“Speechless. I’ll take that as a compliment.” He looked down at his phone. “Seconds are ticking, Kendalee. You want to hit that items per minute, you’d better get busy.”
* * *
“Happy anniversary,” Elliott said, handing the large bouquet of flowers to Ellen, the head of his former group home. She’d been younger when he’d first arrived, her hair still dark, but now she was going gray. He couldn’t imagine the time when Ellen hadn’t worked with boys like him. His admiration for her was rooted in the way she’d dealt with them, and one day he hoped he could give back to other boys at least a fraction of what she’d given him. Boys like Daniel.
“Elliott, my love. Thank you. You didn’t need to get flowers too.” Ellen hugged him tightly. She was the only mother he’d ever really known, and he’d never be able to repay her for the start she’d been able to create for him. For them all. “Dred swung by earlier with the details of the cruise you bought for us. You spoil us.”
“Well, you’re worth it,” he said as he looked at the picture that hung in the narrow hallway of their family home. It was of Maisey and Ellen’s wedding day, both of them looking beautiful in their cream outfits, surrounded by the five members of Preload. “Can’t believe you let me have that stupid faux-hawk,” he said, taking in their crazy hair, tattoos, and attitude, all of which clashed horribly with the tuxes that had been rented specially for the day. Ellen had met Maisey through visiting the boys at the home and the two women had always told them it was love at first sight. When they’d married eight years later, they’d asked Jordan, Dred, Nikan, Lennon, Jordan, and Elliott to be groomsmen, but they had drawn the line at letting them perform. On the day Lennon, the last to leave the group home, finally had to move out, the two of them had held a special dinner for them and said they were the sons that Maisey and Ellen weren’t able to have together.
“Yes. Well. I picked my battles with all of you. Your hair was the least of my worries. Come into the garden. We were just having mimosas.”
The two of them had helped him through the very worst period of his life. He’d ended up on social services’ radar because of his truancy and the small issue of the garden lot fire. While it had sucked at the time, it had been the best thing that could have happened. The final tally when Maisey had showed up at the hospital after the frying pan incident had been thirty-seven round burns. Nine for his ninth birthday, ten for his tenth birthday, and eighteen more for various infractions like aggravating the shit out of his stepdad by sneezing too often when he had a cold just before he was rescued.
The day Maisey took him away, he’d cried in relief. When his mom had been indifferent at the hearing to keep him from her, he’d cried twice as hard. He’d cried after his first foster family returned him because he’d set fire to their fence. But the final time he’d cried had been when his second foster family felt he wasn’t a good fit for them and sent him back to temporary care like a fucking reject. He’d vowed never to cry again. If nobody wanted him, they could all go fuck themselves.
The day he’d finally arrived at Ellen’s, the home for the unwanted who were unlikely to ever get fostered or adopted out of the system, was the day he’d finally found his place. Nikan, Dred, and Adam were already there when he arrived, and they’d been as thick as thieves. Then Jordan had joined them shortly before Adam had killed himself. Lennon had been a tougher sell.
“Maisey. Elliott’s here,” she said, walking to the back door.
Maisey hurried to him and wrapped him in her embrace. “Oh, you naughty boys. You spent too much on us as usual,” she said, and stepped back. “But thank you. We’ve never been to St. Maarten or Antigua. Come sit with us.”
Elliott grinned. “You deserve it for putting up with us. Your garden looks great this year,” he said, taking in the whimsical planting and the vine creeping up the pergola he and Nik had built two summers before. It was like a grown-up fairy grotto, with wood-carved mushrooms, wind chimes, and a million little solar-powered lights.
“Labor of love,” said Maisey. “We put in all the hard work up front and then just hope summer will be long enough to enjoy it.”
Ellen returned to the table with an additional glass and poured him a drink, light on the champagne, heavy on the OJ. “A small one seeing you are driving. I heard that noisy car of yours before I saw you. I’m surprised the province still lets you drive the darned thing. They should have taken your license years ago.”
