THE EARTH BENEATH OUR FEET

 

 

WHAT LARX would forever remember about the day Aaron came home was how stilted their conversation was in the car at the beginning.

It struck him as… odd. Because talking—give and take, banter—that had never been their problem. It had, in fact, been their strength—right up until Eamon had texted Larx to Dammit tell Aaron what happened, and Larx had realized he never had any intention of doing just that.

“So, Jaime’s doing better?” Aaron asked as Larx piloted the minivan out of the parking lot. Aaron had waited impatiently to get checked out, but they’d needed to bring an oxygen tank with them in case he had problems breathing, and that had taken time.

“A little,” Larx said guardedly. “He actually spends a lot of time over at your place with Olivia and Elton. I guess they bonded, and he’s not so overwhelmed over there. But when he’s with us, he seems happier.”

“How’s Berto?”

Larx sighed. “Doing better. He’s apparently sleeping better, especially if he medicates. One of the reasons he’s so big on the marijuana medication is that he has no health insurance. I’d love to take him in to a professional, but it would pretty much financially cripple him and Jaime. Tane says he’s doing okay, though. He comes by every day after work and spends time with Jaime and the dog. He’s almost said hi to me twice.”

Aaron chuckled like he was supposed to, but Larx was aware that his voice had a hard, plastic cadence because, dammit, there was something he hadn’t told Aaron, and that was just unnatural.

“Is Mau fitting in all right?” Aaron asked, and Larx wondered if he had a checklist.

“Of course. I told you that Friday. Your daughter is brilliant and amazing—I mean, it doesn’t surprise me because she’s yours, but she’s really sort of perfect.”

“Says the father of Christiana.”

“Yeah, and the father of the pregnant basket case living in your house.”

Aaron rumbled disapprovingly. “And how’s—”

“Don’t ask,” Larx said, feeling like his hard plastic was crumbling. “I mean, she seems okay, but she still hasn’t made an appointment with a doctor, and Wombat Elton says she’s eating and opening up a little, but she was really bad for a while, and I just….” Deep breath. “You know. I’m going to worry until she gets this whole sitch in hand. She’s not better yet. Just… not.”

“And school?”

“Oh my God, you’re relentless!” Larx snapped. “Do you have, like, a list of our lives and you’re marking off checks?”

“Pull over,” Aaron snarled, and it was a good thing Larx had both hands on the wheel.

“What?”

“Pull over! There’s a turnout here—you know it!”

Larx did what Aaron said, because he was surprised, and because Aaron was mad, and because God, he’d missed Aaron putting a capper on his mouth and his anxiety and the way the whole world seemed to overwhelm him sometimes. But how right was it to ask a guy who could barely breathe to make you hold your shit together?

The minivan skidded to a halt, because it had snowed again Saturday and not much had melted since, and Larx turned to Aaron with a mix of relief and frustration.

“Why did we—”

“Kiss me.”

“Wha—”

“I can’t move—kiss me.”

Larx undid his seat belt and fiddled with the end, suddenly shy. “Aaron, we’re, you know, we have a house and a bedroom and—”

Aaron reached out and tilted his chin sideways. “And kiss me, baby. You keep trying to make everything all right, and it’s not. Kiss me, and then let’s get honest.”

Larx nodded, feeling tears threaten for the first time in days. He twisted his body, since Aaron was still healing, and turned so he could move into Aaron’s space. He paused about a foot away and tried to meet Aaron’s eyes. They’d let him bathe that day, and he smelled like his regular shampoo and only a little like hospital, but mostly like Aaron.

“Now kiss me,” Aaron whispered.

Larx nodded and closed his eyes, touching lips and tentatively sticking his tongue out to trace the seam of Aaron’s mouth.

Aaron opened for him easily, and Larx pushed inside.

His whole body went limp, like a noodle, at the sheer comfort of Aaron’s taste.

He groaned and pushed farther, breath catching as Aaron welcomed him. Aaron lifted his arms and pulled Larx closer, until their chests touched, and Larx held himself stiffly because he didn’t want to let his weight fall forward.

Aaron tightened his arms and insisted.

