Four

SPENCER REFILLED Aaron’s pilsner again, watching the unfocused gaze in the crystal blue eyes he loved so much. Aaron didn’t let his guard down often, not often at all, but when he did, the effect staggered Spencer. He imagined that this Aaron, the smiling, carefree Aaron, was the boy he’d been before his world became horrifically altered. More and more often, Spencer had started to wonder who that guy was and how their relationship might have been different if Aaron’s attack had never happened. But, just like Spencer’s deafness, it did happen, and they both had to work with what they had.

Hence the beer.

Spencer took full advantage of his father’s St. Louis conference to bring home beer with their dinner. Not much for alcohol even before his father started going to AA, Spencer never brought anything into the house since his father quit drinking. It seemed like taunting him to drink in the house. But last week he and Aaron had talked about how maybe alcohol could help Aaron loosen up when they made out. They agreed that they wouldn’t take it any further than oral, and maybe not even that far, but Aaron wanted to try. So they decided Aaron would bring the tacos, Spencer would bring the beer, and they’d see what happened from there.

The tacos Aaron had brought were far beyond anything Spencer or his father could have whipped up in their expensive kitchen. The subtle spices infused into the pork from hours of slow cooking made him wish his stomach were bigger so he could keep eating. Instead, he took another drink of his beer and smiled as Aaron did the same. Spencer wondered if this was what living with Aaron would be like one day. In a place he never dared imagine while sober, he saw their small apartment decked out with a server rack next to a few of Spencer’s original Battlestar Galactica posters. For a moment, he thought about pictures of Aaron and him on a shelf in the living room before he remembered why it could never happen. Aaron would never ever allow him to take their picture for display. He barely let Spencer take a few candids on the phone because of his scars. There wouldn’t be pictures of them together on any shelf, especially a shelf in their own place. Aaron’s emotional and physical damage stood like a wall between them and their future. It seemed to grow instead of shrink with each passing year.

A small piece of diced tomato smacked his cheek, and Spencer looked up, startled. Aaron was laughing, head thrown back, laughing, and Spencer just stared. He’d never seen anything so fucking beautiful in his life. Without stopping to think about how he felt or how Aaron would react, he launched himself out of his chair and moved with surprising speed around to the other side of the table. Reason overrode the beer in his system, and he remembered just in time not to crawl in Aaron’s lap. Instead, he captured his boyfriend’s face between his palms and kissed him for all he was worth. Spencer pulled back and saw, not the fear he expected, but heat and love. He took Aaron’s hand, pulling him off the chair and into the rec room.

“Am I in trouble?” Aaron signed with a wicked smirk Spencer didn’t get to see often on his sweet face.

“Do you want to be?” Spencer asked with a tender smile of his own. His knees hit the edge of the couch, and he fell onto the leather cushion with a huff, forgetting everything when Aaron followed him down and straddled his lap. Spencer could feel his heart pounding in his chest with the sweet touch of Aaron’s hands on his face. He moved them just long enough to sign to Spencer.

“I just want to be with you.”

Aaron’s lips covered his before he could think, and the warm rush of breath over his skin made it tingle—or maybe it was the beer. God, it didn’t matter. He could not get enough of Aaron, who tasted like spice and barley and pure fucking happiness. Barely touching Aaron, Spencer wrapped loose arms low around his lover’s hips. Over the last few years, since they’d started dating, Spencer had learned never to restrain Aaron in any way, and that included a loving embrace. But he did what he needed to in order to have Aaron in his life. Heaven was found in Aaron’s arms.

The roll of Aaron’s hips, grinding their hardening cocks together through layers of denim, surprised Spencer. Even during the few times they’d been intimate with each other, Spencer had always taken the lead. Aaron never initiated, and hope reared its ugly head in Spencer’s heart. He’d had only his hand for company for a really long time.

Sliding sideways on the couch, Spencer watched Aaron’s face for any signs that he wanted to stop. By the time his back hit the cushions and Aaron lay sprawled on top of him, he’d convinced himself he’d found none. They wouldn’t have sex, he knew that, but maybe since Aaron had initiated things, Spencer wouldn’t have to hold a crying Aaron while he forgot about his throbbing cock.

Aaron fumbled with Spencer’s fly even as their kisses heated to an almost intolerable level. Each subsequent button popping made Spencer’s heart race faster until a soft, tentative hand reached inside and cupped his dick. He felt the moan scratch his throat on the way out and kissed Aaron harder. Aaron’s touch felt so different than his own—shy and unsure.

