The Old Wheel, page 35
part #2 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
The dead-man’s grin came back, and he reached up, his hand moving to my neck.
“Don’t touch him!” Holmes shouted. His voice had slipped into full public-school boy, and it shook on every word. The shout echoed in the small room, fading slowly.
Laughter burst from Blackfriar. He thumbed something from my cheek and displayed it: an eyelash. “My son understands the importance of family, Jack. I am a reasonable man, but my patience is not endless.” Then the rictus peeled back his lips again. “Make a wish.”
He stayed like that until I blew the eyelash from his thumb, then he headed for the door. At the last possible moment, Holloway slid out of his path, his body still loose, still charged with potential violence. Blackfriar stopped and considered him, the broken-glass glitter of his teeth flashing again. “Do you know, Holloway, I think we’ve finally found something to inspire you?”
Chapter 32
Straight, Gay, or Bi
The next day, Dad called me in sick to classes, and he called off work, and we spent the time together in a weird limbo. He didn’t talk. Neither did I. There was nothing good on TV, but finally Dad found Judge Dredd, and that was better than sitting in silence. I wanted to go to my room, but if I did, he’d think I was mad. I wanted to sleep, but dreams of rolling cars and faceless men with guns waited for me. I wanted to see Holmes, but he’d be in classes.
Solving the murder of a student, as well as that of another man, apparently generated enough good karma that Holmes and I hadn’t been expelled for stealing Headmaster Cluff’s car. In fact, from what I could tell—although Dad didn’t want me reading the news—she was leaning into it, making good-natured jokes about it, like we were plucky teen wonder boys from a book. The Hardy Boys, maybe. I’d never read the Hardy Boys, but I was pretty sure one of them wasn’t spending ninety percent of his time thinking about sucking face. I was pretty sure they didn’t wake up from nightmares, sweating so bad they thought, at first, they’d peed themselves.
Dad couldn’t stay in his chair. He got up. He got a Diet Coke. He sat down. He fiddled with the tab on the can until it broke, and then he got up again to throw it away. He got chips. He put the chips back. He got up “to stretch his back.” He had this weird look on his face, and he kept glancing over at me. It took me a while to realize what he was working up to.
When someone knocked, I actually said out loud, “Thank God.”
Dad threw me a surprisingly dirty look, but he went to the door—probably because it gave him another reason to get out of his chair. In a voice I barely recognized, he said, “Get off my porch, and don’t come back.”
“Mr. Moreno—” Aston said.
Dad slammed the door.
When I stood, Dad pointed to the sofa and said, “No.”
I stepped into my Cortez and grabbed my coat.
Dad caught my arm.
I looked at him until his face colored, and he released me.
“Ten minutes,” Dad said. “And you stay on the porch.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He squeezed my shoulder. Then he sat at the counter, where he could look out the front door and watch us, and I tried not to sigh.
The air was so cold I felt my hair stand up, and my eyes stung, but it was also fresh and clean with the mineral smell of new snow, and in a weird way, it made me think of those people who do polar plunges and stuff like that. I felt awake, maybe. Or just glad to be out of the house.
Aston still looked like shit. The bruises and scratches on his face were healing, but the bags under his eyes were dark and heavy, and he’d obviously given up on the perfectly mussed look for his hair. Now it looked regular mussed, the unsexy version of bedhead. His eyes were red, and he huddled in his coat, his breath steaming. He stared at me, opened his mouth, and shut it again.
I gave him a few more seconds. Then I moved over to the rail, knocked the snow from the wood, and hopped up to sit there. He stood around looking dumb for a while, and then he came over and sat on the rail too. He smelled like too much body spray. It was nice to know that some things in the world didn’t change.
“I could really use a smoke,” I said.
“Jesus, yes, please.”
“Are you ok?” I asked.
He shook his head. His gaze was far off, somewhere on the flank of Timp, where the scrub oak looked like stubble in the distance.
“Police told me you saved us,” I said. “If you hadn’t gotten out of the closet and called for help, we’d have died out there.”
A weird laugh corkscrewed out of him. When I looked over, he laughed again and shook his head. “I didn’t get out of the closet. She didn’t take my phone. I just—I just yelled for a while. And then I figured I ought to call somebody.” His voice clotted, and it looked like he had to make an effort to say, “I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. Well, yeah, you are, but only because you’re such a douche.”
His head snapped up, and he stared at me. Then another laugh got loose, more of a giggle this time.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t know what to say. Dawson was a shitty person. Kazen too. And they’re gone. And you’re never going to be able to fight with them or fuck them or scream at them or apologize, not anything, ever again. I’m sorry; I know what that’s like, kind of.”
He nodded and wiped his eyes.
“Did somebody tell you?” I asked.
The noise he made was like wet paper tearing. “It’s in every fucking news story.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“My dad—I mean, my grandpa. You know what I mean. He told me before I saw it on the news.”
In the distance, something moved. A fox, maybe. Fresh powder tumbled down the slope, and then everything was still again, everything white, everything unmarked.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shook his head again. It was a long time before he said, “Everything is so fucked up.”
