by Amy Lane
“Hated that movie,” Elton said with feeling.
“Word.” Larx was standing close enough to offer a fist bump, and the atmosphere of the room lightened up a little when they flamed out together. “No tragic ending. No Larx in Kevlar facing armor-piercing bullets. I’m just going to be calling people and giving Eamon up-to-date info on where we think she is. It’ll be easier when I’m in the car—and I’m pretty sure I’ll be in the back, in the gross part, where the perps sit.”
The girls grimaced, because boys were still disgusting, apparently, and Larx was glad.
Truth was, those cars had reinforced paneling and good reception—Larx could use his phone and borrow a tablet and basically look up everything he’d need to in order to figure out where one teenaged girl, no matter how closemouthed, could have gotten off to.
Eamon was right—he was needed. But he couldn’t go with his kids losing their shit either.
“No risks,” Kellan said, voice shaking. “No risks. You gotta promise us, Larx. No risks.”
Larx nodded. Easy promise. “Guys—I already got shot in October, remember? I’m all there with the no-risks thing. I swear.”
But after a round of hugs, Larx excused himself to talk to Kirby’s sisters—and had to hide the shakes in his own hands.
God, they’d never forgive him. Nobody in that room would ever forgive him if he went out and got hurt.
It wasn’t until right then, as he tried to fit his mind around how he was going to go out into danger, just like Aaron had, that he realized his hands were shaking with anger.
He had to crouch in the hallway, wrapping his arms around his knees, biting his palm to control the sheer growl of fury.
Aaron had gotten shot.
Aaron had gotten shot. He’d told Larx to stay in the car, and Larx had agreed, thinking it wasn’t a big deal and Aaron was being overcautious, and Aaron had gotten shot.
Kellan’s words about just having a family, just now having someone to love him, and please, please don’t take that away, rang in Larx’s ears.
God, that kid was brave.
And Larx wasn’t. Larx was a fucking coward, because that kid—with all he’d been through this year—had said what all the other kids in the room were thinking, and Larx hadn’t been able to tell Aaron this, not a word of it, not a moment.
He was so angry—at Aaron, at himself, at the situation—that he was pretty sure his throat would have closed up with rage.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Candace Furman needed him to think.
His kids needed him to come home.
Aaron needed him to, for sweet Christ’s sake, stop freaking the fuck out.
And Eamon needed him back in an hour—two at the most—with his phone charged and his head on straight so nobody else got shot.
Larx stopped his shaking with sheer force of will.
He had to concentrate. Every joint in his body ached with exhaustion, but he shoved himself up the side of the wall and pulled out the phone. Taking Kirby’s advice, he dialed Tiff’s number first.
“Ugh… whoever you are, you’re waking me up.”
Larx bit back a retort. This was probably funny with her friends—typical twentysomething bitching, and Larx had no place to judge.
“Tiffany? Uh, this is Mr. Larkin—Larx—”
“Oh God. Is Dad all right?”
And that fast, she went from demanding, needy bitch to vulnerable girl. Larx’s stomach cramped, reminding him that he’d been the one to make Aaron hold off judgment, to try something else with her besides just kicking her out of Aaron’s house outright that Christmas.
“He’s fine,” Larx soothed. “He had… he had an incident super early this morning, but he’s out of surgery and recovering well—”
“Incident?” she asked suspiciously. “Wait—that usually means… oh my God, he was shot? Didn’t he have his vest on?”
“He did,” Larx explained. “But vests only protect from penetration, not from impact. The impact broke a couple of ribs, and they punctured his lung and his spleen and his kidneys. The doctor stitched him up fine—he’s talking and breathing okay, but his lung’s being inflated, and of course they still worry about infection. But right now, prognosis is good. The doctor thinks he can come home sometime next week, but we’ll see.”
“That’s not fine, Larx,” Tiffany shrilled. “That’s the opposite of fine.”
“Yeah, I know.” Larx sighed, more naked with Tiffany, a hostile element, than he had been with the vulnerable people he was supposed to be strong for. “It’s not fine for any of us. Not for your father, not for your brother, and believe it or not, not for me or my kids either. None of us are fine. But we’re all breathing, and I just wanted you to know.”
“Great. Thanks a fucking lot. Now I know. What do you want me to do?”
Larx closed his eyes. “You could always text him with ‘I love you, Daddy,’ but since you never did that even before we started dating, I don’t know why you’d start now. Or, hey, maybe a phone call when you don’t need money. That would be fucking awesome, but I’m not talking about a miracle here. Maybe—just fucking maybe—you could say you’re glad he’s not dead. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear that, but don’t put yourself out.”
He clapped his hand over his mouth. Oh God. He’d said that. He’d said that. All that shit you weren’t supposed to say because you were the adult and you didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings and because you were supposed to exercise empathy before enmity, and God. He’d just flushed all that shit out the window, hadn’t he?
A vision of a flushing toilet and a window almost catapulted him to the psych ward, but he pulled himself together.
“What in the hell do you know about it?” she snapped. “Who died and made you a part of my family?”
He actually gaped at the phone.
“Uh, Tiffany?”
“What?”