A quick flash of panic crossed Aaron’s face before he let go of Spencer’s cock and reached for his own jeans. It took a moment with shaking hands to open the button and pull down the zipper, but he did manage. Their mouths parted just long enough for Aaron to jerk his jeans and underwear over his hips, leaving them lingering just below his ass. Taking the opportunity, Spencer did the same and then spit into his palm. When Aaron settled back on top of him, Spencer reached between them and took their dicks in his hand, stroking even as Aaron’s hips jerked forward.

Spencer closed his eyes and let the scent of his lover’s hair, the sweet smell of sweat and spice, fill his senses and thought maybe it was the closest to heaven he’d ever been. The frightened, excited pants against his neck felt like pure joy. Instead of the panic and pain Spencer normally saw in Aaron’s face when they were intimate, he saw arousal and need, need for him. Nothing could compare to the feeling of freedom welling in his chest, and he wished he’d drunk beer with Aaron long before then. They’d never experimented with alcohol because his dad said Aaron needed to work through his psychological damage without self-medicating. His father didn’t have to listen to the terror in Aaron’s voice when they tried to show their love for each other. He didn’t have to feel that cold, metallic sting of rejection on the back of his tongue when his boyfriend didn’t want Spencer to touch him. Spencer couldn’t even imagine what Aaron saw as he closed his eyes, but he pushed that thought away to dissect later.

“That. Feels. So. Good.,” Spencer moaned into Aaron’s hair as they lay sprawled on the leather couch in the rec room they’d come to think of as theirs. A little den of iniquity where they could explore each other, emotionally, intellectually, and on a very rare occasion, physically. Even with the six-pack of beer in his system, Aaron still had only pulled his jeans and underwear to his thighs, leaving his shirt wrinkled and pushed up his chest. No amount of alcohol would ever make him comfortable being naked, even with Spencer, who loved him more than anything on earth.

When Aaron shook harder above him, Spencer tightened his grip on the cocks trapped between their writhing bodies. A bit of spit early on had given them enough lubrication to make the friction bearable. In an effort to make Aaron more comfortable, he let his lover control everything. His only job was to hold their dicks in his hand while Aaron jerked his hips and got them there. An image of Aaron driving into him as he wrapped his legs around Aaron’s waist made his cock throb. Spencer had never bottomed before, but for Aaron… for Aaron, he’d do anything. Aside from the few aborted attempts he’d had with Aaron, Spencer hadn’t had sex in almost three years, and his balls knew it. While he loved Aaron with every bit of his soul, he needed to be touched.

Aaron’s hips moved faster, his arms shaking with arousal and the effort of holding himself above Spencer as they perched precariously on the couch. His mouth found Aaron’s again, and his lips tingled with the vibrations of moans he couldn’t hear. More than anything, Spencer wanted to wrap his legs around Aaron’s waist, but that wasn’t possible. Aaron would panic if he felt restrained in any way, and Spencer didn’t want their afternoon delight to end anytime soon. He opened his eyes and watched the play of emotion across Aaron’s face as he threw his head back, arching. With his inhibitions, his terror kept at bay by alcohol, the freedom in Aaron’s face made Spencer’s body sing. So close. His orgasm drifted on the edge of nirvana, just beyond his reach. His pleasure was secondary, though, to Aaron’s. He wanted to get Aaron there first, and then he could come. As Aaron’s dick throbbed in his hand, Spencer got the impression it wouldn’t be long. In fact, as Aaron dropped his head onto Spencer’s shoulder and seemed to surrender to the sensation, Spencer thought it wouldn’t be long at all.

Then Aaron’s head jerked up, and a look of panic crossed his face. Spencer’s heart sank. Not now. As Spencer put a hand on Aaron’s chest and tried to get him back into their lovemaking, Aaron jerked his head toward the door. His eyes widened, and he scrambled off the couch, almost bruising Spencer’s balls with his knee.

“What.?” Spencer asked even as he glanced over the back of the couch toward the door. “What” became apparent when he saw his father framed in the doorway. Spencer swore, and his heart ached at the pain and humiliation in Aaron’s eyes as he jerked his jeans up. With one look at Spencer he pushed past Spencer’s father and left the room.

