“Yeah, you too,” Emil replied and found that he meant it.
Makai left, and Dad came closer.
“He giving you trouble?”
“What?” The thought seemed ludicrous to Emil. “Makai?” he asked, knowing that his voice betrayed his disbelief. “Not in the least. Why?”
The radio on his dad’s shoulder crackled, and he stepped away to answer it.
Emil used the opportunity to grab the bread—first one he could see that wasn’t whiter than snow—and tossed it into the cart before turning and retreating deeper into the store. He didn’t want to hear his dad’s prejudice. He got it, he really did, but so far Makai had been nothing but good to him and everyone he’d met and Emil had talked with.
He saw some yogurt that might taste good, even tomorrow, and reached for the strawberry-flavored one. A thought hit him like lightning. He had a crush. A real, breathing, living crush, and the thoughtdidn’tfill him with absolute dread.
He secured the yogurt by putting it into the cart and tried to keep from shaking apart. His mind had clamped down on anything romantic, let alone sexual, after the trauma he’d suffered. He’d had discussions with Evy about what it could potentially be like, completely in a theoretical sense, to have a relationship with someone.
Nothing had prepared him for the odd almost-butterflies or the full-body shiver that went through him, though. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation at all, but it didn’t seem quite as horrifying as he’d thought it might. He could see, could somewhat remember how itcouldturn into something exciting in a good way. But right then he felt nauseous.Great.
THAT EVENING,he was sitting on his bed and flipping through the photography book, when his dad knocked on his half-open door.
“Yeah?” Emil said, hoping this wasn’t what he thought it would be.
Dad looked tired, he was just off shift, so it made sense, but there was a weariness in his eyes too.
“Hey, son.” He stepped in but then leaned back on the doorframe, as if hoping it would help prop him up.
“Rough day?”
“Yeah. Frank and Lizzie again.” Dad sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“She didn’t press charges this time, either?”
“No, and it was just a noise complaint, but everyone could see something had been going on.”
Emil hummed. Everyone in town knew Frankie liked to beat his wife, but nobody ever caught him doing it, and she didn’t talk about it. Not even when she had to have a broken arm set a couple of years ago. She’d told everyone she’d fallen down the porch steps at their house. Fallen, maybe. But how?
“But that’s not why I’m here,” Dad said quietly, in a carefully chosen tone Emil knew meant his dad was trying his best to be a dad to a twenty-one-year-old who didn’t need to obey his parents’ rules anymore. “I saw you talking to Makai Stone at the grocery store.”
“Uh-huh,” Emil hummed.
“I’d like you to be careful around him. Maybe avoid him if you can.”
Emil knew that before all had gone to hell, his dad would’ve rather used words like “stay away from him” instead of warning almost gently like he was doing now.
“He’s not a bad guy,” Emil said, looking his dad in the eyes. “Lotte and Joie like him a lot. I’ve been to his yard with Joie, and he’s nothing but kind and careful around them.”And Mouse andme.
“That might be so, but he was still convicted of something, and whatever way you might think of that, he had old gang ties, Emil. You can’t just think he’s safe if he seems like it now.”
Emil tried to keep the sudden anger out of his voice. “I didn’t think you were this prejudiced.”
Dad looked at him like he was trying to keep his own temper from flaring, which had become a well-known expression to Emil in the last couple of years. “I don’t want you to hang out with him.”
“I’m an adult, Dad. You might not want me to do something, but it’s my decision in the end.”
He wasthis closeto getting the “under my roof” speech, but he could see the exact moment when Dad figured out they’d been heading to that direction and deflated just a little. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
The words might’ve had a different effect in the past, but now they pissed Emil off enough to surprise him. That’s why the words left his mouth before he could swallow them down.
“Well, if he decides to start a drug business, I’ll let you know.”
