I was pouring myself a coffee as a well-earned break from work when I got the call. I wasn’t expecting anything from anyone. It was the end of the school day soon, and I would be going to pick Hunter up from one of the clubs he was part of, but I grabbed my phone anyway and answered at once.

“Hello?” I greeted the person on the other end of the line, pinning the cell between my shoulder and my ear as I poured my coffee.

“Hello, Holden?” A man’s voice I didn’t recognize came down the line, and I furrowed my brow.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I replied. “Who’s speaking?”

“This is Paul Robertson,” the man replied, and it took me a moment to place the name. I knew it from somewhere, and then it hit me. Hunter’s principal.

“Is everything all right?” I asked, concerned. I had never had a call from him at home before.

“Hunter’s safe,” he promised me at once. “But he’s in some trouble. We need you to come by the school to pick him up and so we can talk.”

“I’ll be right there.” I hung up and dumped my coffee down the drain. Hurrying to the car, I wondered what in the name of hell he could have gotten wrapped up in. I had never known Hunter to be anything other than a model student before. I hoped he hadn’t gotten into a fight. Maybe some other kids had started picking on him, bullying him, and things had gotten out of control? My mind was racing as I hurried to make it to the school, and when I arrived, I went straight through to the principal’s office.

“Hello?” I opened the door and found Hunter sitting in a small chair in the corner waiting for me. I instantly went to him, checking him all over to make sure there were no visible injuries, but he seemed fine. He squirmed away from me, as though he wished he could have been anywhere else but there.

“Hello, Holden. Take a seat, please.” Paul pointed to the chair opposite him. I did as I was told, straightening my jacket and looking at him expectantly.

“We called you in today because Hunter was caught painting his name on the side of the school building with another boy.” He sighed, sounding as though he was already exhausted with this and wanted to go straight home.

“What?” I glanced around at my son, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. He looked away from me, going bright red as he did so.

“We caught him about an hour ago,” Paul continued. “We wanted to call you in to discuss the best mode of discipline going forward.”

“I’ll pay for any damages,” I assured him at once, “and Hunter will come in over the weekend to paint over anything he left there. Right?”

I turned to Hunter, who nodded. He was still squirming in his seat, as though he couldn’t wait to get away.

“He’ll also receive a week of detention from the school,” Paul replied. “Since this is his first incident, we’ll leave it to you to discipline him the best way you see fit. For future incidents, though, he will receive a harsher punishment, and we’ll expect to meet with you again to discuss options going forward.”

“Of course.” I nodded, and I did my best to keep my brow furrowed and my face serious in light of what he was telling me. Of course, I was angry. Hunter shouldn’t have been pulling shit like that, and he knew better than to deface property in that way. But at the same time, there was some part of me that didn’t mind his acting out as much as I perhaps should have. After all, how long had I been hoping he would start acting like a kid his age?

“Thank you for coming in.” Paul shook my hand and glanced over at Hunter to give him one last long look. “You’re both free to leave now.”

Hunter hopped off the seat and trailed behind me out to the car. He didn’t say a word, probably thinking I was mad at him and he was in for a chewing-out as soon as he opened his mouth—which I would give him, of course, because I didn’t want to be caught in the middle of raising a little vandal. But it was hard to be too cross with him.

He climbed into the seat next to mine and turned to look out the window. Despite the downturned corners of his mouth, there to convince anyone looking that he felt bad for what he’d done, I could see a glimmer in his eyes—something like amusement, as though he was going over what he’d done in his head and couldn’t get over how fun it had been. I had pulled plenty of stunts like that one when I was a kid and I had turned out all right. I had done them alongside all my best friends, all the kids who’d made my life worth living when I was growing up. If he could be a part of some of that energy, then I wasn’t going to begrudge him a little bit of nonsense in the process.

“Are you mad at me?” Hunter asked quietly as we pulled in to the driveway of the house. He had been silent the entire trip back home, as though he was under the impression I might up and forget about what he’d done while we were on the way back here.

“I think what you did was very wrong,” I told him firmly as I switched off the engine. “And I’ll be driving you there on the weekend to clean it up. If I ever hear about you doing anything like this again, there’s going to be real trouble, all right?”

He nodded. “All right. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Who was the boy you did it with?” I asked, and his face lit up at once.

“Jason,” he replied. “We were playing with the paints after school, and he said we should see what happened when we put them under the sunlight, so we decided to paint our names out there together.”

Okay. That didn’t sound too nefarious.

“And what did happen?”

“We got caught, and they took us to the principal’s office.” He made a face.

“Well, that’s what’s going to happen if you deface other people’s property,” I told him sternly. “Don’t let your new friends lead you astray. I know some things can seem fun on the surface, but you have to make sure they’re not going to hurt anyone else. Otherwise, they’re not fun for the person who’s getting hurt.”

“I get it.” He nodded, clutching his bag close to him on his lap.

“Good. Now, get inside and finish your homework before dinner. Think about what you’ve done. Try not to paint on any of the walls in the process.”

“Okay, Dad.” He hopped out of the car and hurried into the house. I followed him after a moment or two. He was likely embarrassed and probably wanted some time to be by himself after what had happened. I could remember what it was like to get caught at that age when you felt as though every idea you had was the greatest in the world right up until the moment some big boring adult came by to dissuade you of the fact.

When I made it back into the house, he was already upstairs in his room, the door shut behind him, and finally, I allowed myself a smile. I sincerely hoped this would be the last bit of trouble he got into—hell, that he would learn to be smart enough to keep himself from getting caught the next time.

I should have been more mad that I’d had to come down to the school in the middle of the workday to pick him up, mad that he’d been pulling a stunt as silly as that one. But I couldn’t find it in me to feel that way. The way he’d told the story, it didn’t sound like either of those boys had intended anything nasty with the painting. They’d been curious and too silly to consider what the consequences of that curiosity might be.

Even if it had sprung from somewhere a little more rebellious, I found it hard to mind too much about that, either. I had spent so long worrying about Hunter, worrying that he wasn’t acting like other boys his age. This kind of troublemaking, the kind where a kid and his friend put their heads together and came up with an idea that they were both too dumb or too excited to notice would get them in trouble, that was an integral part of being a kid. It had been to me, at least. I would never have been able to become the man I was today if I hadn’t spent my growing-up years taking silly risks and reaping the rewards—or the punishments. It was the only way he was going to learn how the world worked, this kind of low-stakes boy stuff that he had seemed to hide away from for so long.

And he’d been doing it with a friend. That seemed, to me, the most important part of this. He was coming home and telling me about the friends he’d been making, even if he was doing dumb stuff with them. I couldn’t wait for him to start bringing them around, so I could see him surrounded by all his companions, the people who made him feel valued and special and safe.

I headed to the kitchen and went to have that coffee I had been so rudely interrupted from when I had received that phone call. This time, I had a smile on my face as I was making it. Yes, I would have to sacrifice my weekend to teach my son a lesson about respecting other people’s property, but if it meant he had friends by his side, I would have given up every weekend for the rest of the year. He was turning into the boy I’d always dreamed he would be, and nothing was going to get in the way of how good it felt to finally see him come out of his shell.