Page 1 of Lawson & Jill

Chapter 1

Lawson Thorne hit the key fob on his large white pick-up truck and locked it. It was new, so he’d parked it well away from the rest of the cars in the parking lot. It’d been easy since it was a late afternoon on Thursday and only people like him were here at the rec center.

He didn’t want to be here, or maybe he did.

Fuck, I don’t know, and doesn’t that just prove I have a problem?

Sighing, he trudged up the long set of steps that led to the entrance of what was once a high school in the nineteen-forties. The place had seen better days.

The mustard-green linoleum seemed to go on forever as he wandered the halls looking for his assigned room. As he turned what he hoped would be the final corner, he damn near stepped on a little kid who was looking over his shoulder as he was clearly trying to make his escape. God knew from where.

“You’re going to be captured by the enemy if you don’t look where you’re going,” Law said as he let the kid run into him.

The boy looked at Law’s belly. Then his eyes made the long crawl upwards until he met Lawson’s eyes. “How tall are you?” the kid asked.

“Over six feet. How old are you?”

“Seven and three quarters. My birthday is in November.”

For the first time in days, Law felt the corner of his mouth tic up in a smile. He remembered when it was important to sound older. Wiser. More important.

“So where are you running to?”

The boy let out a long-suffering sigh. “I haven’t figured that part out yet. I just don’t want to go back to the arts class. It’s lame.”

Lawson steered the kid over to a wide set of stairs and sat down next to him on the lowest step. “Is it really that bad?”

“It wasn’t bad until everyone ruined it. First, we were going to make beehives out of bubble wrap. We had to shape it like a hive and paint it. It was going to be cool until Damien popped all the bubbles.”

“So that’s why you want to leave?”

A frown formed on his angular little face. “Nah. If it was just that, I woulda stayed. But Marty started eating the broccoli on the other artwork and ruined that one, too.”

“Little man, I understood about the bubble wrap, but how was broccoli art?”

“We was making trees and gluing ‘em inside of shoeboxes to make a forest. Marty likes broccoli and glue, so he ate a lot. I was hoping he’d get sick and stop, but he didn’t. So, Angela just poured glitter all inside the box and said it was snow. Snow’s not supposed to be pink, so I got outta there.”

“Makes sense to me,” Law nodded.

“Why are you hanging out here with me?” the kid asked as he gave him a sideways glance. “Did someone mess up your project?”

This time Law sighed. “Good question. Seems like I’m looking for an excuse to avoid going to my meeting.”

“Are they making you do art?”

“Worse.” Law leaned his forearms on his knees.

“What?”

“They want me to talk…about feelings.”

The boy looked at him. “Oh. That’s bad. My mom asks about mine… a lot.” He gave that long-suffering sigh again. The kid had game. Then he brightened and grinned at Lawson. “But sometimes I feel better after talking, ‘specially when I’m sad or mad.”

Law looked up at the bronzed pendant lights hanging above them.

Seriously, I’m being schooled by a seven-year-old?

“Who are you going to talk to?”