I was the one who waited this time. The whole thing would have been so much easier if we could have sparked a joint, got lit. Nobody cares about awkward pauses when they’re lit. And hell, at least a joint gives you something to do with your hands.
The best I finally came up with was, “Yeah.”
He stirred, sitting up straighter, and reached into his coat. Displaced air carried more of the body spray, and when he brought his hand out, he was holding an envelope. It was fat, and where it didn’t close completely, a flash of green told me it was stuffed with cash.
“Aston, I can’t—”
“I pawned her jewelry.” He dropped the envelope in my lap. “That lying, fucking bitch, that’s the least she deserves.”
“Man, I can’t take this.”
“Then throw it in the trash. Or burn it. Do whatever you want.”
I swallowed. My hand curled around the envelope, and a weary smile pulled at the corner of Aston’s mouth.
He slid from the rail, dusted himself off, and looked somewhere over my shoulder as he said, “I’m not coming back. So, you know. This is it.”
I nodded.
He watched me, body tight with a tension I didn’t understand. Finally he said, “Aren’t you gonna do it?”
“Do what?”
“Break my nose.”
It seemed years ago. I shook my head.
After a dozen heartbeats, he rolled his shoulders and started for the steps.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “None of it. You didn’t do anything wrong. The detectives told me they got the test results; Dawson drugged me at Wintersmash. He probably drugged you too some of the times, you know...” I paused. “If you need to talk about it—”
“Jack, I hope I never have to talk to you again.”
For ten seconds, maybe twenty, he waited there, poised on the first step, like there was more to say. Then he jogged down the steps and disappeared around the side of the cottage.
I went inside. Dad watched me as I stripped off my coat, heeled off my shoes. He was still watching when I walked down the hall.
I cried. Not about Aston, necessarily. About all of it. And then I was done, and I fell asleep.
A tap at the door woke me, and it took me a moment to realize Dad was waiting for me. “Uh, come in.”
He came in carrying a tray: a can of Coke, a grilled cheese, tomato soup. Campbell’s. You can tell right away. It’s the only tomato soup that’s good for grilled cheese, which means it’s the only kind of tomato soup that’s good at all. He laid the tray on the desk, and then he said, “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Thanks.”
He put his hands in his pockets. He took them out again. He put them in his back pockets. He rocked on the balls of his feet. He looked like an extra in those stupid John Wayne movies. Or like a guy who needed to pee.
“Maybe you want to eat in bed? That’s why I brought the tray.”
“Dad!”
Something in my voice made him smile. He settled back onto his heels. He stopped doing weird things with his hands. He said, in a voice that was surprisingly firm, “Jack, I want to talk to you about something.”
“Then yes, I want to eat in bed.”
The smile turned into a grin. He got me settled with the tray. I dunked a corner of sandwich. He’d cut it into triangles, which is the only good way to eat grilled cheese with tomato soup.
Dad sat, put his hands on his knees, took a big breath. Then he said, “I love you. I know I don’t always do a good job of letting you know that.”
“You do a good job,” I said and bit some of the dangly cheese before another dunk. “I know you love me.”
“Well, good. But I’m not happy about—about some of the interactions we’ve had lately. About how I behaved. And—and how I reacted.”
I was mid-dunk. “Dad—”
“When Detective Rivera—
“Dad, I can’t do this. I need to be high. Or I need to be drunk. Or I need a lot of Xanax.” The look on his face made me add, “Kidding. Kind of.”
An emotion I couldn’t decipher rippled his face, and then it smoothed into a smile. My dad’s smile. “You don’t have to do anything, Jack. I’m not asking you to do anything. Or say anything. Not now. Not ever. But I want you to know that I love you, whoever you are, and who you choose to love does not matter to me. Not even the tiniest bit. I am so proud of you. And I respect you, even if that’s hard for you to believe. I understand that this is a weird time in your life, for a lot of reasons. It’s not realistic for me to assume that you can go back to being a kid, not after you spent a year of your life, and more, taking care of me. I’m not happy with a lot of choices you’ve made recently, and yes, I want to talk to you about those. Later. But right now, I want you to know that—that if I gave you the impression that something else mattered to me, that was wrong. I will never, ever stop loving you.”
I pushed some soup around with the soggy-getting grilled cheese. I wanted my words to be a challenge, but they came out a little-kid mumble: “It seemed like it mattered.”
He nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry about that. I’m—I’m ashamed of it, actually. But that’s not how I feel. I hope you believe me when I say that.”
I stirred the soup some more. It was that Elmer’s-glue consistency and beautifully orange. My face was pins and needles when I finally looked up and said, “I think I’m bi. Or whatever.”
Dad nodded.
“I am bi,” I said a little more forcefully.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“And it’s not a phase or—or because of Mom or because we moved or because I’m acting out. I like guys. I like girls, but I like guys too.”
“Ok.”