“Dad. What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. Here.? And., Really.?” Spencer said, lifting his hips to pull discarded shorts back over his naked hips. “He. Does. Not. Have. Enough. Issues. Without. You. Playing. Peeping. Tom.?” The T-shirt went on next as he squared off against his father. Spencer wanted to go to Aaron and check on him, but right then he was too furious with his father. As Aaron’s therapist, he should have understood how fragile Aaron was.

“I did not know you were there,” Dr. Thomas signed with a slight frown as he looked in the direction Aaron had retreated. “I heard a noise, and the hotel had a fire. They canceled the conference.” His hands stopped uselessly in the air, and his face turned toward the front door.

“He left?” Spencer asked, guessing what the change in direction meant. Dr. Thomas nodded, and Spencer’s heart clenched as he grabbed his phone from the table near the couch.

[Spencer] Please stay. We can go somewhere together.

[Aaron] I can’t. I just need to be alone for a while.

[Spencer] You were drinking. Please don’t drive. Come back.

[Aaron] I’m fine. I’ll be careful.

[Spencer] Please be safe. I love you.

[Aaron] k

Spencer hated that answer—“k.” It didn’t say anything except that he’d gotten the text. It didn’t say he would be careful on the way home because Aaron had only gotten his license last year, they’d been drinking, and he was upset. It didn’t say he loved Spencer too, or that he wasn’t angry for his dad walking in on them. Damn it. After sliding the phone back into his pocket, Spencer looked up at his father. The room still smelled of sex and sweat. He could almost feel Aaron’s skin against his.

“You know how fragile he is. Who the hell else would have been making out on the couch in here? Is some junkie going to stop to jack off on the couch while he’s ripping off the stereo?” Spencer raged rapidly at his father, giving only the barest control to his signs as they jerked in the air. Embarrassment still heated his face. Goddamn it, he was twenty-one years old. Was a little privacy too much to ask?

“It did not sound like someone making out. It sounded like someone in pain.”

Spencer’s heart clenched because he hadn’t known Aaron was in trouble. The expressions on his sweet face didn’t betray his distress, his pain. Fate was a bitch, seriously. Spencer asked for someone to see him, someone to love him, but he didn’t realize what he’d have to give up in return. No, that was selfish. But Jesus, he really wanted to spend the afternoon getting off on the couch. Why did it have to be so fucking hard?

“I really hope I get that job so I can get out of here,” Spencer signed, pushing past his father, who tried to grab his arm, but Spencer pulled away and headed for the stairs. He didn’t want to be rational right then. Instead he wanted to go up to his room, sulk, and think about a world where he and Aaron were normal. His father had other plans and followed Spencer.

“What job?”

“There is a company called Voyager Tech that wants to buy Spaaron. They offered me a job. Seventy thousand a year,” Spencer signed, confused when his father merely shook his head.

“A company offered you seventy a year? Do they know you don’t even have a degree? What about Aaron? He helped write that software.”

“I do have a degree. And yes, they know that it is only a two-year degree. They did not care. They want me to be a technical lead on the project involving our software and then stay on to do other projects. They offered the job to Aaron too, but we have not talked about it yet.”

“Aaron is never going to take it.”

“I know that, but I think he will sell the software.”

“Where is this job?”

“Downtown.”

“Are you going to move up there?”

“I would have to. Besides, you have your girlfriend now. What difference does it make to you?”

“What about Aaron? You are just going to leave him?”

Spencer dropped onto the bed, all of the fight seeping out of his bones and into the carpeting below. He didn’t want to leave Aaron, but it was such a great opportunity for both of them. Aaron was always so worried about money, about being able to support himself without being dependent on his parents forever. Investing a couple hundred thousand would go a long way toward helping with that.

“I can come back on weekends to see him. Or are you telling me if I leave, not to come back?”

Pain sliced across his father’s expression, and Spencer felt guilt rise up in his heart like the tide.

“Of course I would never tell you that. I just want you to finish your degree and get a better foundation before you take a job and move out on your own. What if it doesn’t work out with this place? You will have to start again in school.”

“Dad, what is the goal of college? Is it not to get a high paying job? That is what I have a shot at. A career. A life.”

His father’s expression clouded over again.

“I thought you had a pretty good life here.”

“I do, but it is a life you pay for. I want a life of my own.”

