“Of course it is, and you’re a dweeb. As I was saying, first of all, Lionbee is not a legend. Nowhere near in the same league as Bugs Bunny.”
Ash watched cartoons? Who’da thunk it?
“Second of all, if you’re going to create a children’s toy, then you should be prepared to answer questions regarding its origins.”
Dex shook his head. “You have no imagination.”
“Screw you, Justice. I have plenty of imagination. Now this is a toy.”
Ash reached into his box, pulled something out, and threw it at Dex. The pink-and-blue Nerf football hit Dex in the head and bounced off.
“A toy that causes physical pain. How could it not be your favorite?”
Sloane, Tony, and Cael laughed while Dex and Ash continued to debate the plausibility of several cartoon characters. Five hours and twenty-nine boxes later, all they’d come across were toys, books, games, videos, and trading cards. Everything was in top condition but well loved. His more collectable stuff, sealed in its original packing, was stored upstairs in his attic. Maybe now that Sloane had moved in they could fix it up. Dex had always wanted to do more with that space than stuff it with more boxes.
“Hey, check this out. I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
Sloane pulled out an old-school tape recorder. It was big and clunky, but Dex remembered when it had been state-of-the-art.
“My dad loved that thing. He was a total tech geek. He was always bringing back the latest gadget. He’d tinker with it, take it apart.” Dex laughed at one particular memory. “One day my dad brought home this super fancy answering machine that cost God knows how much at the time, only to take it apart. Then, when he tried to put it back together, it caught fire. Don’t know how he did it. It used to drive my mom nuts.”
Ash snickered. “Guess we know where you get your talent for causing property damage.”
“Don’t get me started,” Tony muttered before his lips curled into a smile. “Chief used to say a prayer every time he sent us out on a call. Chances were if Daley was assigned a case, something was gonna blow up.”
Tony laughed, a warm, rich sound that sadly Dex didn’t hear often enough.
“We were on stakeout for this homicide case we were working, and John got hungry. So he popped into this convenience store down the block to grab some chips and a sandwich. I don’t know what he did, but one minute he’s inside, next thing I know he’s running straight for me like the devil himself was chasing him, yelling ‘Start the car! Start the car!’ And I have no idea what’s going on, but I start the car. Next thing I see is some big guy chasing John down the sidewalk waving a hefty slab of salami. John jumps in the car as I take off. We’re burning rubber, and I ask him what the hell happened. Turns out they had one of those old-school food automat things where you pop in a dollar’s worth of quarters and it gives you a sandwich.
“So John decides he wants some pie too, and he puts in the money, and that thing just blows a fuse or who the hell knows. The doors fling open, trays go flying, food’s hitting the ceiling, the walls, the floor. It’s like the thing short-circuited or something, and the more John tried to fix it, the worse it got. When the owner came around and saw the thing going berserk and John trying to stop the food from catapulting out, he lost it.”
Dex was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He could picture his dad trying to stuff all the food back where it was supposed to go, panicking, and then taking off, waving his arms as he yelled at his partner to start the car.
“So what happened next?” Cael asked with a giggle, Ash and Sloane still laughing.
“I stop the car about five blocks down, ready to punch him in the face, and he holds up a bag of my favorite chips and a can of Diet Coke, and he says, ‘Shit, I forgot to get you a napkin.’ I took one look at him, whip cream in his hair, a slice of swiss cheese hanging off his shoulder, and various other foods covering his person, and I all but peed myself laughing.”
Dex wiped the tears from his eyes, hoping no one would notice that they were as much for how much he missed his dad as they were for the hilarity of the story. He appreciated how Sloane, Ash, and Cael asked Tony to tell them more about his and John’s shenanigans on the job. Every so often Sloane would meet Dex’s gaze and smile warmly at him, letting him know he was there for him if Dex needed anything.
An hour later they took a break for some pizza and listened to Tony tell a few more stories of Dex’s parents before they got back to work. They’d checked roughly half the boxes in the basement.
“Aw, looks like there was a mini tech geek too,” Sloane said, grinning broadly as he held up a red Walkman with cartoon stickers on it and matching red headphones. Tears welled in Dex’s eyes, but he kept them at bay.
Tony chuckled. “You used to love that thing. Never went anywhere without it.”
“My parents bought it for me on my second birthday.” Dex gently took the cherry-red Walkman. It looked just as it did when he was five years old. The last time he’d played it. He hadn’t wanted to l
isten to it much after his parents died. “You never let me give up the music,” Dex said softly, turning to Tony. “I was so lost and angry. I didn’t want to do anything that reminded me of them, and music was such a huge part of their lives, of our lives. I didn’t even want to look at it.”
“But Dad would play music in the house and take us to the movies,” Cael said, wrapping his arms around Dex and squeezing him tight. “He didn’t want you to lose that part of them. It meant too much.”
Dex was too choked up to reply. He didn’t know what he would have done without Tony. His adoptive dad had seen him through the dark times. He’d only been a small boy, but he’d begun to retreat into himself, shy away from everything and everyone. Tony had been there with him every step of the way to make sure he didn’t lose himself or the memories of the parents who’d loved him.
“What’s this?” Sloane asked, holding up what looked like a shoebox.
Dex walked over to Sloane and smiled. “Shit, I forgot about those.” He gently took the shoebox covered in stickers and childhood scribbles.
“Why is that lion wearing a lab coat?” Sloane asked with a chuckle.