward the bed and squeezed his hand. “I’m going to go talk to Aaron for a minute, then I’ll come ba—”
“I’m going to get to meet him, right?” Elton asked. He smiled apologetically at Aaron. “You were awesome, Mr. Sheriff George. I mean…. Dude. You’ve been great. But. You know. I’ve heard about her dad all year.”
“I’m new,” Aaron said, liking Elton more every time he opened his mouth. “And yes.” He looked at Olivia with meaning in his eyes.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding back. “You’ll get to meet Larx. It’ll be fun.”
“A laugh riot,” Aaron muttered just as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He stepped in to hug her and took a sec to ruffle Elton’s hair—gently. “Hang tough, kid. I gotta get home before the snow’s too thick.” He hugged Olivia again. “Call us before you start home—especially if you’re bringing Elton with you. We’ll fix up my house—you guys can have some privacy.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Thanks, Aaron. You… you’re really really like my dad, you know that?”
Aaron grunted. “It’s the dad thing. It takes over our personalities sometimes.” He checked his phone and winced. “And I really gotta go.”
He took a step toward the door and turned back to her. “Olivia?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t keep secrets from your dad. I’ll tell him a friend from school wrecked his car coming to see you, and you know what he’s going to say?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Tell him what you need to.”
“As long as we’re clear.”
She nodded, and he left just as Elton muttered, “But what does that mean?”
Well, as much as he’d love to be a fly on the wall for the rest of that conversation, it wasn’t his place, and it wasn’t Larx’s either.
He hoped Larx felt that way too.
He hit speakerphone as soon as he was outside and had warmed up the SUV. “Larx? You’re home, right?”
“Yeah—all of us except Olivia. Christi said she took off in her car—”
“Uh, yeah. Don’t worry about Olivia. She’s safe. I’ll talk to you when I get home. Do you need me to bring dinner?”
“We’re on it, Deputy—eggs, chips, and—” He changed the pitch of his voice. “What are we doing for a green again?”
There were a few moments of absolute silence.
“Uh…,” Larx said into the phone, as though at a loss.
“Sautéed green beans with bacon,” Aaron shot back, because bacon.
“Microwaved brussels sprouts with fakin!” Larx crowed, like his answer was better because his was healthy.
“No,” Aaron said in numb horror, relieved when Kirby and Kellan echoed the sentiment behind him.
“God, no! Larx, please!” Kirby wailed.
“Larx—it smells like chicken farts!” Kellan voiced, and then, on the heels of that, came Kirby’s voice again.
“Dude, you are getting way too
friendly with our chickens.”
“Shut up! You know what I mean!”
“He means it smells like raw sewage,” Kirby said resentfully.
“Not with butter and Bac-Os!” Larx told him, all enthusiasm. “Trust me! A little garlic salt, it’s practically parmesan wine sauce!”
“No, it’s not,” Aaron muttered.
“No, it’s not!” the boys wailed.
“Can we use the butter powder, Dad?” Christiana chimed in, because apparently Larx had them all on speaker now. “It’s better for us, even if it’s higher in sodium.”
“Suck-up,” Kirby told her bluntly.
“No, no, she actually has a point,” Kellan said, and Aaron called out “Traitor!” because that boy had been his last best hope.
Larx cackled and told them to get to it, and then Aaron could hear the change of venue as he moved from the kitchen into the quieter living room. For a moment, as Aaron peered through the darkness and the thickly falling flakes of snow, he could picture Larx tucked into the corner of the couch, his feet pulled up under him, one arm wrapped around his knees as he tried to hide in the shadows of his own house. Olivia had called him “larger than life”—but then, Larx had always tried to make himself dependable to her. She never got to see Larx tired, vulnerable, second-guessing his every move as he tried to pilot his ship of family through the reefs and shoals of real life.
That was Aaron’s job now.
“So,” Larx said into the sudden quiet. “Where’d Olivia go?”
“A friend of hers came up to visit from school and plowed his car into a snowdrift,” Aaron said. “She’s staying overnight in the hospital to keep him company.”
“Oh.”
That was a very dangerous sound.
“Yes.”
“A friend.”
“Yes,” Aaron answered promptly.
“A male friend?” Larx clarified.
“I believe I said.”
The next sound Larx made was a very careful breath in through his nose and out through his mouth.
“Was this a specific kind of male friend?”
Aaron knew this was deadly serious, but he fought the urge to chuckle, because Larx had not originally been a patient man—and sometimes his white-knuckled grip on his fly-off-the-handle self was damned entertaining.
“Yes, Larx. That male friend. He’s a sweet kid, actually—he got lost because all he knew about Olivia was that her father worked at Colton High. She….” Aaron hated to be the one to tell him this. “She sort of treated him badly. If nothing else, he deserved an answer to why she bugged out after Thanksgiving.”
“Mm.” The sound lost a lot of Larx’s original starch.
“‘Mm’ what?”
“Not a bad kid?” Like Aaron’s opinion really mattered.
“You’ll like him,” Aaron promised. “He’s sort of a doofus, actually—but a sweet doofus. He wasn’t stalking her—I think he was just worried. I guess they’d been friends all semester and she….”
Oh God.
“She what?”
For a moment Aaron peered into the darkness and drove, making sure he had total control over his vehicle on the icy roads and his tongue on the suddenly slippery terrain of his relationship.
“She said the reason she put off having a relationship in the first place was that she wasn’t feeling right. Like she was depressed all semester, and then Thanksgiving, and—”
“The fucking cat,” Larx muttered.
“Yeah. The cat died and she wasn’t home. And, you know….”
“Comfort,” Larx said. “With someone safe. I get it.”