“I do not keep tabs on you like you are a child. You are free to come and go as you please. How is it not a life of your own?”

“What about what just happened downstairs?”

“There is no way you are going to get Aaron an hour or more away from his comfort zone. So if you are moving to the north side for sex, you might as well stay here.”

“I do not want to talk about this anymore. I need to talk it over with Aaron before I make a decision anyway.”

“And for the record, Spencer, you will always be first in my life, no matter who I date.”

His father turned his back in either surrender or frustration and left the room. Spencer lay back on his bed and tried to figure out how he would talk to Aaron about the job. How could he justify walking away after everything they’d built and worked through together?

Why did life have to be so fucking hard?

HIS HANDS shook on the wheel as Aaron pulled into the driveway of his family’s multilevel home. Mostly on autopilot, he’d kept his hands at ten and two, focusing only on the road and not on the unease carving a desperate hole inside him. He shouldn’t have driven with alcohol in his system, he knew that, but he had to get away. Spencer’s expectations were growing every time they were together, and conversely Dr. Thomas’s interest in him waned with each subsequent session. Aaron wasn’t interesting anymore because he wasn’t “in crisis.” In fact, Dr. Thomas had already brought up the option of transitioning him to another therapist because of his travel schedule. Once he’d published the paper on Aaron’s psychological trauma, he’d become somewhat a celebrity in the mental health community. At least once or twice a month, he was invited to speak around the country about helping people with the same kind of indicators Aaron had. Apparently it didn’t matter that he’d abandoned his original subject. Aaron supposed he should have been happy for Dr. Thomas because of his success, not only professionally but also personally, because he’d stopped drinking, but what about him? What about the broken boy they all seemed to be leaving behind? What happened to him?

It took a few minutes after he’d pulled into the drive to actually put the car in park, and another few before he could take the keys out of the ignition. The buzzing in his brain stopped him from coming up with a cover story. He’d been at Spencer’s to stay the night and could not discuss with his mother why he’d come home early. He just couldn’t. Sex was the one thing he couldn’t talk to her about in any form. The only people he could have that conversation with were back at Spencer’s house, probably having the talk without him.

A breeze blew across his face through the open car window, bringing with it the scents of freshly cut grass and burning charcoal—the smells of summer. It had been a long time since he’d been outside to enjoy those. The sun on his skin felt nice, except for the tightness in the scar on his face. All of the other damage to his body could be hidden with a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, but not his face. It shone like a beacon to anyone foolish enough to look.

His heart rate slowed, but the humiliation was like a haze around his field of vision. Everything seemed to be touched by it. Aaron squeezed his eyes shut as the car closed in around him. The tunnel vision worsened as he inhaled long and slow through his nose and pushed the air out in a huff. In and out…. In and out…. In and out…. After nearly ten minutes of breathing exercises, his skin didn’t feel so tight, and the headache which had begun to pulse in his temples waned. A car door slammed somewhere in the distance, and Aaron blinked against the sunlight when he finally opened his eyes. Nothing around him had changed. Mr. Handley’s perfectly trimmed hedges were still to his right, and Aaron’s overgrown yard lay to the left. Anthony had failed to cut the grass again, and their father wouldn’t be pleased. Great, more fighting.

Aaron opened the car door and stepped out into the heady early-August heat. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck with blinding speed, and he jogged the few steps to the porch to escape the suffocating humidity. After taking off his shoes, he peeked into the living room to find it empty. His brothers must both be downstairs. A small snuffling from the kitchen made him switch directions and head that way instead. His heart ached to see his mother crying softly as she stood washing dishes at the sink. The dishwasher sat unused in its place under the counter. Without a word, Aaron grabbed a dishtowel and began to dry the glasses and silverware which had already accumulated in the drainer.

Each minute grew heavier as they moved on to plates and then the casserole pan she’d used to make a meatloaf. Aaron felt a twinge of regret. Meatloaf was one of his favorites. He took the clean pan and dried it carefully before putting it in the lower cabinet by the door. As the dishwater drained, Aaron watched his mother wipe down every stationary surface from the counter to the stove to the refrigerator. She seemed to be stalling, unwilling or unable to tell him what troubled her.

Finally, he took her damp hands in his and led her to the dining room table.

