“No. What do I look like?”
“No gloves, then.”
Two rounds. Six minutes with this old fart who got in a single sucker punch? And for that I could just go home without a record?
I had no illusions about turning my life around, but why get a jump on a criminal record? Why not put it off until the next time I did some inevitable bonehead shit? I’d rather go home and go to bed. Give Mom a night off crying. She could use a break.
“I’m not going to take it easy on you just because you’re a cop.”
“Don’t expect you to.”
“Or because you’re old.”
“That’s the spirit.”
He pulled into a parking lot off Madrona, right in his police cruiser like he had nothing better to do. Like his time was his own. He opened the back door for me.
“Great gig,” I said. “My mom leaves the register five minutes every three hours to piss. You just park wherever and go to the gym whenever.”
“Benefits of not being an asshole, kid.”
He indicated an open door at the other end of the lot. Men shouted from inside. Above the doorway was a hand-painted sign. ACE OF SPADES.
“Name’s Carter.”
“You can call me Officer Muldoon.”
I went up the stairs and stepped into manhood.
Phin wasn’t in bed. He was hunched over his computer, freckles glowing in the bright light.
“Where’s Grandma?”
“Bed.” He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. He filled in little squares with color, clicked shit I didn’t understand, moved boxes around. “Wanna see?”
“What is it?”
He hit the spacebar, and a little green snail undulated up and down as if it was moving across a leaf. Its smile went from a straight grin to a toothy D when it was highest.
“Cute,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. I moved it off when I saw my torn knuckles. I didn’t want him to notice them. But Phin didn’t miss a goddamn thing. Ever.
He put up his fist. “Show me the size of your heart, Dad.”
I put up my left fist. “This big.”
He put up both fists. “Double bump.”
Too clever. I couldn’t say no to a double without it being called out. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen my knuckles anyway. I put up both fists and we bumped.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Did you not tape your hands?”
He thought I’d been boxing. I hadn’t. I’d been fucking shit up. My life revolved around being a good example for him. Beating the hell out of a stalker and lying about it wasn’t going to cut it.
So I made it worse.
“Just a scrape. How was school?”
He shrugged.
“What? Not great? Not the best ever?”
“Today was twins day.”
I kicked my shoes off and sat in the chair by his desk.
“What’s twins day?”
“It’s for spirit week. Everyone dresses like someone. Never mind.” He turned back to his computer, changed windows, and started working on some gobbledygook of letters and symbols. The chattering kid had disappeared with his first growth spurt.
“Did you wear your Emperor Palpatine costume?”
“No, not like that. Like someone else in homeroom.”
“Ah.”
He typed like lightning. I let him code. If I pressed him, he wouldn’t tell me shit.
“Everyone had a twin but me.”
“There is an even number of kids in the class.”
“Cooper, Leshawn, and Jarred went as triplets. I was no one. I called five people, and they all said they had a twin already.”
I clenched and unclenched my fist. It was getting tight already. The wrist ached. Going after that douche had been a huge mistake. He could go away, but he could come back harder. I was going to be responsible for Emily whether she was my principal or not.
I’d known it, and even as I said I didn’t want that, once the anger cleared, I knew she was the size, shape, and intention of my heart whether I liked it or not.
“It’s hard to find people who understand you,” I said. “Not just you. Anyone.”
“Everyone else had someone who understood them.”
“They had someone to dress like them. Not the same.”
He shrugged. All the explanations were in that shrug. He wasn’t complaining about how people understood him. He just wanted to belong. That was all any middle schooler wanted.
“Do you want to switch schools?”
“No. I’m fine.”
I watched him for a minute. Coding had predictable outcomes. If he made a mistake, something went wrong. If he corrected the mistake, the code worked. There were no secret social cues. No people calling themselves your friend, then excluding you. No stalkers hiding behind people who said they loved you.
He went back to the black screen and hit the spacebar. It exploded in orange bubbles, which popped, creating yellow bubbles, which popped and became green, and on and on.
“You’re going to be okay, kid.”
“Yeah.”
“If you get to bed. It’s late.”
“What time is it?” He’d gone back to the code to correct some flaw I hadn’t seen.
“Ten thirty.”
“Ten minutes.”
“None.” I reached over to the keyboard, he fought me, and we wrestled for control of the computer for a few minutes before I declared victory.
CHAPTER 20
EMILY
I’d gone to sleep with Carter’s kiss still on my lips and annoyance in my bones. Once I slept off the annoyance, the remnants of the kiss remained. I woke up the next morning with an unbearable heaviness between my legs.
I rolled onto my stomach and slid my hand under my panties. I was slick everywhere, and I gasped at my own touch. Forehead to mattress, I spread my legs and thought of him, his taste, the pressure of his lips, the fifth of July smell all over him. His hardness on my hip. He’d felt huge. Monstrous. Maybe my perception was off, because I hadn’t shared myself with a man in ages, but still. When I slid my finger inside, the space seemed completely inadequate for the size of him.
And that hard cock was because he kissed me and I wanted it. It was for me. When I let myself come, I made it slow so I could think of him losing control on top of me, a grunting mess of unpracticed pleasure.
I dropped to the sheet, relieved. Physically I’d let go of a building tension, and mentally I’d had a realization. As I’d imagined him letting go with me, I let go of the idea that Vince could hurt him. He was tougher, smarter, more in control than Peter. He could outsmart Vince in a heartbeat. I didn’t need to be scared for him. He could handle my brand of trouble. He already had. He’d wiped away the sting of the humiliation in the hall and turned it into no more than a stained dress.
I sighed to myself. All that was great, but I still had the sneaking suspicion that despite the bare ring finger, he had a wife, or an involved ex-wife, or a fiancée.
The sun was just rising, making the white curtains glow. Behind them, at patio level, sat a little blob of a shadow.
The shadow meowed, and I groaned.
I got a bowl of Meow Mix and put it in front of her. She went right for it before I even backed away.