He chuckled. “I’m a good driver. Just a touch too fast according to their speed cameras.”
Maisey humphed. “If I had my say, you’d be relegated to public transit.”
“You don’t mean it. You love when I take you places.”
Maisey laughed. “Maybe just a little bit.”
“What can we do for you, Elliott?” Ellen said, patting his arm gently.
Best to be honest, because Ellen always could see straight through him. “I think I’m in over my head with a kid I met.”
“Define ‘kid,’” Maisey said suddenly. “This isn’t like that thing with Nikan at Christmas, is it?”
“Christ, no,” he said forcefully. “And Maisey, that girl was legal. She was eighteen. And she lied. Told him she was twenty-two.”
Maisey clucked her tongue. “More good luck than good management. He needs to show better judgment.”
“Anyway,” Ellen said softly, “tell us what is going on.”
As the cicadas buzzed in the trees, a sound he’d always thought was electricity running through overhead cables when he was a kid, he explained about Daniel and Kendalee.
“Oh, Elliott,” Ellen said as he wrapped up his story. He’d deliberately omitted his feelings for Kendalee. It wasn’t relevant because for now it was a nonstarter as far as she was concerned, and he needed to respect her wishes. At least until he could persuade her to let him take her on a date where he’d try every trick in the book to get her to take a chance on him and—
“What do you want to discuss first?” Ellen asked, placing her mimosa down on the table. “How you might be able to help a lost boy like yourself deal with the fact he is at least an arsonist and possibly a pyromaniac? How to shield yourself from those conversations with him, and the triggers that you’ll experience, by starting with resuming your own therapy? Or how it’s a really bad idea to fall for the mother?”
His eyes suddenly found hers. “I didn’t—”
“Oh, shush. And don’t look at me like that, Elliott,” Ellen said, waving her hand between the two of them. “I’ve known you since you were ten years old. For the kid who gave me the biggest headache with the amount of criminal damage you inflicted, you really were the worst liar in the bunch.”
“Goddamn, Ellen. Beat on a man when he’s down, would you?”
“She’s right,” Maisey added. “Do you remember the time he hid Nikan’s favorite jacket just before he was supposed to go on his first date with Jenny?”
Despite everything he was feeling, he laughed at the memory of Nik and his ex-girlfriend. He wondered how Jenny was doing. They hadn’t been in touch with her since Nikan had cheated on her. It had been the messiest time of their lives. Elliott had tried for several weeks after, but she hadn’t taken any of their calls and had just dropped off the face of the earth.
“So, Elliott. Which are we talking about first?”
He looked down at his phone. Perhaps he could tell Ellen he had plans, that he needed to be somewhere else. “Do we have to talk about them all, I’ve got to go—?”
“No, you don’t have to go anywhere. I care about the boy and the mother, but I care about you more. When was the last time you saw your psychologist?”
Elliott thought back. Certainly not before the Europe tour. Then they’d been recording. When had Jordan met Lexi? December? January? Earlier than that, definitely. Shit. He probably hadn’t seen Anne since . . . holy crap, before their spell in Miami after Dred had met Pixie and the incident when Nikan had been shot. So, what was that? “Sixteen m
onths.”
“Oh, you silly boy,” Maisey said. “Why the heck would you leave it this long?”
Because he hated being reminded of his failings. Because he hated terms like “pathological fire setting.” Because Freud could shove his theory that pyromania resulted from aberrant psychosexual development up his fucking ass, and he’d love to use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as kindling at his next burnout. Because he hadn’t conducted a single act of uncontrolled fire setting since he was seventeen years of age. He danced around the edges. The fires he built up at the cottage were like drinking alcohol-free lager. Lacking in punch, but enough to convince the mind it was the real thing for a little while. “Because it’s under control.”
Ellen leaned back in her chair. “That car of yours sounds a little off. When did you last have it serviced?”