“And kind,” Aaron felt compelled to add. “Larx, he’s really sweet. I think… I think if Olivia can get her head on okay, he’ll be a good person to have in her life, no matter what capacity.”
“That’s very diplomatic of you, Deputy,” Larx said dryly. Then he heaved a big sigh. “Thanks for telling me. I mean, you could have just told me it was Olivia’s business—”
“I told her I’d tell you,” Aaron said, absurdly proud. “I don’t keep secrets from you. I couldn’t from Caro; I won’t from you.”
Larx hmmed. “Okay. That’s reassuring, actually. Except you do manage to be pretty tight-lipped when there’s danger, but we’re working on that, so that’s okay.”
Oh thank heaven. “You’re not mad?”
“Mad?”
“That I called Olivia and not you?”
Larx snorted. “So I could go get a shotgun and make that varmint marry my helpless little girl?”
And Aaron had to laugh. “Guess not,” he said softly. “Larx?”
“Yeah?”
“You know how you said you loved me because I wasn’t going to torture the guy with the ganja prescription?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you because you knew why I called Olivia first without even asking.”
“This is good,” Larx said, sounding pleased. “This is promising.”
It was Aaron’s turn to snort. “Promising? Like me moving my chickens in wasn’t sort of a promise?”
“Well, yes. You did come with a trousseau, Deputy, but there were particulars to work out.”
“Shit!” The SUV bucked and tried to get away from him, and Aaron steered it back on track. “Larx, how about we save the rest of the convo for when I get home. This snow is getting thicker by the minute, and I need to watch the road.”
“Love you,” Larx said. “Stay safe.”
“Love you back.”
Aaron peered into the darkness, being very careful to take care of Larx’s property the whole time.
FRIGID DARKNESS
WITHOUT THE shadow of Olivia hovering over the dinner table, Larx felt himself relax for the first time in three days.
He chatted with the kids, made time for a moment or two with Christi, and then, finally, when he and Aaron were doing dishes together, he had a breath to talk.
“Nice?” he asked for the fiftieth time.
“Adorable,” Aaron said, sounding totally serious. “He’s like a wombat—a creature of no hostility, a great deal of fuzz around his chin, and considerable cuteness. They may forget to pay the gas bill, but they’ll love that kid warm by sheer will.”
Larx let out a brief laugh and then sobered.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Aaron looked uncomfortable then, focusing all his attention to the dishes in the sink. “Larx, she was depressed before this happened. To the point of putting off a relationship with the wombat of her dreams. And now she’s pregnant and still not even close to happy. How’s she going to take care of a baby when she’s too depressed to take care of herself?”
Larx set the cup he was drying down with a thunk.
She’d slept for three days.
His whirlwind, his butterfly—she’d been in hibernation.
He was starting to be afraid she couldn’t break free of the stasis she’d been locked in for days.
“I’m….” He let out a breath. So many years—his girls, his classroom, his high school—he’d been the one people came to. The girls depended on him to have a plan—“What’s for dinner, Dad? When can we turn the heater on? Can we have a cat—or three?” The students depended on him to have a plan—“What are going to do today, Larx? What’s the assignment, the lab, the lecture?” The teachers depended on him to have a plan for everything—“Where’s the money gonna come from for the field trip? Who’s running snack bar at the basketball game? Who has student activities this year?” All these plans, all the damned activity he’d spent his life immersed in, and he had no plan for this.
“I’m….” He inhaled and exhaled again, trying to clear his mind. “I should just… just take her in. Call the mental health department, take her in for an evaluation. She’s… she’s reasonable. I tell her I’m worried, she says, ‘I’ll put your mind at rest, Daddy!’ and….” He shuddered. “Except it won’t be like that, will it? Because she’ll go in, and they’ll tel
l her something is wrong, and we both know how this goes. It will get worse—and it will get messy. It always does before a person gets help. And… and she’s lost.”
She was lost and in pain, and Larx didn’t have a plan.
“I don’t have a plan,” he muttered, trying to breathe. Him and Aaron—equals. He had to pull his own weight. Aaron didn’t sign on for this. He’d looked grandfatherhood in the eye without blinking, but this was different. This was Larx’s kid, and she was about to demand a lion’s share of his time, and more than that, if she was going to have this child and not be up to taking care of it, that would put him and Aaron on deck, and that was a whole lot different than being Grandpa, and Larx wasn’t sure he knew what to do with that. Larx was just getting good at captaining the school ship and just getting used to coming home and knowing there was another grown-up there who cared about him and Christiana, and now Kellan, and Larx loved Kirby too, and what was he going to do if Aaron decided to take his kid and his chickens and bail out of this madhouse and—
Aaron’s hands, warm, wide-palmed, and grounding, settled on his shoulders.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly, nuzzling Larx’s temple.
“I…. God help me, Aaron, I don’t have a plan.”
“Of course you don’t.” Aaron wrapped his arms around Larx’s shoulders and pulled Larx back against his wide, strong body. “Who’s got a plan for this? My kid showed up for Christmas wearing Class-A Bitch Body Armor—I didn’t have a plan for that. It took a week and a half to come up with something that wouldn’t result in jail time.”
Larx couldn’t laugh. His brain was chasing around in circles as he tried to put it all into perspective—Olivia, sad and in pain, a wombat boyfriend, a baby on the way—and all he got was an image of an injured wombat, wailing in a hole.
“Daddy!” Christi called from the living room. “Are you guys coming to watch TV?”
“Dad’s having a moment,” Aaron called back. “Start the show without us.”
“Having a moment?” Larx repeated, feeling indignant. “What’s that mean?”
Aaron’s arms tightened. “It means life threw you a curveball and you’re sizing up the pitch before you swing. Now come on. You were telling me something about a student when I called—finish. It might be important.”
