“Maybe you would be in a better mood if you’d gotten more than three hours of sleep last night. Seriously—where did you go?”
Wow. I am bad about letting things go.
“You don’t need to know anything about that,” he says, sending me a leer. “And I’m fine now. Just a little tired.”
I take a deep breath. “Fine. Please just…be careful.”
“Yes,Dad.”
He rolls his eyes but rests his head against my shoulder, and I’m so relieved by the show of affection that I leave the subject. For now.
I follow him back into the house, and we spend the rest of the morning sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming. Ant finds a couple of spots in Mr. Sinclair’s fence that could use a little help, so we grab our tools and fix that as well.
When we break for lunch, he and I get into the truck, and I make the mistake of asking him how therapy is going.
“It’s exactly as awful as I said it would be.”
“I’m sorry, Ant. I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously when you said this would be hard.”
Peeling back the top part of the foil wrapped around his burrito, Ant shakes his head, biting the inside of his lip. That’s his tell that he’s going to start talking, so I stay quiet and let him work through his thoughts as he takes his first few bites.
Like Bram, he often begins like we’re already in the middle of a conversation.
“Hedy says I’m going through the defiant stage I never had a chance to experience when I was a teenager. She calls it delayed adolescence. Though…I’m pretty sure that’s just another way for someone to say I’m too childlike or…whatever.”
He peels away another bit of foil, focusing on the food while avoiding my eyes. There’s defeat in his rounded posture, another tell that he’s been confronting heavy issues. Soon enough, he’ll be back to himself, only put together a little stronger, another layer reclaimed.
But damn, it’s one hell of a recovery cycle. Even as he gets better, I feel bad for having pushed so hard.
“Anyway,” he continues. “Hedy knows what I get up to. She and I have discussed how to make that as safe as possible. I know what it looks like, but I am being safe. Text check-ins, condoms, nerds over dude-bros.”
“You text her when you’re hooking up?”
He shrugs, then looks over as if he’s worried about my opinion. “Is that weird?”
“You text your therapist when you’re going to hook up with someone? Yeah, that’s weird.”
He looks out the window right as Bram and Erik approach, and a grin threatens the corner of his mouth. He turns back to me, nailing me with an arched eyebrow.
“You were saying? I’m not the only one with weird shit going on with my therapist.”
“Jackass,” I say, laughing as I pull a bit of wilted lettuce from my burrito and toss it at him.
He tosses it back at me. “Whatever. You love me.”
I go serious for a moment so he can see I mean it. “Yeah, Ant. I do. I’m glad you’re being safe. Even if it is a little weird.”
“What’s weird?” Bram asks, getting in behind me while Erik gets in behind Ant.
Silently he gestures for the water bottle, and I hold it up. He mouthsgood boyat me in the mirror. Ant holds out his palm to me, then turns around to face Bram.
“Yourboydoesn’t approve of my slutty ways. I was explaining to him that I’m a safe slut and reminding him I do know how to take care of myself.” Turning to me, he grins. “But I’ll text you too if that would make you feel better.”
“It would. Thank you.”
Erik snorts, and I swear I wanna bean his head. Ant, frustrated, his jaw bunched up tight, drops back into his seat with a huff. Thinking better of it, he gets back on his knees and turns around so he can look right at Erik.
“Did you ever go back over the video from that night?” he asks, not needing to clarify which night he’s talking about. “Did you ever see the guy I killed? I know I got a little stab-happy for your delicate sensitivities, but as you like to point out, he was twice my size, and I brought him down. I promise the DND nerd I’m meeting up with tonight has nothing on me.”