For a moment Larx was leaning against his broad chest again, relying on his strength. For just that moment, some of the burdens seemed to slip from his own shoulders, and he felt strong enough again—strong enough to face life, strong enough to care for his family.

Aaron was here, and he was helping Larx carry the world again, helping to bear the burden of a busy house and too many kids and grown-up responsibilities that frightened him and rendered him powerless and weak.

Larx didn’t so much pull back as fall gently out of the kiss. His body wanted more—but Aaron had another week to go, if not longer. His soul was fed, just enough for the hard plastic wall to grow softer, pliable.

To let himself be real.

“Hey,” Aaron said softly.

“Hey.” Larx leaned his forehead against Aaron’s before shifting sideways so he could rest his head on Aaron’s shoulder.

“You want to talk about it?”

Larx let out a strangled laugh. So much irony here. Larx, the communicator, trying to hold all his feelings inside. “No,” he said, then laughed some more. Aaron just ruffled his fingers through Larx’s hair.

“I can listen.”

“You’re hurt,” Larx said bitterly, and then cringed. “I mean, you don’t dump all your problems on someone in the hospital or recovering from surgery. You can’t even take a walk for another week—how do I…?” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. His throat locked up, and his neck was stiff enough to crackle.

“Eamon’s waiting for you to try to kill me with a frying pan,” Aaron told him reasonably, and Larx pulled away long enough to give him a weird look.

“Do you mean from too much oil? Because usually I’m very veggie-friendly.” He tried not to think of that one day hunting down Candace when he’d eaten meat and grease almost constantly. It had seemed like a coping mechanism—like the sugar, salt, and oil had fed his exhausted self.

“No, like she tried to take his head off with it,” Aaron said, rolling his eyes. “Because he was hurt, and she was left to deal with the house alone. And she didn’t have three… five… seven? Oh my God. You had seven kids—”

“They’re mostly grown,” Larx said weakly, because his head had been spinning since Wednesday and he hadn’t wanted to whine.

“Who cares. Seven relatives, period. But you had Olivia and Wombat Willie and Jaime, and then Mau showed up—I mean, Jaime’s sleeping on the floor, for Christ’s sake. I’d be pissed at me if I was just late from the market with all that bullshit going on—but it wasn’t just that. I was hurt, and you had to leave me to deal with that!”

Larx grunted, the touch of Aaron’s words like the touch of his tongue on a sore tooth. He knew—he knew the places that ached, but he wasn’t trying to drive a spike into them either.

“It’s like walking into a rabbit warren,” he admitted. “They just keep multiplying. It’s like, if Jaime hadn’t broke the dog—”

“Still?”

“Well, it’s not so bad after Dozer said enough that one day. But yeah—he’s still being a therapy dog, which is fine. Anyway, it’s a godsend because the dog isn’t spazzing out.” Oh wow. Was it only a week ago? A week ago Olivia had brought her problems right into Larx’s lap, and the spazzing dog had seemed like the end of the world.

Life had a quirky little way of putting that shit into perspective.

“Are we going to keep Jaime?” Aaron wouldn’t judge—but he only knew the kid by name at this point.

“Jaime and his brother need each other,” Larx said, reluctance in his voice. “But… but I don’t know where they’ll live. Tane has brought Berto by every day to care for his….” He couldn’t help it. He smirked. “Garden. But they have to go in through the back way. We all went in and cleaned up the broken furniture and repainted the walls and used remnants to replace the carpet in the house—everyone helped, even Yoshi.”

“He hates physical labor,” Aaron said encouragingly.

“I know. He seemed to think it was a dire thing. But this morning Tane called. He said he brought Berto by again, and Tane had to go inside. Berto just sat in the car and hummed to himself.”

Aaron grunted. “Well, I guess we could rent out the bottom half of my house. I mean, I’m not crazy about growing pot in the old chicken coop or wherever, but we could do it.”

Larx looked at him, irritated and warmed at the same time. “He’d pay rent,” he said, because that had been part of the discussion. “And you’re a really nice guy—and I think he and Jaime have felt really cut off here. I think having… you know, cousins or whatever, that would make them happy. And eventually Berto might be able to get another place.”

“But it’s a painful situation, and I left you to deal with it alone,” Aaron said perceptively.