“Mom, please, what is it?” Aaron kept his voice light, and his heart ached when he realized her hands were shaking. It had been a long time since he’d seen his mother so upset. In fact, it hadn’t been since he was first home from the hospital. After that she became his most zealous advocate. She did everything for him in those first few years, and he couldn’t articulate what it meant to him. But now she was the one in trouble, and Aaron wanted more than anything to be able to help her.

“Your… I….” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, tears heavy in the exhalation. “You should probably go get your brothers. I really only want to say this once.” Aaron’s pulse pounded in his ears as his brain scrambled to come up with an idea of what she’d have to tell them.

“Are you okay, Mom? You’re not sick, or…?”

“No, honey. I’m fine. Go get Allen and Anthony, and we’ll talk about it.”

“What about Dad?” Aaron asked slowly.

“Your father already knows.”

Aaron stood up from the table, letting go of his mother’s hands only in the last moment and letting them fall gently to her lap. With a casual glance over his shoulder, he watched her for a moment, noticing as he did that her posture wasn’t defeated. Whatever had upset her hadn’t beaten her. It couldn’t be as bad as he’d first imagined. His steps were lighter as he bounded down the stairs to the basement looking for his brothers.

“Hey,” Aaron said as he found Allen cleaning his room. In a few weeks, their parents would be moving him to Purdue, just a few hours south in central Indiana. Most guys would wait until the last minute, but Allen seemed to be in a hurry to get out of the house yet still reluctant to leave. Aaron couldn’t blame him.

“Hey,” Allen replied and dropped a stack of books into the big trash bag sitting at the foot of his bed. His brother turned, and Aaron saw a light in his eyes that had been absent for a long time. It took Aaron a minute to understand that it meant more than just Allen heading away to college. Allen would be escaping the asylum. That had to be a great feeling—a feeling Aaron would probably never know.

“Mom needs us upstairs,” he said and hesitated. Allen picked up on his distress and stepped around the bed to stand next to Aaron, one hand going slowly to his shoulder. God, he didn’t know how he was going to make it for the next four years without Allen. If their mother was the rock which held their family together, then Allen was the rope, holding them to the rock. He couldn’t even think about what would happen if Allen didn’t come back after college, if he got a job halfway across the country or something.

“What’s up?”

“She was crying. Mom never cries in the middle of the kitchen like that. Something is wrong,” he explained, the pain and frustration of the afternoon with Spencer coming out in a heavy sigh.

“She’s freaking out about me going away to college,” Allen said, dropping with a huff onto his bed. “She’s been like this since my acceptance letter came. I think she’s scared something will happen to me.”

“I don’t think that’s it. It’s more than that.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t go.” Allen’s shoulders dropped, and he looked up at the ceiling, the conflict clear in every line of his tense posture. He wanted so badly to get out of the house, to start his own life, but he hated leaving his family.

“Of course you should, but right now, just go to the kitchen. I’m going to get Mr. Personality,” Aaron said, turning toward the door.

“Shit has been hard on all of us, Aaron. It fucked up his childhood. Cut him some slack.” Allen’s voice hit him in the back of the head like a physical blow, hard and jagged. He flinched, but Allen didn’t comment as he headed toward the stairs.

Aaron went to the other side of the basement, where Anthony’s cave-like room sat just outside the cubby where the washer and dryer were. You’d think that kind of proximity would entice Anthony to help their mother with the laundry, but no such luck.

The door to Anthony’s room was pushed to but not closed all the way. He’d taped a poster of his most recent band obsession to the outside of the door. Some kind of gothlike, angry, slashed singer stared at him with what appeared to be blood on his face. The image disturbed Aaron, but he laid a hand in the middle of the poster and pushed anyway. The door swung open easily to reveal his youngest brother lying on his back, eyes closed, with his head off the edge of the bed and earbuds in his ears. The white headphones cord contrasted sharply with his black shirt.

“Anthony,” Aaron said, trying not to stare at the concrete walls in between posters and magazine cutouts. Being in the basement made his skin crawl. Even though he’d been working on it for the better part of two years and knew in his soul he was safe in his own house, the concrete surrounding him filled him with panic. Anthony didn’t even open his eyes. He simply lay there listening to the angry concoction of the week. Aaron knew it was something angry because he could hear the whispers of it coming from the buds. For more than a minute, Aaron contemplated throwing something at his brother but finally decided to just push on his shoulder. Anthony’s eyes opened slowly, almost as if he’d been asleep, but with no surprise of being woken suddenly or startled. He popped one earbud out.