“I’m going to hang up now before you realize what you just said. Your father loves you—he does. I called you to honor that, because he’d want you informed. I offered to do it for your little brother, and he’s a bit of a mess, so he took me up on it. He seemed to feel you’d take it badly. Go figure. Maybe—and don’t take this the wrong way—maybe you might want to talk to somebody about the chip on your shoulder, but right now? Your family needs you to either grow the fuck up or keep your anger to yourself. Your dad getting hurt was not personal to you, any more than him falling in love with me was. They are things that happened because he’s Aaron, not things that happened because he’s Tiffany’s dad. So tell him you love him, then stay off the phone. He’ll be fine.”
Larx hung up and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he realized Kellan was standing there, one of those awkward expressions on his face that told Larx he’d been listening to more than he should have.
“Oh God,” Larx moaned, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “How much of that did you hear?”
“So much,” Kellan said, nodding. “You’ve got it on speaker—you don’t like the heat against your ear, either, do you?”
“There used to be a thing about brain cancer,” Larx said weakly.
Kellan and looked sideways. “You were pretty awesome. You need to know that. And good call on her bullshit being hers. Whatever makes her that awful, I don’t think it has anything to do with Aaron or her mom. Kirby and Maureen are… you know. They’re all okay inside. Maybe she heard something or saw something, or maybe she’s just one of those people who has vinegar in her soul.”
Larx smiled at him, some of his anger healing, and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Vinegar in her soul—that’s good.”
“Mr. Nakamoto had a thing on metaphors last month. I really liked it.”
Kellan used to have a problem with any class Isaiah wasn’t leading him through by the teeth. Maybe living with his principal made him think school was better—or maybe it was hugs, every day, and people who smiled at him instead of yelled.
Maybe
it was that he was growing up and realizing school was a choice, and so was cleaning his room.
“Mr. Nakamoto is a good teacher,” Larx said wistfully. “He’s wasted as my VP, but I can’t give him up.”
Kellan shrugged, some of his usual restlessness showing in the way he moved his body. Time for Kellan to go home and take his Adderall, feed the chickens, and chase the dog around the snow for a while. “Yeah, well, I lucked out. I get you both. But I came to ask you something—it’s sort of… I don’t know. Tactical.”
Larx grimaced. “Where’s everybody going to stay? I figured Aaron’s place. I’m pretty sure I said Olivia and Elton can go there.”
Kellan nodded, biting his lip. “You’re sure, right?”
Larx was tired—but he wasn’t that tired. “Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. I mean, we kept airing that place out, and I kept expecting… I don’t know. That you’d figure your house was too crowded for me.”
And now Larx was really awake. “No. No, Kellan. No, you are not moving out. I meant what I said in October. You. My house. For… well, through junior college, at least. Adopted child.”
He shrugged again, and Larx was starting to hate that gesture. “Yeah, but… you know. Jaime now—”
“Is that why you offered him your room? Like… you were getting ready to be kicked out?” Oh hell no.
“It’s just… it’s been really nice,” Kellan said, nodding. “Just… having somewhere good to live. And I… you know. Wanted you to know I got it. I can’t take all of it. So—”
Larx hugged him, suddenly, almost angrily. “You are special,” he said quietly, adding an extra squeeze. “And not because you’re gay, and not because Isaiah got hurt. You were special to me because you are just like me, and I needed to be special when I was your age. You are ours—and Jaime and his brother may be with us for a while, but they won’t be you. You have your own room. You have your own cat at night—Trixie won’t let anyone else touch her. You have a place. Forever. You will bring Isaiah or any other boyfriend to our house for the holidays. When someone says ‘Where’s your family?’ on a form, you will put my address. You. Are. Ours.”
Ours.
His and Aaron’s.
In the pit of his stomach, a hard knot loosened.
Because no matter how pissed off he was, they were still they. The things—the people—they had, were still “ours.” That had not changed since October, and yes, October wasn’t that long ago—but neither was last night.
When he’d looked at a future without Aaron full-on and realized his heart stopped.
Kellan pulled away and smiled a little. “Were you really like me when you were young?” he asked shyly.
“Someday I will tell you stories,” Larx promised, remembering the lost, hyperactive teenager he’d been. Larx hadn’t found the love of his life to settle him down then. He’d found a caring principal and a good friend, and that had done it instead.
“Someday,” Kellan echoed. “But not now. I guess now I’m supposed to go eat, but Olivia got us through the line and forgot her card.”
Larx refrained from rolling his eyes and pulled out his wallet and a chunk of cash.
And synapses he hadn’t known were still working started to fire. “Here,” he said distractedly. “You go pay for everybody’s brunch. I’ve got to call Maureen and Yoshi. Eamon and I really do have to get a move on.”
The phone call with Maureen went much better than the one with Tiffany—as evidenced by the fact that Maureen said something about her sister as Larx was hanging up.
“Larx, I really appreciate you calling me. I know Tiff’s being sort of a bitch about it, but she knows it’s not your fault.”