“Augh!” Larx buried his eyes against Aaron’s shoulder. The inside of the car was getting cold without the motor running, but this time, this absolute quiet time, was such a treasure, such a wonder for the two of them, that he didn’t want to start the car up. Starting the car up meant plunging back into the whirlpool again, back into the raging surf of people who seemed to need them. “It’s irrational to be angry at you!”

Aaron’s rusty chuckle warmed his stomach. “Larx—love is irrational. Teenagers are irrational. Dog therapy shouldn’t make a damned bit of sense. But it does. Don’t fight it. You’re pissed. You’re going to be pissed. About the only thing I can do about it is—”

“Fight back,” Larx said, hating the truth. “Because if you give me nothing but ‘Yes, Larx, you’re right, Larx, I love you, Larx,’ I can’t be held responsible for what I do to you.”

“Hide all the frying pans,” Aaron said gravely.

“Hide all the pointy objects,” Larx shot back, voice grim.

“Okay—fine. You want me to fight back?” And Larx’s stomach clenched, because Aaron sounded like he meant business.

“Hit me.” Larx’s eyebrows were knitting so hard his head hurt.

“The train station.”

And suddenly they unknit, and his eyes were all big and butter couldn’t melt in his mouth. “What about it?” he asked benignly.

And Aaron’s eyebrows looked like they were making a sweater. “You gonna tell me?”

“Nothing to tell. Girl tried to buy a ticket.”

Aaron pulled away from him. “God is going to strike you down for lying, you faithless heathen! Holy Christ! Did you think Eamon wouldn’t tell me?”

“Well, if Eamon was going to tell you, why did you have to ask?” Larx snapped back. “And it’s not like you’ve told me what went on in that room!”

“I got shot! Isn’t that enough?”

Larx’s voice pitched angrily. “You saved Eamon’s life. You made the shooter aim at you instead of shooting in my direction. You saved my life. Did you know that? Because when he missed shooting at Eamon, he shot out your unit. If he’d kept aiming that way, one of the bullets would have hit me—I have no doubt. So you put yourself in harm’s way being a fucking hero, and I might not like it, but God, I sure am proud of you for it. But no—you just laid in the hospital looking like death and said, ‘Just doing my job, ma’am, just doing my job!’”

For a moment his words hung, hot and steaming, in the cold air of the minivan. Then Aaron took as deep a breath as he could muster.

“Assholes with shotguns, Larx. You behind a counter facing an asshole with a shotgun. And Percy Hardesty drawing down on you like you were dangerous. I won’t be able to work with that man ever again.”

Larx let out a breath. “That really doesn’t bother me. Percy isn’t that bright—I’d just as soon someone else have your back, truth to tell.”

Aaron leaned his head back against the seat rest. “When Eamon leaves office, he’s either going to fire Percy or leave him for me to fire. We’ll have to see how Percy takes Eamon backing me. Percy thinks he’s got a shot.”

“Well, I’ll give a testimonial,” Larx said acidly, and then he leaned his head back against the seat. Conceding to the inevitable, he turned the ignition on—but he didn’t take the car out of park. Not yet.

“Was this our first fight?” he asked, feeling raw and hurt but still okay. Aaron reached across the console and laced their fingers together.

“Closest thing to,” he admitted. “I’m going to have to weenie out of the rest of it ’cause I’m tired. Who do you think won?”

Larx pulled Aaron’s knuckles up to his lips and kissed them softly. God, for all the anger, all the resentment, Aaron was here, and Larx was so glad he was okay.

“We’ll call it a draw and fight again tomorrow,” Larx told him. Then he sighed. “When do… when do we stop fighting about this?”

“About my job?” Aaron turned to meet his eyes, and for a moment, Larx was pulled into the pretty blue of them, just like he had been that day Aaron had stopped him on the side of the road to insist that Larx run somewhere else.

“Yeah.”

“Until I retire. Can you keep it up that long?”

Larx closed his eyes and felt a smile steal across his lips. He hadn’t given it permission to be there, but, well, sometimes the heart healed what it healed.

“Can you deal with me being mad if you get hurt?”

“That depends,” Aaron said, voice sober.