“What?”

Surprised at how one word could contain so much anger and resignation at the same time, it took Aaron a moment to respond while his brother watched him, upside down, with hostile eyes. He could barely remember the Anthony who had distracted his grandparents when they went out to dinner or stood beside him in his fight to keep seeing Dr. Thomas. Aliens could have come and picked him up and replaced him with this rude and sullen substitute. Aaron wished they’d bring him back.

“Mom needs to talk to us upstairs.”

“So?” Anthony asked, pushing the little white bud back into his ear. Aaron tried to focus on Allen’s parting words, about how Aaron had fucked up Anthony’s childhood, but anger coursed through him at Anthony’s disregard for their mother. She’d done so much, for all of them, and Anthony just didn’t care she was hurting. Fuck that.

Aaron grabbed the cord lying on his brother’s chest and jerked it hard, leaving the earbuds dangling over Anthony’s shoulder as he sat up, slower than Aaron expected.

“What the fuck?”

“Mom is upstairs crying. Something is wrong. She’s waiting for us. Get your ass up those stairs and go into the kitchen.” Aaron pushed the rage threatening his control back into its box. Anthony, though acting like a prick today, didn’t deserve it. He did, however, grab Anthony’s arm and pull him off the bed.

“I liked you better when you couldn’t touch,” Anthony grumbled as he stalked past Aaron and headed for the stairs. Stunned, it took Aaron a minute to follow. It was the first time anyone had ever said they liked Aaron better all fucked up. The pain of the cut across his soul took his breath away. He started walking toward the stairs by sheer automation as he left the basement behind and went up to the kitchen.

Allen, Anthony, and his mom sat around the table, not talking, not even really looking at one another. Anthony’s iPhone sat on the table with the earbuds resting on top. Apparently something Aaron said got past the teenage angst and stuck. His mother sat alone on one side of the table while his brothers were together on the other side. Aaron took a seat at the head of the table between Allen and his mother.

She reached over and took his hand, which scared him more than anything. His whole life, she had only ever held his hand to comfort him, never to comfort herself. He felt cold all over.

“You guys know I took Grandma Alice for some tests last week, right?” She didn’t stop for confirmation, just plunged ruthlessly on. “Well, the results of the tests came back. The doctor says she has cancer.” Her hand shook as it rested on top of Aaron’s, and another tear slipped down her tired, drawn face.

“Is it something they can operate on, or…?” Aaron let the question of her mother’s mortality hang in the air.

“They’re going to try, honey. In the meantime, I’m going to have to help Grandma out more. I’ll be going over there to cook and help out around the house. You boys are old enough to take care of yourselves a little more, right?” While she’d addressed the question to all three of them, her eyes met his, and Aaron nodded.

“We’ll be fine, Mom,” Allen said and reached across the table to take her other hand. While they all loved Grandma Alice, they were more worried about their mother and the emotional toll her mother’s illness would take on her. “I can do laundry. I think Aaron can cook, right, man?” He looked up at Aaron, who nodded. He could cook well enough and could figure out the rest. “Anthony?”

“Whatever,” Anthony said, but with Allen, he didn’t use the same sulky tone he’d had with Aaron. It sounded more like “Whatever you want” than “What fucking ever,” which is what Aaron usually got.

“Yeah, Mom, we’ll take care of things. You take care of Grandma,” Aaron confirmed, squeezing his mother’s fingers gently.

“I’m not deserting you,” she said with a shaky laugh. “But the help is appreciated.” The laugh seemed to help, because no more tears fell.

“I’ll call my counselor at Purdue and see what I can do about putting it off—” Allen started, but his mother cut him off abruptly.

“You will not. You have a scholarship to maintain, and your brothers are perfectly capable of looking after themselves. Aaron is an adult, and Anthony will have your father and Aaron looking out for him. It’s time you lived your life for you, baby.”

Allen swallowed hard but nodded. Aaron had a feeling they would have a conversation about it later when they were alone, after he and Anthony had gone to do other things, but for right then, he didn’t argue.

They stayed at the table for a few more minutes, talking about nothing, until Anthony pushed his chair out and stood.

“I’m going to go get my stuff together. I’m staying at Shane’s tonight.”

They watched him turn away from the table and head for the stairs. His mother sighed quietly but didn’t say anything as her youngest son wandered farther and farther away from them all.