His head spun a little at the change of topic. “It sounds fine. I got it serviced last month. Clean bill of health.”
“Hmm,” Ellen said. “Interesting choice of words. Was it running okay when you took it in?”
“Are you asking because something is wrong with your car, because I know great guy who—”
“Urgh. Elliott. You really are impossible,” Ellen chided. “No. My car is fine. Your car was fine, but you took it to an expert to give it a service, just to keep it running fine. Don’t you see the analogy? You are the fucking car, my love.”
Elliott put his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead in his hands. “You can be an asshole, Ellen.”
“Yes, my boy. But you didn’t come here because you like my garden and wanted a glass of watered-down alcohol. I have been straight with you the entire time I’ve known you. You need to see your psychologist. Especially now. Because, yes, Elliott, I deeply believe you can help this boy. You slept on the floor in Nikan’s room to help him through his nightmares, you were the only one who could coax Jordan out of the attic when he first arrived, you were the only one Lennon would even look at for the first six months he lived with us. You have a way with damaged boys, Elliott. You always have.”
It had felt like an absolution of sorts, a way to make up for all the trouble he caused. But more importantly, it had felt like the most natural thing in the world to help another human being in pain.
“I used to tell Ellen that you’d make a great social worker, or foster parent,” Maisey said, and it overwhelmed him that her thoughts lay parallel to his own. Perhaps he could make a difference.
Ellen placed her hand on his back. “Elliott, my love. You need backup. You can’t be there for the boy without someone being there for you. It is too much of a trigger. Please, go see Anne.”
Elliott took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair, rubbing his hands over his face. They were right. It was foolish to let the weakness he felt at needing therapy ruin the potential to do good for Daniel. But going to see Anne made him feel like a fraud. How could he help others, look them in the eye, while admitting he had problems of his own?
“Now that we have that out of the way,” Maisey said, lifting her glass and taking a sip, “why don’t we talk about the mom?”
* * *
Top 5 songs to make love to. Go.
Kendalee rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the grin as it spread across her face. The people alongside her at the crosswalk must have thought she was crazy, but after the seventy-two hours she’d had, she was relieved to be out of the hospital and on her way to Elliott’s. She’d spent the last three nights sleeping at the hospital, not that she was deliberately trying to avoid Elliott. Daniel had been having nightmares, and she wondered if they were a result of having opened up to Elliott. Daniel had hinted to his therapist that he was having difficulty processing the memories and emotions he’d tried too hard to block. Plus, he’d been having a tough time in physical therapy, and her presence and encouragement had only seemed to irritate him. Layering on exhaustion and boredom, Daniel had been completely out of sorts. With her permission, they’d given Daniel something to help him sleep. Watching her son drift off peacefully had eased the tightness in her chest.
Shannon had also suggested that a break between mom and teen son would be a good idea, explaining that a hospital stay could often lead to the equivalent of cabin fever. So, she’d reached out to Rachel, who was also Daniel’s godmother. Her best friend had been more than willing to stay with Daniel overnight for the next two nights, something that had appeared to make him happy, while she moved herself and Daniel into Elliott’s. For the first time, she was comfortable saying yes.
According to Fabio, the food bank had been thrilled with the four-hundred-dollar food donation Elliott had made, and now Rachel was on her case to learn more about what was happening between her and Elliott. But the texts . . .
We aren’t doing this, remember?
It didn’t matter how many times she’d told him. He was relentless. And if she was honest with herself, it felt beyond incredible to be pursued. She crossed the busy intersection at Yonge and College and considered stopping to get a coffee from Starbucks until she remembered that Elliott had one of those little espresso makers that would do just as good and even save her a few bucks. Plus, it was well past eight o’clock. Perhaps caffeine wasn’t the best idea.
Come on, Lee. Humor me. If I can’t make out with you, let me at least daydream it correctly.