Larx opened his eyes again. “On what?”

“On whether or not you break out the frying pan.”

Larx nodded. It was going to be rough. They both knew it. But there was something reassuring about buckling up for a bumpy ride. Didn’t make the ride any better, but there was a certain anger in surprise. No surprises here—Larx and Aaron had some shit to work out, and they had the emotional gloves and gas masks to prove it.

“I’ll keep the frying pan on the stove,” he promised, “but you’ve got to….” He took his own deep breath. “You’ve got to let me talk about the train station in my own time, okay?”

Aaron nodded. “I love you, Larx. Don’t forget that while we’re working shit out.”

“Love you too.” He swallowed and smiled. “I don’t think I’d be quite this pissed if I didn’t love you quite this much.”

Aaron smiled, a sexy, cocky smile, and Larx’s stomach did an irresponsible little backflip based on smile alone. “My boy loves me,” he said, like they were kids, and just saying the words meant they could frolic naked through a spring meadow of wild flowers.

“Of course I do,” Larx said quietly. “Whatever happens, it’s not going to be because there’s not enough love.”

“Then we’ll do fine,” Aaron said, and for that moment, in the warming car under the long afternoon shadows of the looming pine trees, Larx could believe him. Yeah, spring wildflowers were nice—but if they were going to endure the frozen ground of cold anger, they had to be tougher. Buttercups, crocuses, pinks—those flowers pushed their way through snow and gave people hope for a gentler moment in time.

Larx and Aaron were going to have to be like the crocus—lying latent right now, while they sent out feelers to each other’s hearts, knowing that soon the ground would soften, the sun would warm them, and it would be spring again.

 

 

THERE WAS an initial flurry of kids and excitement when Larx got Aaron home, but eventually they got him upstairs, ensconced in bed, king of the remote control. Larx kissed his cheek and told him he’d be back after he fixed everyone dinner. But when he got downstairs, he was surprised to see Christiana and Maureen working side by side, quietly giving each other help about where pots would be and what they were going to make.

“Guys, I was going with french bread pizza,” he said, smiling a little. Wasn’t the greatest meal in the world, but the thought of it right now filled him with sourdough bread joy.

“Don’t worry, Larx,” Maureen said, competence in every line of her shoulders, just like her father. “You’ve got canned kidney beans and ground beef and all the spices I need. I’m going to make chili and cornbread, and then you can have leftovers for the week. How’s that?”

Larx thought he could cry from the joy of not having to fix dinner. “Wonderful,” he breathed. “Should I set the table?”

“I’ll do it!” Jaime popped up at his elbow, like a gnome. “It’s my turn to help.”

Larx laughed. “Have you broken the dog yet?”

“Oh yes, sir,” Jaime told him gravely, nodding his head. Dozer was, indeed, passed out on his pillow. If nothing else, that seemed to be a habit now, and Larx approved. “If I could, I’d come over and break this dog every day.”

Larx smiled gently. Aaron had offered—and Larx would ask him again and again to make sure it was okay. But this boy was welcome in his home—and his brother too.

Olivia and Elton were doing finances at the kitchen table. Kirby and Kellan were playing a video game intently in the living room. Everybody had a job, a thing to do, a purpose.

“Well, fine.” Nobody was having a crisis. The thought left him… off-balance. Bereft. There was nothing to do because Aaron was….

Upstairs.

Oh jeez. He was upstairs.

And in a rush, the relief of having him there hit Larx right in the solar plexus.

He turned back around and went up the stairs, pausing in the doorway to their room, remembering the tense, painful conversation in the car on the way over.

How long was he going to be mad?

It was a good question—and he didn’t have a good answer to it. He was going to be mad until he stopped thinking Aaron was going to be in the hospital. He was going to be mad until he got his running buddy back. He was going to be mad until he stopped panicking if Aaron was even a minute late from work, or if he heard the shwack of the Kevlar as he was leaving the house.

His hands started to shake. Was he going to be mad the rest of his life?

He put his shaking hand on the doorknob, and it swung open. Aaron turned his head and smiled gratefully. “You going to keep me company while I sit on my ass and age?”

His smile—so golden. All the anger in Larx’s heart swept away, just like it had when they’d kissed.