“If that’s a problem—”
“Jack.” He smiled, but he stopped and had to wipe his cheeks, and his eyes were wet again before he’d even finished. “Yes, I was surprised. This was new to me. And hearing about it that way—hearing what almost happened to you. That was horrible for me because you could have been hurt so badly. If I’m being honest, Jack, I didn’t expect this. You never expressed an interest in guys when we were in Salt Lake. You’re—I mean, you like sports—”
“Oh my God,” I said.
For some reason, that cracked him up, and the longer he laughed, the more I had to fight a grin. Somebody finished my grilled cheese, and I found myself spooning the soup over and over and grinning and being an idiot, more or less.
“Ok,” Dad finally said when he had himself under control. He was wiping his cheeks again. “I hear how bad that sounded. I’m going to work on it. I’ve got a lot to learn. But I’m going to do my best, and I’m sure you’ll help me.”
That seemed like a question, so I shrugged and moved soup around and finally said, “Well, yeah.”
“Thank you.” He hesitated. “It’s scary, Jack. For me. As your father. Not because I care who you love. But because the world is…unkind to people who are different. I want your life to be perfect. I want you to be happy. But most of all, I want you to be safe.”
“I’ll be fine. Things are different.”
He made a noise that might have meant anything, but he said, “I love you.”
I shrugged, but I did manage to drag my eyes up from the soup long enough to meet his eyes. “I love you too.”
“Are we good?”
I nodded.
“Anything else you want to talk about?”
The car, I thought. The way it rolled. The man with the gun. The fact that it had to be a coincidence, but that didn’t help me when the nightmares came.
I shook out a no.
He came over and kissed me on the top of my head, and he rubbed my back, and after a while, he said, “You know things are going to be different now when Holloway comes over.”
“Oh my God.”
“Rules are rules, Jack.”
“We’re not even—we’re friends.”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s all.”
“Uh huh,” Dad said again, but this time he sounded amused. He pulled my hair just hard enough to be annoying, and he said, “Buddy, I might not know how all of this works yet, but straight, gay, or bi, I know what it means when my son stares at a boy and tries to put his shoe on the wrong foot.”
“No, that was—on TV, there was—”
Dad gave me a little push, patted my cheek, and laughed.
“I saw boobs! I was staring at boobs. On TV!”
“A little tip, son,” he said as he started toward the door. “If you’re going to stare in public, at least wipe up your drool.”
“Why do you have to be like this?”
He was already down the hall when he called back, “And don’t think I missed the time he bent over to pick up his bag and you walked into the stool.”
“We were having a nice father-son chat! We were bonding!”
Chapter 33
Something Damaging
When I found Holmes the next day, he was stealing a car.
The noonday skies were blue and clear like glass catching the light, and we were enough days past the snowstorm that the charm had gone, and everything was gray and crusty and half slush. He left Baker House in his driving coat, one hand in a loose fist at his side, his bag slung over one shoulder, and walked around the building toward where Mr. Fischer, the resident head, had a solitary parking spot.
I followed him. When I came around the building, he had one door of Mr. Fischer’s red minivan open.
He must have heard me because his head whipped around. When he recognized me, his face only softened slightly.
“Going somewhere?” I asked.
He wanted to lie; the desire, and the conflicting knowledge that he’d probably be found out, muddled his expression for a moment. It was a little flattering.
Finally, he settled on, “Jack.”
“Where are you going?”
“You’re supposed to be resting. I’m going to bring your coursework this evening.”
“From my classes.”
Holmes waited. His hand tightened around Mr. Fischer’s keys.
“Which is where you’re supposed to be,” I said. “In about five minutes. When lunch is over.”
Somewhere farther off, a chorus of voices swelled—more boys from Baker House, hurrying to make the most of the lunch break. Holmes glanced automatically in their direction. When I took a step forward, his attention snapped back to me.
“Jack—”
“Let’s see. It’s important enough that you’ll skip classes, even though you never want to skip, not even for good reasons.”
He looked more comfortable scowling, which kind of made sense. “Afternoon cartoons are not a good reason.”
“Well, they’re called anime, so the joke’s on you. Second, you don’t want me to know about it, or you’d have asked me to drive you in the truck.”
“You’re injured. You’re unlicensed. Your father does not want us consorting—”
I put my fists on my hips, and he stopped.
“It’s about this stupid game, isn’t it?” I said. “With Paxton and—” I almost said your father, but I managed to ask instead, “The mastermind?”
He couldn’t meet my eyes. “Please, Jack. It may be dangerous, and if anything happened to you—”
“Either we go together, and you tell me everything on the way, or I pull out my phone and call the police, the FBI, the National Guard, maybe even the President of the United States. And yes, I know you could take away my phone and tie me up, which is weirdly cute and kinky at the same time, but you’re not going to do that, are you?”
Pink circles lit up his cheeks. He shook his head.
“Then I’m driving,” I said.
He tossed the keys to me, but when he tried to circle around to the passenger side, I caught his coat and pulled him closer and kissed him. He made an annoyed noise. He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. After a moment, though, they came to rest on mine.