A car horn beeped loudly, and she jumped, realizing that she’d stepped off the curb without checking for traffic. Her heart double-timed in her chest as she looked at the message again. The idea of him daydreaming about having sex with her made her feel all hot . . . and needy. For the first time in her life, she understood the desire to get laid.
His texts had been flirty, and while she knew she shouldn’t encourage him, she found it hard to resist. All of them started with “Top 5” and at first, they’d been simple. Places to visit, bands, favorite foods. But then they’d begun to shift. Favorite dates, movie kisses, hot actors. But this one . . . Kendalee jammed her phone in her pocket. When she got to the house, she was going to remind him that the messages were a little forward for two people who weren’t dating. She wondered if it would help if she told him that she was having difficulty keeping her distance and that it would help her if he kept his. She was still married after all, and it just seemed so foreign to start something new before completely severing the old.
The neighborhoods were still busy as she walked. Late evening sunshine and humid temperatures drew people out onto their stoops and into their yards, even though the hour was late. As she passed apartment building after apartment building, she began to hum a tune. Goddamn Aerosmith, and goddamn Elliott. The list was subconsciously earworming her, assuming an earworm could be turned into a verb. She shouldn’t respond. His text message was suggestive . . . embarrassing. She slapped a hand to her forehead. No, it wasn’t. It was all kinds of hot, and exciting, and . . . different. Something she was unused to. Something she had no clue how to do. What if she embarrassed herself by attempting it? With a man who was so much more confident than she was.
Her first lover had been her best friend’s boyfriend’s roommate. It had been a convenient hook-up to make weekends fun. Then she’d met Adrian, who was attractive, full of himself, and filled with plans. He’d basically told her she’d be foolish to not stick with him—he was going places.
Somewhere in the middle of life, and faith, and being a good mom, and a good wife, she’d lost the playful part of herself. The part that craved to be loved, and wanted, and yes . . . pursued. At thirty-seven, she was still entitled to flirt, right? In fact, it would help her resolve against Adrian if she knew at least one person on the planet felt she still had something to offer.
Defeated by her flip-flopping thoughts, she sat down on the low concrete wall that surrounded the library at Sherbourne and Wellesley. Only a few more blocks until she reached Elliott’s. Kendalee pulled her phone out of her pocket like it was a hand grenade with the pin already pulled.
With a
deep breath, she began to type.
Against All Odd, Phil Collins
Is This Love, Whitesnake
Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, Aerosmith
At Last, Etta James
Can’t Help Falling in Love, Elvis
She hit Send and tensed her entire body as she watched the little message change from sending to sent. It was too late now. She’d done it, and now she needed a large glass of red wine . . . because getting drunk was such a great idea when she already lacked the most basic control on her impulses around Elliott. Taking one last deep breath, she stood and continued the walk as the apartments turned into houses and then into large family homes with lawns and gates.
When her phone vibrated in the pocket of her uniform, she jumped. Already on tenterhooks, she was almost too terrified to look at his response.
There’s no way I can sleep with you. That is the crappiest list ever. Except perhaps Elvis. But that song only lasts three minutes, which is nowhere near long enough ;-)
Oh, God. Her cheeks flamed as she laughed. She had no idea how to respond and no time left to do it as she arrived at the gate and entered the code Elliott had texted her earlier. Kendalee looked down at her phone.
Here is my Top 5, in case you want to daydream about sex with me :-)
Snuff, Slipknot (do not watch the video-the first half will creep you the fuck out no matter how the cool the second half is!)
Love Song, Tesla
Still Loving You, Scorpions
All I Need, Within Temptation
Love You to Death, Type O Negative
The front door swung open and made her jump. She pressed her hand to her heart. The man she assumed was Elliott’s roommate stepped out.
“Didn’t mean to scare you. You must be Kendalee. I’m Nik.”
Did all the band have to be so darned attractive? And young? He held his hand out toward her and she reached out and shook it. “Sorry. I was miles away.” Not to mention embarrassed, yet again. “Thank you very much for helping me out and letting me stay.”
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