Larx stepped into the room and leveraged himself carefully onto the bed. Once he got there, Aaron draped the afghan on his lap over them both and pulled Larx into the crook of his shoulder so Larx could watch TV too.

Nope. No anger here.

“All the kids okay?”

“Our daughters are working on dinner, our sons are working on the PS4, and the parents of our grandchild are trying to work out finances to see if they can both work from home and pay rent, insurance, and food.”

“Mm… what about the kid who wants our dog?”

“The… cousin, I guess, who broke your dog, is setting the table. I’m pretty sure they’ll call us when they’re ready.”

Aaron’s chuckle was breathy but still warm. “So you’re claiming everybody but the dog.”

Larx sighed a little in mock resignation. “Okay. Our cousin who broke our dog is setting the table.”

The night Jaime had fallen asleep next to Dozer, Larx had sat at the kitchen table when he was supposed to be doing paperwork and just stared at that boy and his dog. Aaron had needed that dog in his life. He’d thought he was getting it for Larx, but the truth was, a man like Aaron should just come with a dog. It should be part of the package, like cars coming with seat belts. Big blond men with wide chests and twinkling eyes and kind hearts should come with dogs. No-brainer.

If the dog was Larx’s, Aaron was Larx’s. Larx had said “I love you” and meant it. Their family had merged.

There were no takebacks on forever.

Aaron hmmed, oblivious to Larx’s constant state of epiphany. “God, I missed this moment. It’s just… so normal.”

It was. Right down to how angry Larx wasn’t when he was in Aaron’s presence.

And right there, his question was answered.

How long was he going to be angry? Well, as long as he was going to be worried. But he was going to worry about their kids—all their kids—for forever, and he was apparently going to worry about Aaron that long too. Those moments when he was with them and their lives were fine—those had always been like sunny days in the mountains. You were blessed by them—but you didn’t count on them.

And you didn’t take out your worry—or your anger at being worried—on the people you loved the most.

“Christiana had to stay in the hospital for a week after she was born,” Larx said sleepily, more relaxed than he’d been in… well, a week. “So for a week, Alicia and I took Olivia to the hospital twice a day so Alicia could breastfeed and drop off her pumped milk, and everybody held the baby—and then went back to the house. The stuff was all there, the new crib, the new clothes. And it sucked. There was no baby to put in the baby places. We’d had the hoopla of the birth, but Christiana’s immune system had been compromised and she needed antibiotics, so, you know, no baby yet.”

Aaron shuddered. “Must have been—”

“Weird!” Larx burst out. “Was the weirdest thing! But finally—finally—she was cleared to come home. I let Alicia stay home and nap, and Olivia and I went to get her. And you know Christi—she’s just so… so good. Even as a baby. She napped for hours, slept night to morning—and we got her home right in the middle of nap time. So we’d been promising Olivia a baby to play with, and here was the baby, in a car seat between us and the TV.”

Oh, Aaron’s chuckle should have been bottled as a cure for sadness. “How anticlimactic.”

“Right? So we’re looking at the car seat and… nothing is happening. She’s not even passing gas. And Olivia yawns—’cause we’re all exhausted—and leans on me, still in her jacket, and says, ‘Cartoons, Daddy!’ So I turn on cartoons and lean against the side of the couch, and the whole family just… took a nap.”

“Sounds nice,” Aaron murmured, dropping a kiss in his hair.

“This moment, right here,” Larx said on a yawn. “This moment is just like that.”

“God, I love you, Principal.”

“I love you too, Deputy. Help me remember that in the next few weeks, okay?”

“As often as possible.”

“Mm.”

Aaron dropped another kiss on his hair, and he dozed off. The family let him, eating quietly downstairs on their own, and when he woke up, there was a tray by the bed. Aaron was sleeping by then, and Larx sat cross-legged on the bed and ate, watching television, feeling like he was taking an unplanned holiday.

Like a baby’s nap, it was best to take his good moments when he could get them. You never knew when the next squall was on the way.

 

 

THE NEXT morning he slipped out of bed early, grateful for the first decent night’s sleep he’d had in over a week. Leaving Aaron’s warmth was hard—usually they did this together.