Larx closed his eyes and tried to drink in the approval from Aaron’s other daughter. “Mau?” he asked tentatively, wishing he and Maureen had more time together under other circumstances. “Is there… did something happen to Tiffany after your mom died? Did… I don’t know. Was there something… extra awful going on there? Her level of hostility—it’s just so… not your dad. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. There was this really weird week when we thought we were moving in with Grandma and Grandpa, and then Dad said no, we were staying home. Grandma kept laying some weird sort of guilt trip on Tiff about how she had to raise us all because Dad wasn’t capable. Sometimes I think it really sunk in.”
Oh God help them all. “Well. That’s unfortunate.” Because he was tired and he had a lot he wanted to say there, but dammit, time.
“Yeah. I know. It’s not something you can fix—but you called us when shit got bad, and that’s important.” Her voice wobbled, and Aaron’s most practical child sounded like a young woman—like Olivia, or Christiana—again. “It’s really important. Should I come visit? He’s going to be… I mean, I could come this weekend, you know?”
Larx sighed. “He’ll still be in the hospital this weekend. But as long as you don’t mind a crowded house—and that’s your house that’s getting crowded, not just mine, because God, this week!—I’m sure he’d love that.”
Maureen gave a clogged laugh. “Thanks, Larx. I’ll call him later and see. I… I guess I take him for granted sometimes. I shouldn’t. You just never want to think about your dad out there getting hurt.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think your sister wanted that either.”
They rang off, and Larx started pacing in the corridor, trying to get the thread of thought back from where it was before he called Maureen.
In a way, it was comforting.
No kids, not his, not Aaron’s. No injured feelings. No fear of grief. Just pure high school administration. Doing what he’d always done best—look at students as people.
If he was a scared, lost female person who was running from her abusive stepfather and stepbrother, where would he go?
More importantly, how would he prepare, if he’d been getting ready to go the night before?
What would he have with him besides just a good hat, jacket, and boots?
Where would he be planning to stay?
Oh! And where would he get the money for his plan?
Okay. Okay. Larx had a line of questioning now, and he had a—
His phone beeped in his hand.
With a grunt he went back into Aaron’s room to hook his phone up to the charger and recharge Olivia’s power station.
Goddammit. He’d been on a roll too.
BY THE time the kids came back from food, his phone was at 85 percent, Eamon was starting to snore, and Aaron had woken up twice asking for Larx.
Larx had come to his side each time, a familiar portion of his heart lighting up. Larx recognized it as the same part of his body that shivered whenever he and Aaron neared Aaron’s house as they ran.
Aaron wanted him.
And in spite of all the other crap they were both dealing with, that was still somehow a magical thing.
That magic gave him the strength to kiss Aaron’s temple and tell him he’d be back soon before Aaron lapsed back into his healing doze. Olivia and the kids came by to tell them that Elton was all checked out of the hospital, and they’d go get his clothes from the towing company tomorrow, provided there wasn’t any more snow.
Larx hugged everybody, shook Elton’s hand, and looked at the sky through the hospital door. Yeah. Wombat Boy was going to be running around in borrowed clothes for the next week, Larx didn’t have any doubt. He’d tell Olivia to keep the guy away from his boxers, but he had the feeling Kirby and Kellan were going to make more clothes sacrifices to the wombat gods than Larx and Aaron—they were all about the same size.
As soon as they were gone, he shook Eamon awake.
“Sorry, sir,” he said quietly. “But it’s been two hours. I need to talk to Yoshi and have him search my laptop, but I think I have some ideas for where to look.”
Eamon yawned and stretched, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Two hours isn’t what it used to be. B
ut thanks for the extra time. I might not crash and kill us both.”
“That’s reassuring,” Larx said dryly. “Let me say goodbye to Aaron one more time—”
Eamon stopped him. “Let him sleep. He knows you want to be here, Larx. Just like you know he wants to be with us. Go call Yoshi—I’m going to use the head to rinse and spit.”
Larx nodded. “Toiletries in the hospital bathroom, if it will help.”
“Oh thank God. My breath could kill a squirrel in a tree.”
Larx gave a rusty chuckle, grabbed his phone, and stepped outside the unit to call Yoshi. It was time to pretend he was a professional again.
WHITEOUT
“OKAY, YOSH, you got my laptop open?”
Larx had started the call in the hallway while pulling on his snow parka and lacing his boots. Kirby and Kellan had gone together for Christmas and gotten him a cashmere scarf—warm, soft, and a muted denim blue, it was such a guy thing—and so practical.
It was going to save Larx’s life in weather where you either followed the snow plow or you didn’t make it to the store.
“Larx, you just told me your kids are on the way over. Quick, I need to hide the hookers and blow.”
Larx choke-snorted even as he made sure his parka was zipped. “The only blow you know how to do is the clarinet—don’t lie.”
“Oh my God, you even guessed the instrument. Now seriously—I’ve got the laptop open, but before I go snooping, how are you doing?”
Larx tried to think about his morning, and his brain froze. “Uh….”
“Awesome. Emotional constipation. It’ll be like defrosting an engine in Minnesota.”
“Yet another thing you’ve never done—”
“I’ve read books. You have to start an actual fire under the car to melt the oil enough to travel through the car or you’ll fuck up your vehicle.”
