Page 32 of Beyond the Hedge Maze

Between mouthfuls of Greek food, Oliver nodded back in the direction of the mermaid clock. “Do you want to tell me what was happening between the two of you when I walked in? She was in quite the compromising position.”

“You’ll know in—” Jesse looked at his watch, “—roughly five minutes.”

“Alright, keep your secrets.”

“Won’t be a secret, trust me. Actually, I’m glad you’ll be here to witness it. I need to make sure it’s not all in my head.”

“Candidly, I forgot all of this was up here. Whatever’s got you all worked up is probably Uncle Albert’s fault. This is clearly one of his rooms.”

Jesse took a drink from the water bottle he had brought upstairs with him. “Uncle Albert?”

“He was on the eccentric side. A collector.” Oliver mimicked quotation marks around the word. “Or so I’ve been told. There’s a couple of rooms like this filled with random shite. He died, like, a hundred years ago. Right around the time the inbreeding stopped, I suppose.”

Jesse sputtered, tzatziki nearly coming back up and out of his nose. He frantically coughed, trying to clear his windpipe. Oliver handed him a napkin with a smirk plastered to his face, blue eyes twinkling in delight that he had thrown Jesse off balance.

Once he had gathered himself, Jesse finally replied, “I don’t think having hobbies is justification for calling someone inbred, Oliver, good Lord.”

“He had fourteen toes, Jesse. Fourteen. That’s nearly another bloody foot’s worth.”

They both erupted into laughter, or, if Jesse were being honest with himself, they giggled like schoolgirls. Jesse wished he had a camera to capture it. But for as quickly as the laughter came, it ended. Oliver’s dimples filled back in, the light dimming from his eyes.

He poked his fork at a cucumber, leaving it uneaten. “I don’t know if any of that is true. They were just stories my grandfather used to tell me.”

It was immensely clear to Jesse that Oliver was still grieving. All the signs were there—some mirror images to the grief he carried after his mom’s death. More than once he wanted to overstep and recommend he take a holiday, something to get him out of this house. He could see how much worry Oliver carried around, a responsibility that Jesse probably would never understand. And being here day in and day out, it wasn’t helping to process his grief. It was only providing an outlet to ignore it.

They were friendly again, but it was an observation he would keep to himself. At least for now.

CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO.

Jesse hurried to stand, frantically looking around the room. “You hear that, right?”

“How is it even operational?” Oliver asked. “No one’s been in this room for decades, at least.”

“Right!” Jesse briefly ran his hands through his hair. “That was my thought exactly! How. Is. It. Still. Going?”

CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO.

He held his hand out to Oliver to help him off the ground. “Hurry, we’ve got to find it. And once we do, assuming it has no value and with your permission, of course, I’d like to hit it with a mallet.”

Oliver laughed again and took Jesse’s hand. Jesse wanted to keep holding it, wanted the opportunity to learn how it felt to hold this Oliver’s hand, but there was something more important at stake—like preserving his sanity.

CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO.

“No!” Jesse shouted.

“What? I’m sure we’ll find it.”

“We only get three tries.” He plopped back down on the ground, defeated. “We’ll have to wait another ten more.”

Oliver gave Jesse’s shoulder a tight squeeze as he sat down, and that bit of contact radiated down his chest like a lightning bolt.

They each started eating again, Jesse satisfied when Oliver actually ate the cucumber instead of only moving it around.

“Do you enjoy this?”

“Spiraling over clocks?” Jesse asked. “Not particularly.”

“No, working for your father.”