Aaron shifted in bed and grumbled. “Really?”

“Haven’t run in a week and a half!” he protested, half-panicked and, yes, still mostly asleep. Oh God! Was there something he hadn’t done? Was there a thing on his agenda he hadn’t gotten to? He’d gotten used to splitting duties with Aaron—groceries, cooking, talking to the kids. But now they had more kids than ever before, and Aaron had been out of commission, and he wasn’t going to just come back and boom! Be okay.

Larx was still on for a few weeks, and he didn’t forget it.

“Mm… sorry. Have a good run.” Aaron looked so sweet—so healthy and well. Larx sighed and leaned over, kissing his cheek. Usually it was Aaron leaving before he did on a call. Larx wondered if it sucked as much then as leaving Aaron did now.

“It’ll be us together soon,” he promised, closing his eyes and breathing in warm Aaron. His deputy wasn’t making going out in the cold any easier.

“Better promise,” Aaron grumbled, pulling the covers up under his chin.

Larx dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Course.”

He managed to pull on his sweats and hooded sweatshirt, then grabbed his socks and stocking cap to put on down in the kitchen.

To his surprise, Maureen was down there already, sitting at the kitchen table and doing homework. She’d been a godsend these last days, helping him to wrangle kids and generally stepping up to help out where she was needed.

“Getting behind?” Larx mumbled, plopping in the chair across from her and pulling his tennis shoes on. At his back was the weird fireplace he never used because it opened up to two different rooms and thus provided no heat. In the winter mornings, it was particularly useless because it let a draft in that could freeze the balls off a neutered dog.

“Mm,” she confirmed, looking up to give him a drowsy smile. “Running?”

Larx nodded. “Couldn’t… I mean, I could when he wasn’t here, but….” He frowned, too tired to put together how this solitary thing he’d done his whole life had become dependent on knowing Aaron was at least okay.

“You needed him home,” she said, the corners of her mouth crimping in like she was holding back a deeper smile. “He said that’s when you guys got to know each other.”

Larx rolled his eyes and tied his shoelaces. “He made me. He sort of ambushed me when I was running by the school and told me I should run on the forestry track with him.” He smiled. “It made sense. I mean, I had company, and the forestry track is safer.”

“Mm….” And now her eyes danced, and he realized the jig was up.

“He had really nice eyes, and he wanted me,” Larx told her, waiting for the impish wrinkling of her nose. “I don’t know what to tell you. It was just… nice. Being wanted. By someone with eyes like your father’s.”

The smile blossomed completely. “You give me faith,” she said, her own blue eyes twinkling. “I came here for me, mostly. I needed to see he was okay. But I knew you’d take good care of him.”

Larx let out a sigh and cast a look upstairs. “I try. His job….”

She nodded. “Kirby did some sort of magic formula in his head. As long as he knows where everybody is, he doesn’t worry. But me and Tiff, we’d stay up at night and plan what we’d do if something really awful happened, you know?”

He pulled in a deep breath, trying to figure out what that would do to a kid.

“What did you decide?”

“Well, I said I’d stay with Kirby and raise him with our Aunt Candy. She said that was bullshit and we should go stay with Mom’s folks. I said I didn’t want to wear a dress every day to school, and she said I was being willful, which was their word for when I wanted to bring my stuffed bear places and they didn’t think it was appropriate.”

Larx grimaced. “Awesome.” He took a deep breath and tried not to judge. “I mean, old-school, you know?”

Mau shook her head. “No—they’re sort of tight-assed judgy people. Mostly I just went to bed every night and prayed really hard that Dad would come home. Aunt Candy wasn’t a bad option, but I just really didn’t want to lose him.”

“Hm….” Larx wondered briefly what it had done to Aaron’s oldest, if she hadn’t had any faith to go back on. “Maybe your sister just tried to guard herself in case she did.”

Maureen’s eyes grew really big. “Oh my God. That could be it! Do you think that’s why she’s been such a bitch these last few years? I mean, even before you, she was just… awful.”

Larx nodded. “Usually kids who lash out like that—especially kids from really nice people like your dad and mom—they’re in pain. Worrying about your dad after your mom died, that would be a lot of pain.”

