“Thanks, everyone,” he muttered as he went to the cake and blew out the candles.
His mom stood behind him with her hand on his uninjured shoulder. “We’re al so proud of you, baby.”
“That’s right.” Greg, a huge bear of a man with long brown hair and pockmarked skin, stepped forward to hand him a box. “We took up a col ection for you at the club. Hope you like it.”
Their kindness touched him. It felt more like a birthday than a return home from the hospital.
Ripping the box open, he found a Street Fighter video game and a T-shirt that said: nick gautier. superhero of the day.
Nick didn’t have the heart to tel them that he didn’t have a gaming system here. Any more than he could tel them that he hadn’t been a hero. He’d only been trying to make something right that he’d let go terribly wrong.
“Thanks, everyone. I real y appreciate it.” Tiffany stepped around Greg and pul ed an envelope out of the box. “You forgot this.”
Nick handed the box to his mom before he took the envelope, but since his left arm was stil in a sling, he couldn’t open it.
“Here, child.” Menyara took it and opened it for him.
He gaped as he saw five twenty-dol ar bil s in her hand.
“What’s that for?”
Tiffany smiled. “Your col ege fund. We know it’s not much, but it’l cover most of the days of work you missed while you were in the hospital.”
He looked at his mom, who was smiling in gratitude. But he didn’t feel grateful. He felt weird about it, especial y knowing how hard al of them worked for it. “I can’t take this.” John snorted. “Take it. Don’t make me have to whup your butt and put you back in the hospital, snotwad. Just be grateful for it and don’t ever spend it on drugs or cheap women ’cause I know what I’d have done with it at your age and we’re al raising you to be better than that.”
Nick didn’t know what to say. “Thanks, guys. I real y appreciate it.”
Then someone turned up the music to play Aerosmith’s
“Walk This Way” and the party started even though it was hard to move in their smal condo. Then again, the dancers were used to being up on the thin catwalk in the club so they did what they did best and made his face so red with their dance moves that he was sure it glowed neon.
Nick took the money to his jar they kept under the kitchen sink and dropped the twenties inside while his mom and Menyara cut the cake and handed out slices to everyone.
“You okay, child?”
He nodded as Menyara handed him his cake and a plastic fork. “Just tired.”
There was something in her gaze that made him wonder if she could read his mind. It was eerie.
“Your mom told me that you’l be working for a man named Kyrian Hunter. Is that so?”
“Yeah. I gotta pay him back for the hospital bil s.”
“Then I want you to watch yourself, Nicholas. This man, he’s
…”
When she didn’t finish the sentence, he finished for her.
“Evil?”
She laughed and brushed her hand through his hair. “No, not evil. But working for him wil change you, I think. Hopeful y for the better. I just wanted to say that you should be very careful with what you learn from others and who you let into your life.”
Her emotionless tone gave him pause. Mennie knew things, lots of things, before they happened. Her clairvoyance was unrivaled. “Is that your wicked psychic powers talking again?”
“Maybe it’s my wicked overprotective ways.” She kissed him on the brow. “You be a good boy for me, Nicholas. Always.
”
“Yeah, okay.” He wasn’t intending to be a bad one, since the last time he’d done that hadn’t gone wel for him. As it was, his shoulder was on fire and he had months of painful therapy ahead to get his arm to work right again.
Believe me, I’m done with this. Next time he saw Alan and group, they were the ones who were going to be limping.
’ Cause I’m gonna put my foot so far up their butts they’re going to burp shoe leather.
Or in the case of Nick’s cheap shoes, man-made material, whatever that was.
He frowned as she stepped away to join his mother and Tiffany. There was something cold in the air that made his neck tingle.
Dismissing it, he ate his cake then joined the others, who kept playing old seventies songs. Gah, could we please move the music forward to the correct decade? What is it with old people and their music?
Wel , at least it wasn’t disco.
The party didn’t last too long, since his mom was afraid of making him too tired. One by one they left until it was just him, his mom, and Mennie.
At his mom’s urging, Nick headed to his bed while they cleaned up. He was on the verge of fal ing asleep when his mom disturbed him.
“You ready to go back to school tomorrow?” Hardly. He’d real y like a few more decades before he had to go back and face the mutant idiots. …