He came and sat on the couch beside me, in the space Andy had occupied. But he didn’t make a move toward me, he just seem content to sit together. I wrapped my hand in his, content as well.
“This is all new to you, then? Putting Andy to bed? Being the one to take him to swim lessons?”
He stretched out his long legs, put one hand behind his head for a pillow. “Yeah, I promised you the Life and Times of Lucas Kade, didn’t I?”
“You did, but I can take a rain check if you want.”
He shook his head, just a tiny bit, his silky black hair brushing his jaw. “Nah, might as well be tonight. As long as we aren’t going to get naked…” He looked at me with a grin, waggling his eyebrows.
“You’re the one who said we’d scare the children,” I said, teasing.
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, we mustn’t harm the children. They’re so impressionable at this age.”
I waited, a smile of encouragement on my face.
He sighed again, but this wasn’t exaggerated, it was resigned. “Okay. Let’s see. Why I’m here taking care of Andy first, or why I’m back in Schoolport and not in the running for the Heisman?” There was bitterness in his voice. I’d heard it before, and it seemed out of place on him. He seemed to have more…peace about his current situation (whatever it was) than most guys I knew would.
“Let’s start with Andy and work backwards,” I said, trying to steer him toward what I thought would be safer ground. The small smile that crossed his face as I mentioned Andy’s name confirmed my choice.
“He’s a great kid, right?” he asked. And it really was asking; he didn’t seem at all sure.
“Yeah, he’s great.”
He turned toward me, and draped his arm across the back of the couch behind my head. He placed his other hand on my knee. “You’re around other kids his age, other kids that are in kind of the same…situation. Is Andy doing okay? Is he, I don’t know, keeping up?”
“You mean with swimming? I mean, he’s not too keen to go under water, but that’s usually about half the class of kids his age who haven’t swum before.”
He was nodding with my words. “Right. Right. And we’re working on that. Did you see him today? He went under quite a bit.”
I smiled, remembering Andy’s proclamation. “Four times.”
Lucas chuckled. “Right. Four times.” He looked toward the kitchen, then down at his work boots. “But what about non-swimming? Does he seem, like, more messed up than any of the other kids?”
Oh man, we were getting into territory I had no business going into. “I don’t…I’m not really—”
“I mean, his teacher says he’s doing well, that he’s keeping up with the other kids academically.” His voice turned to a little sarcasm as he added, “Though I don’t know how the hell they measure academics in first grade.” His face sobered. “But they do, right? I guess I should know how that’s measured, right?”
I put a hand on top of his, still resting on my knee. I could feel his tension, see it in the set of his wide shoulders.
“His teacher will tell you that,” I said. “If they say he’s doing well, he is. They’d definitely let you know if there was something…” I didn’t want to say the word “wrong,” and yet that was what this all seemed to be pointing to—something had gone wrong in Andy’s life, and Lucas was hoping it hadn’t permanently affected the kid.
“So, this is all new for you? Watching Andy, taking care of him?”
He nodded, his eyes still downcast, his head bowed. I longed to reach out and stroke his head, pull him to my chest, but I stayed still.
“Yeah, it’s all new. Well, at least the living here.” He swept his arm, encompassing the small room. “I’ve tried to be in Andy’s life since he was born. But the past few years I’ve been kind of…checked out.”
“Because you were in California? At USC?”
He nodded, not looking at me. “That. Yeah, at first, that.” His shoulders tensed, hunched slightly. “But then…” He looked over at me. “Just how much do you know from wherever you heard it?”
There was no censure in his voice, just a simple question. “I googled you and it said you were highly sought after and went to USC, but left in your junior year after a bad injury. Shoulder, I think?”
He nodded. I thought back to seeing him in the pool. I hadn’t noticed any huge scar anywhere. “You had surgery?” He nodded again. “But that didn’t help?”
He sat back, sinking deeper into the couch. He moved his hands to cover his face, then lowered them, as if he knew he couldn’t hide from whatever he was about to say.
“It helped. Who knows? Maybe I would have played again, but I fucked up.”