“Oh. Oh wow. Thanks, Larx. I mean, it won’t make a magic fix, but if I can talk to her about it—man. It sure would be great….” Her lower lip wobbled. “I mean, Christiana is so awesome. And Olivia—I know she’s depressed, you know? But they’re both so nice to me. And it just… I miss my sister. And if she keeps being like this, she’s going to lose us.”

Larx stood and grimaced. “We’ll try not to let that happen.” He let out a yawn and headed to the counter where he kept his water bottle during the winter. He filled it up from the cooler and took a couple of swallows before he set the bottle down and pulled his stocking cap from his kangaroo pocket. He took a couple of steps toward the door before looking up for the dog.

He sighed when he realized Dozer was still up with Jaime, sleeping on Kellan’s floor.

“What?” Mau asked, looking around.

“No dog,” Larx sighed. “You know, Tane says Berto is functional now—he just can’t go back to the house. If your dad doesn’t mind renting out the house completely—”

“Oh!” Maureen said, suddenly looking wide-awake. “That reminds me—”

A tentative tap on the sliding glass door shot Larx’s heart right up to his throat. He whirled around and confronted a pleasant, round face muffled by scruff.

“Elton?” he mumbled.

“Yeah. Sorry, Larx,” Maureen said as he opened the door. “I told him you were planning to run this morning, and he said he’d jog over and join you.”

Larx grunted and opened the door. Elton smiled winningly, which he seemed to do a lot, and Larx sighed.

“Hello—”

“Wombat Willie,” Elton said with a sweet smile. “Yeah. I know. I looked up what a wombat is, and, you know… I did knock up your daughter.”

Larx woke up enough to grin at him. “You’re awesome. Let’s go running. Try not to leave this old man behind.”

He stepped out into the cold and closed the door behind him, taking a few moments to stretch so he didn’t wreck himself. Elton stretched during the break, his breath smoking into the darkness.

“I used to hate running,” he said. “But Olivia was going every morning last semester, and I sort of picked up the habit.”

Larx frowned. “Where is she? We used to run together when she lived at home.” Christiana had preferred bicycling or swimming or something that involved less of a sweat-to-distance ratio.

“She, uh….” Elton sighed. “She’s real tired because of the baby and, uh….”

Larx tilted his head. “I didn’t see her yesterday until last night. Was she in bed all yesterday too?”

Elton closed his eyes and nodded, and Larx started to growl, low in his throat. “I think we should run by your house, don’t you?”

The young man at his side swallowed. “Okay, sir.”

“I think there’s something there we can’t forget.”

Aaron’s old house was about two miles away. In their early days, Larx would warm up for the first two miles, pick Aaron up, run three miles around the service track loop, drop Aaron off at his house, and then sprint home. If he left an hour before he was supposed to get ready for work, it gave him room for a nine-minute mile, and he usually ran around seven or eight. Once Aaron moved in, he shortened their run to five miles, and they ran it a little faster.

Wombat Willie ran a six-and-a-half-minute mile without breaking a sweat.

Larx could do it—but he hadn’t run in almost two weeks, and he was definitely sweating when they burst into Aaron’s house.

The place looked much the same as Larx had seen it when Aaron lived there, except cleaner. The mail wasn’t stacked on the polished wood table; the dishes weren’t dirty in the sink. The kids had dusted the place on Saturday before they’d moved their few possessions in, and Larx took a look around as they walked in.

“There’s a bedroom on the ground floor?” he asked, thinking hard.

“Yes, sir. And four up top. We think the ground floor one was used as a study.”

Larx nodded. “Yeah—it’s got a miniscule closet.” But Aaron had left his furniture there, and even his desk. At Larx’s place, Aaron used the small desk back in the corner by the fireplace in the dining room, and Larx worked at the table.

They’d managed to do a lot of work together, just knowing there was a friend, a companion, breathing nearby.

“What are you thinking?” Elton asked perceptively.

