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I decide, for both our sakes, not to engage with that.
It doesn’t take long to reach the school. The pickup line is backed up around the corner, so I join the end of it.
“This is why I come later,” Levi says, sounding pleased with himself. “Look at this. We’ll be sitting here for forty minutes.”
“But he shouldn’t be the last kid sitting there,” I say. “You should be in the line with everyone else, so he comes out and sees you waiting for him.”
“He doesn’t care.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s never complained.”
I glance at him. “That’s not the same thing.”
Levi shrugs. “He sits on a bench. Reads a book. Big deal.”
I let out a slow breath. “Would you like to sit on a bench by yourself for forty minutes every day?”
“If it got me out of this line? Absolutely.”
Despite myself, I almost smile.
Then he adds, “If I’d waited for my mom to pick me up, I’d still be standing there.”
The humor drains out of me.
“I had to walk,” he continues. “Only reason I don’t make Theo do it is because this road’s a nightmare. Cars fly through here, nobody looks, and he’s too small for some asshole in a truck to see him in time.”
So he does care. He just has a strange, mildly alarming way of showing it.
“Fuck’s sake,” Levi mutters as a parent ahead of us gets out of the car to talk to someone, apparently unconcerned by the entire line waiting behind her.
“Can you ease up on the swearing?” I ask.
“Yeah, yeah.” He rubs a hand over his jaw. “You already said that.”
“You didn’t seem to listen,” I reply under my breath.
We reach the front of the pickup line in silence. Only a handful of children remain. The moment Theo spots me, his whole face lights up.
He runs over with a bright smile that tugs hard at something deep in my chest.
“Is Levi’s car broken?” Theo asks as he climbs into the backseat.
“No,” I say, smiling at him in the rearview mirror. “I’m just helping…because his arm is sore.”
“Get out of here before the principal comes over,” Levi mutters. “Move it.”
I pull away quickly, before I even fully register what he’s said.
“The principal was coming over?” I ask.
“Yeah. You’ve got to be fast.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“What? She’s always looking for something to bitch about.”
