A bulletin board covered in flyers stood by the front desk with announcements for art classes, movie nights, basketballgames, and support groups. Above it, a banner in shimmering gold letters read,Welcome Home.
I imagined this place literally saved lives.
My shoulders relaxed almost immediately. The anxious knot in my stomach began to unwind. If this center was a safe place for these kids, it could be for me as well.
A volunteer, a young woman with a shaved head and pierced lip sat behind the desk, mouthing along to the overhead song as she typed something into her dinosaur of a computer. She wore a royal-blue polo shirt with a rainbow and the center’s name over her heart. An enamel pin reading,Here For You, dangled from the collar of her polo.
Somehow, we caught her attention, and she glanced our way only to have a radiant smile break out across her face. “Ryder!” she practically shouted. “Micky mentioned you were coming today.”
The second Ryder’s name left her lips, heads popped up all over the room. Two seconds after that, screeches, whoops, and shouts of “Ryder’s here!” went up throughout the center. Then, before I had a chance to process the incoming tsunami of teenagers, Ryder’s hand ripped from mine as a gaggle of gangly arms and legs wrapped around him from all angles.
He sent me a rueful grin that I waved away right before turning his attention to the kids.
“Micky! What’s up, my man? Hey, Kimber, love the new hair color. TJ, can’t wait to hear how your school debate went,” and so on until I was beyond impressed with his memory and recall of each child and something personal from their lives.
My cold heart melted a fraction while I watched him display a monumental amount of patience as the teens and tweens began to pull him in all directions. “Ryder, you owe me a basketball game. Ryder, will you play Minecraft with me? Ryder, I need help with my math homework.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He lifted his hands in surrender. “Did they give you each ten sugar packets when you walked in the door today? Let me introduce you guys to someone before we do anything else.”
What felt like a million curious young gazes turned my way.
“Hey.” I lifted a hand for an awkward wave like the social superstar I was.
“Guys, this is Alex. He’s a pretty special dude, so go easy on him and don’t tell him any bad stories about me, okay?”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“They were holding hands!”
“I wanna see you guys kiss!”
“Does he have a big di—”
“Do not finish that question!” Ryder shouted above the roar of nosy kids. He shot me a bemused look. “So much for going easy on you.”
My face burned. I now completely understood the idiom ‘fish out of water.’
“Yes, you meddlesome monsters, he is my boyfriend, but that is the only question I’m going to answer about him. And no, you cannot see us kiss.” He winked at me. “But we sure like to.”
A chorus ofawwswent around the center until Ryder rolled his eyes. “Simmer down, you guys. Okay, I’ll try to get to everyone, but I’m telling you now, whoever needs homework help, Alex is your guy.” He pointed to me as he spoke. “My man is wicked smart.”
My damn face couldn’t get any hotter. Ryder seemed determined to have me combust into a pile of ash at this point.
A gentle hand tugged at my wrist. I glanced down to see a waif of a girl looking up at me with wide, jade green eyes. “Can you do math?”
I chuckled as I nodded. “I can.”
“Will you help me? I suck at math.” Her sweet face crumbled. “I’m in the remedial class for sixth grade.”
A boy at least a foot taller, threw an arm across her shoulders with a fierce scowl. “She struggles in math, but she is not dumb,” he said with all the ferocity of an older brother protecting his sibling. It also seemed to be a warning to me not to upset her.
“I’d never think you were dumb. I bet you just haven’t found the right method that works for you. I’d love to help with your math homework.”
The protective boy studied me for a moment, then nodded and stepped aside. I guess that counted as his seal of approval.
“My stuff is set up over there,” she said, pointing to a table.
I cast a glance at Ryder, who was already involved in a serious debate over which pizza restaurant was the best in Boston, so I followed the girl to her table.