“I’m thinking that Jaime and Berto might move in. We’d ask Berto to keep the room on the ground floor and to medicate outside, but we could move the greenhouse back there for him, and Jaime could sleep up near you guys. Would that be okay? I don’t know how long it would last—”

“Naw, man. Jaime’s cool. Berto… well, he’s hurting, but….” Elton looked up the stairs with a suddenly adult posture. “You know, it helped her last week, to be there for Jaime. I think, maybe, having people around whose life isn’t all hunky-dory, it makes her remember how much she has to work for, you know?”

Larx nodded. “Stay here,” he warned, and then trotted up the stairs.

Olivia was a tiny ball in the corner of the bed, and Larx shored himself up.

“Olivia, wake up.”

“Daddy?” She rolled over and grimaced at him. “Daddy, it’s early!”

“And you left our house at six last night, crawled into bed, and haven’t been up to do more than pee in eleven hours. Get up.”

“Fuck off,” she snapped, and he didn’t even flinch.

He yanked the covers off, leaving her scrambling and indignant in her pajama pants. “Daddy?”

“Go put your sweats on, brush your teeth, and grab your hat. We’re running in five, and you need to hurry up so I can get home in time to leave with the kids. Move it, Olivia—I mean now!”

She glared at him, hurt and angry and miserable, and for a moment he thought he’d blown it. Oh Jesus, that part of her, the angry, resentful part of her, the part that said, “Fuck off!” when she’d never, ever, not even during the stormiest part of her adolescence, sworn at him, that would take over, and he would have broken trust with her forever.

Then she bared her dingy teeth and snarled, “Fucking fine! Fucking tyrant! I’ll be out in five minutes!”

Larx started going through her drawers, comfortable with her organization because he’d taught it to her. Sweats, T-shirt, hoodie, socks, panties, bra—he hadn’t flinched from these things when he was buying them at Walmart, and he wasn’t going to flinch from them now.

When she came out of the bathroom, greasy hair scraped back into a muddled ponytail, he had clothes set on the bed.

“Downstairs, ASAP,” he snapped. “We’ll have saltines waiting.”

“Why are you doing this?” she snarled. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Because I love you, and we need a plan here. You and me, we used to plan when we went running, remember? So we’ll plan now. Two minutes, Olivia. I mean it.”

He stalked out of her room and slammed the door, taking the stairs with the speed of a skittish cat.

“You got saltines, right?” He’d given the kids food to start with when they’d taken their stuff to set up. Elton nodded, wide-eyed, and grabbed the crackers from the cupboard.

“Why’d you do that?” Elton asked as Larx set them on the counter next to half a glass of milk. It had been Alicia’s magic formula for morning sickness; he was going to take a chance on it being Olivia’s as well.

“Because you have to live with her,” Larx said, checking the stairs. She wasn’t there yet, but they could hear her thumping around. “We’ll go on a run, she’ll come home and tell you what an asshole I am and how she can’t believe she thought I was a decent father to begin with, and you’ll get her into the shower and maybe look up depression treatment nearby on my health insurance. And then you don’t have to live with her being pissed, and we can help her call an end to this bullshit.”

Elton regarded him soberly from those surprisingly sweet eyes. “That’s a real good plan, Mr. Larkin.”

“Call me Larx.”

“Okay. So, Larx, now that we got a plan for this, do you think we can maybe find a way to tell my parents I left school? I talked to the administration, and my roommate’s shipping my stuff, but that other thing….”

He shuddered, and Larx felt some of his irritation fade from his body.

“We’ll talk about it when we run,” Larx said softly. “I think maybe you come pick me up, we come back and get her, and we do this regular-like as long as she can. We’ll have some time to talk then.”

Elton’s sweet smile flickered at his mouth. “You’re a good dad. Don’t worry. I won’t let her tell me what an asshole you are.”

Larx swallowed hard, because what he’d just done, yelling at his child when she felt like hell, that had been one of the hardest, worst things he’d ever done as a parent.

“It’s good of you to say so,” he said softly. Upstairs they heard a door slam, and they both looked up and watched Olivia take the stairs the same way Larx had just done.

She swanned into the kitchen, bolted the saltines and the milk, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and grabbed her gloves from the pocket of the coat hanging near the door.

“Can we fucking go?” she asked. “I have sleeping to do.”

Larx and Elton met eyes and nodded.

“Sure thing, my angel,” Larx said, and together they went jogging out into the cold.