“But it’s not something that can wait, Kid,” he warns. “If you decide we stay here, then you need to make the decision fast. We’ll need to give Dartmouth as much time as we can. I don’t think it’ll be an issue, given how much they were drooling over you, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’ll also need to see if I can re-up my teaching contract with the school district here and pull out of the one in New Hampshire.”
“And I’ll sit around and do nothing, like I always do,” Otter says with that crooked grin on his face.
“You guys would do that for me?” I ask in a small voice, feeling like a jerk that it’s even on the table.
“I’d do anything for you,” Bear says, suddenly fierce, with that gleam in his eye that comes out every now and then when he talks about me or Otter. “You know that. And until you turn eighteen, these are decisions we’ll all make. Together. After that… well….” He looks away. “We’ll see what happens after that.”
And it’s like I’m nine again, it’s like all I am is the Kid again, a know-it-all too-smart-for-my-own-good Kid again. I launch myself at him and he catches me, and I babble something in his ear that doesn’t make sense, but he understands it anyway as he holds me close.
“YOU’RE BEING kind of quiet,” Dom rumbles at me, looking over from the driver’s seat as we head toward the Green Monstrosity. “When you’re quiet, it scares me, because it usually means you’re planning something and I’m going to end up in jail again.”
I snort. “You should have seen the look on your face when I threw red paint on the security guard at the boutique. It was pretty hysterical.”
“I was still trying to get over the fact that you told me it was supposed to be a peaceful protest rally, but then you threw that paint balloon and screamed ‘fur is murder’ at the top of your lungs.”
“Hey, at least that’s when you decided for sure you wanted to be a cop. Jail cells apparently offer unique perspectives. You’re welcome.” I try to keep any traces of bitterness out of my voice about his chosen profession. We haven’t exactly seen eye to eye on that. Not that he should have listened to me, anyway.
“Except for the fact that we sat next to a transvestite hooker named Diamondique for three hours, sure. It was a blast.”
I sigh, almost content. Almost. “Ah, the good old days.”
Dom reaches over and cuffs the back of my head lightly with a big hand. “For you, maybe. Bear and Otter didn’t think so when they posted our bail.”
“Why do you think I called Anna first? It felt neat to be able to say I wanted to get my attorney on the phone and have her show up. She went all hard-core on all of them. Everyone was scared of her.”
“All while pulling a crying two-year-old,” Dom points out.
“JJ was not a happy camper,” I agree, suddenly wishing the reminiscing was over, even if Creed and Anna’s son is the coolest kid on the planet. It feels a little raw right now. I glance surreptitiously at Dom, taking him in, trying to see if just his presence is enough to help me make up my mind. I haven’t told him yet what we talked about in the Green Monstrosity a few days ago, only because I don’t want him to know he could influence me in any way. Bear is right about one thing: I shouldn’t allow this one person to be the deciding factor on my future.
Too bad it already feels like everything rests on him.
Dom is still Dom, and I think he always will be. He’s still quiet; his voice is still a rumble, broken from all those years ago when his father murdered his mother in front of him. He told me that story when I was thirteen, after I shouted at him for almost an hour straight because of his decision to join the Seafare Police Department. I couldn’t handle the idea that he could get hurt, that he’d be put in harm’s way every day and I’d have to wonder and worry until he called me to put me at ease. But when he finally told me the one thing he’d kept from me? What he’d done to try and save his mother? I couldn’t be angry anymore. I just couldn’t, especially when he said that he just wanted to protect others so the same thing wouldn’t happen to other kids like him. I crawled into his lap and wept against his shoulder. I wept for him, yes, and to show him I understood, but more for the pain he came from. Only Dom could take something so horrific and turn it into a positive. I remember him wiping away the tears before cupping my face and saying, “So you understand? You see why I need to do this?”
I nodded, even though I wished he wouldn’t need it at all.
“I won’t do it, Tyson. Not if I don’t have your blessing.”
And I realized he meant it, and it made me sick to my stomach that I had such power over him, that he was willing to alter the course of his whole future just because I was scared. I couldn’t do that to him. I wouldn’t. So even though my heart hurt with it, I told him of course I would support him. Of course I understood. It was one of the few times I ever lied to him.
But he’s good at his job, and it looks good on him. Dom continued to grow. And grow. And grow. Now, at twenty-two, he has a few inches on Otter, both in height and width. He’s a giant and can be intimidating as all hell, both on and off the job, though that intimidation never works on me. It’s not as if it’s a façade, it’s just that I can see the Dominic I know through all that steel and grit. I told him once he can be a hardass all he wants, just as long as he’s not like that with me, because I’ll make fun of him repeatedly to his face. He growled at me that he’d arrested people for less. I reminded him that, by that point, he’d only been a cop for, like, six hours and he needed to get off his high horse because I still wasn’t buying it. Then he told me that when I got my license, he was going to pull me over every chance he got, just because he could. Of course, at that point we didn’t know that I probably wouldn’t be around him when I was able to drive.
“You’re still being quiet,” he says, touching my arm. “Everything okay?”
No. Everything’s not okay.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Just a little stressed, I guess. Finals, graduation.” I shrug. “You know, the future.”
“Do you know if you’re valedictorian yet? Or is that just the forgone conclusion?”
I smile, trying to be modest, even though it comes out sounding like bragging. “They haven’t said, though it looks like I will be. Hell, it’s great publicity for the school—someone my age graduating with a 4.30 GPA. Think of all the donations they’ll be angling for now.”
“Then there’s the fact that you got into an Ivy League school,” Dom points out.
“Yeah. There’s that.” I look out the window.
We’re almost to the Green Monstrosity.
“Tyson?”