“Gonna smoke that filter too, or what?” Colton huffs. “I could havewalkedto school by now.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have, and we both know it.”
He scoffs and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. He only laughs when a seagull decides to drop a messy load on my front wheel fender. “Looks like someone else doesn’t care for your stupid old-man chopper either. You and me both, dump duck,” he commiserates. “Would becoolerif it was a street bike…”
Wow, nice. How did I go from being the ‘cool dad’, the one who was still young enough himself to go out and actually do stuff with him—like toss a football around in the yard, get invites out to the tree house with him, or teach him how to play guitar with me—to this level of disconnect?
I stub out my smoke and make my way over to my bike, climbing onto the front and gripping the handlebars. When I start it, it purrsloudly. I kick the stands up with my heels, give the throttle a couple of revs and hear the rip of the engine, before I take off out of the shipyard.
Once and for all.
Chapter Three
One good thing about being temporarily out of a job is being able to make sure my son makes it to school and back home again after, without so much as a peep from superintendent Gunderson or Deputy O’Reilly. I stir the pot of simmering baked beans on the stove, pushing the hot dogs down in, so they can get heated too. I let that go for a minute, so I can pull the biscuits out of the oven. Just as I set those out to cool a little, Colton comes barging in the door.
He’s not alone though, I notice, and I bristle, unprepared to deal with him bringing home unwanted and uninvited guests.
A feeling of relief washes over me when I see it's his friend, Petro. Nikolas Petropolous isn’t one of the miscreants Colton has gotten mixed up with in the past year. Petro’s a good kid, one I like seeing Colt spending time with.
They’ve known each other since kindergarten. I haven’t seen much of him around lately, so I was beginning to wonder if they had grownapart. I’m relieved to see they haven’t, however, since Petro is who I would consider a good influence for Colton.
I’m also relieved I could call on him to give Colton a ride to school these past two weeks, and he gladly obliged. Clearly, I couldn’t trust Colton to walk himself there, but he also is sixteen and doesn’t want to be seen riding on the back of my bike with me, either. Funny, because he used to love being my little backpack when he was younger.
Now I’m an embarrassing dad, even though I’m younger than most of the fathers of kids his age. Most of the parents I sit with at Colt’s football games are nearly two decades my senior; I feel like the odd-ball being thirty-four. Many times, before I started sporting a few—likely stress-induced—grays, I got mistaken for being Colt’s older brother. I scoff at myself for once thinking that, because Miranda and I had a baby so young, that we’d be the ‘cool parents’ someday.
How naïve of me.
“Hey, guys.” I nod in their direction and greet them, as they leave their backpacks and shoes in a heap in the entryway.
“Hey, Evan,” Petro is the only one to greet me back.
Colton comes over, peers into the pot I’m stirring, and scrunches his nose up. “Again?” he mutters before taking off to his room.
“Stickin’ around for supper?” I ask our guest, ignoring Colt’s complaint.
“Sure! Thank you,” he replies with a grin. This kid is always super polite. I wish Colt would take a hint and act the same.
“Least I can do, for you playing Colt’s Uber this week,” I explain. “It’s nothing fancy; we’re just having beans and hot dogs…again.”
Colt’s probably right about the repetitiveness of our dinner tonight—canned beans, canned biscuits, packaged hot dogs—but I really never have been a good cook, that was all Miranda. Also, since I’m out of a job because of him, I need to stretch my dollar as faras it’ll go. At least it’s not ramen from a styrofoam cup. Though, if I don’t call up my father and work up something soon, ramen will have to start being a dietary staple.
“Not a problem!” Petro replies cheerily, bouncing on his toes a little before joining Colt in his bedroom.
“Don’t get too wrapped up in a game in there; dinner is almost done!” I call out to them when I hear the PlayStation turn on.
“Not hungry,” Colton grunts.
“Don’t care,” I retort, mimicking the same tone he used with me.
To my surprise, Colt doesn’t just leave me to sit here and have an awkward supper by myself, or worse, with just his friend and me. He comes out, dishes a helping so large that it makes me question the sincerity of his ‘not hungry’ claim, and then plops down in the chair next to his friend.
“Did you tell your dad about the thing yet?” Petro asks him.
I quirk an eyebrow up at Colton. “Tell me about what?”
“Oh! No, I forgot,” my son replies around a mouthful of biscuit. He then hops up to grab a crumpled paper out of his backpack and passes it to me.
Good lord, hopefully it’s not some other ‘acknowledgement of improper school conduct’ form I need to sign.
