“Oh?” he asks, and I look over at him despite myself. There are three freckles near the corner of his eye, all in a row like Orion’s Belt. “More vampires? Or have we moved on to werewolves?”
“Roller coasters, actually.” He laughs, a short, delighted sound that fits perfectly with the smile on his face.
“Really? Like, a history? Or about the engineering?”
“Yeah, all of that! It’s pretty cool. I guess it’s dumb, but I hadn’t realized everything that goes into building a roller coaster. Permits and things; noise ordinances; height and safety requirements. It’s crazy.”
“Huh. Can’t say I’ve ever had a thought about a roller coaster beyond enjoying the ride,” he muses.
“I saved the table,” Parker tells us as we walk up, kicking his feet in the air and grinning at me. I smile back.
“Nice work.” I hold my hand out for a fist bump, although I’m unsure whether kids these days still do fist bumps. Parker returns it enthusiastically, hopping down and pointing toward where he wants me to sit. I’m surprised when he slides in next to me instead of Desmond.
“What did you get?” he asks me, leaning into my arm to peer at my sandwich as I unwrap it.
“Just a veggie.”
“Do you like veggies? I do sometimes. The stuff Desmond makes is pretty good, but my mom was better.”
“I do like vegetables, yeah. I didn’t get to eat them a lot as a kid, but that’s good you do.”
“Youhaveto have your vegetables,” Parker informs me seriously, taking the sandwich passed to him by Desmond. “Right, Uncle Des?”
“That’s right,” he agrees.
I nod. My parents cared about a lot of things, but my health was never one of them. Until I went into foster care, I lived mostly on handfuls of sugary breakfast cereal and the odd fast-food treat when they were feeling generous. Subway would have felt like a feast for a king.
“Do you have a favorite vegetable?” Parker asks me, dumping his bag of chips on the Subway paper and carefully adding them to the inside of the sandwich. “Desmond’s is carrots.”
This earns him a raised eyebrow from his uncle, which I assume means that carrots are actually the least favorite. Noted.
“I don’t think I have a favorite,” I admit. “Never thought about it before.”
“You will now,” Desmond says, giving me a look across the table. “Parks here has a knack for asking the most inane, random questions you could ever imagine.”
Parker laughs before crunching his sandwich halves back together and taking a bite. He seems a lot happier than the first time I met him, doing laundry in their apartment. Desmond, too, seems more relaxed than usual, posture loose and smile easy. They banter back and forth like brothers, Parker glancing up at me every time he says something snarky as though hoping I’ll find it funny, too.
We finish eating, Desmond gathering up all the trash andpassing the frisbee off to Parker. He clambers off the bench seat and grins at me.
“Want to play?” he asks eagerly.
We spread out and it becomes very clear, very quickly that Parker is not skilled at playing frisbee. He hurls the disc flying off in every direction other than where I’m standing, sending me sprinting off across the grass to catch it before it falls. When Desmond joins the game, he’s laughing at us. For once, it doesn’t make me blush. I’m sure I look ridiculous—Nate would have been laughing, too.
“This must be how dogs feel,” I comment, throwing the frisbee to Desmond in a controlled manner. He catches it one-handed, flips it around, and sends it spinning back to Parker.
“Go long, Des!” Parker commands, before launching the disc straight into a tree. “Oops.”
The park is echoing with laughter, and good-natured chirping as we play. Parker gets better the longer we go, and Desmond gets worse as he starts attempting “trick shots,” which inevitably are more ridiculous than tricky. I’m hot, sweaty, and am likely well on my way to a hell of a sunburn. I’m having a blast.
“We should do this every week,” Parker declares, wiping a forearm over his sweaty forehead. “Do you want to come over for dinner, Jack?”
“He’s probably got better things to do than hang out with us, little buddy,” Desmond tells him, lifting up the hem of his shirt to dry his own damp face.
I’m grateful for the fact that my face is probably already red enough to hide the blush as I look at his stomach. His perfectly normal, tan, happy-trailed, flat stomach. I have the most insane urge to put my hand flat against that belly, whichmakes my own heave with anxiety. I look away before I puke or do something crazy like actually touch him.
“I better go back to school and do homework,” I tell Parker, who luckily doesn’t look too put out by the rejection. I’d hate to ruin what has obviously been a good day for him by making him think I don’t want it to continue.
“Homework stinks,” he says. “Maybe some other time, though?”
