“Yeah. Yeah, it might.” Adam’s voice had perked up again. “Maybe it’s for the best. It’s not like you were going to keep the assistant job when you found a full-time position, right?”
“I guess.” He hadn’t made it that far. As much as the virtual job hadn’t always been the most gratifying work in the world, it had been his, one last lifeline to hang on to in the disaster that had been his life. He’d let it slip lately, his attention turning to Adam, and that distraction had cost him.
“I’d tell you to call the conference center tomorrow and follow up, but then I’d sound like my sister,” Adam said, and Kyle forced a smile, although Adam wouldn’t be able to see it. Adam might have diverted Kyle’s attention from work lately, but it wasn’t his fault that Kyle was now officially among the ranks of the jobless and mostly broke. That was all on Kyle, and it was going to be his responsibility to fix the problem.
“To sound like your sister, you’d have to sneak up on me when I’m minding my own business in a public space and blurt out the most random and cryptic phrase that comes to mind.”
“No wonder you two get along.”
“Are you suggesting I blurt out random and cryptic things, Mr. Hathaway?”
There was a crunch, as if Adam had gone back to snacking.
“Not suggesting, per se, but—”
“Pineapples migrate north in the winter!” Kyle yelled it into the silence of the kitchen, trying to pull himself out of the spiral of blame that was taking up residence in his head. There was a choking sound on the phone, followed by coughing. Kyle couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. Unsettling Mr. Hathaway never got old.
“What was that?” Adam’s voice was weak, and it made Kyle’s chest warm with perverse satisfaction.
“I blurted a random thing!”
“Just because?”
“To prove a point mostly.”
“What point was that?”
“That unlike your ninja sister and her public space ambushes, I only blurt out random things in the privacy of my own home.” There was a pause, and Kyle heard more crunching on Adam’s side of the phone. “What are you eating?”
“Chips.”
“That’s not a very balanced meal.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Daddy?”
Kyle turned. Caroline stood in the dark doorway of the kitchen, rubbing at her eyes.
“What are you doing up, Bean?”
“I had a bad dream.” Her lower lip trembled, but her earlier mischief was gone. Her pink stuffed bunny, the one Kyle had bought at the hospital when Caroline was born, was clutched in her hand.
“I have to go,” Kyle said into the phone. “Caroline’s awake.”
“Oh. You sure you’re okay?” Adam asked, and the kindness in his voice made regret twist in Kyle’s throat. “I could come over. I don’t mind.”
“It’s fine. We’ll be fine.” He needed some space tonight, time to think. This was all on him and he needed to figure out what to do next. They were a team, him and Caroline, the most important part of his life. Kyle promised to call Adam again and hung up.
“What did you dream about?” He held his arms out, and Caroline crawled into his lap. “You’re getting so big.” He grunted and held her close, as she burrowed her head under his chin.
She’d done well here, better than he had. It had been the right decision, coming to Red Creek. The choices he’d made had been about giving his daughter stability and time to heal. In that, at least, he’d succeeded.
“I couldn’t find you.” Her voice was small.
“Where?”
“In my dream. I was lost and you wouldn’t come get me.” She sniffled, and Kyle sighed as he pressed his cheek against her hair. He’d moved here for her. She was the priority.
“I’ll always find you, Bean. You know that.”
He hoped Adam would understand.
“Lucas Davidson!”
A little boy in a yellow polo shirt and blue shorts walked across the stage. He waved out at the assembled crowd the whole way.
Adam didn’t remember first-grade graduations being a thing when he had been in school. Granted, he didn’t remember much of first grade, but he was pretty sure there were no pictures of him in a construction paper mortarboard waiting for his name to be called the way his students were currently doing. He’d heard of other schools doing kindergarten graduations, but Red Creek Elementary went all out for first grade too.
“Emily Drummond!”
Emily hesitated at the edge of the stage. She froze in place, stuck between the principal who stood at the podium with her microphone, the crowd of parents assembled, and Adam, who tried to smile reassuringly as he waggled a paper tube tied in a blue ribbon toward her. They had rehearsed the process the day before.
The ceremony was a school concert masquerading as a graduation; only a short half-hour production in which families and the tiny graduates gathered in the gym at the end of the last day of classes. The students sang a few songs that they had practiced in Adam’s class for the past week. Parents sat in rows of folding chairs. A sea of phones was held up to capture every moment to share with friends and family, or maybe to save for leverage in another ten years when Adam’s students were trying to negotiate for driver’s licenses and extended curfews.
“Hunter Evans!” Hunter tripped coming off the last stair, but then righted himself and was moving again. As rehearsed, he walked across the stage, stopped in the middle and waved to his family, then carried on to accept his diploma from Adam, before coming down the stairs on the other side, mercifully without further incident.
Kyle would have a substantial file of blackmail photos by the time Caroline hit her teens. As she came across the stage, the construction paper graduation cap she’d made as part of a class activity the day before was perched on top of an elaborately braided hairdo. It was complete with multicolored ribbons that swirled around her hair and down her neck.
Adam had told Kyle about the craft the weekend before, but Kyle had been distracted since he’d lost his job. The upheaval of it and Adam’s inevitable professional chaos otherwise known as the end of the school year meant they hadn’t seen each other as often as Adam wanted to over the last few weeks. So Adam had worried, when Caroline had arrived to school that morning with her hair done up, that Kyle might have forgotten about the graduation craft. Adam hadn’t been able to picture how she was supposed to wear her cap on top of the braids and fluttering ribbons, but Kyle had come prepared. Adam had seen him before the ceremony, hovering like a reality-TV stage mom, armed with hair spray, a mouthful of bobby pins, and an array of backup ribbons draped around his neck as he fastened Caroline’s cap in place.
“Caroline Fenton,” the principal called.
Caroline swanned across the stage in full princess mode. Along with her elaborate hair and cap, she was wearing the same purple princess gown she’d worn the first time Adam had gone to dinner at Kyle’s, accessorized with a riot of beaded necklaces in every color, and one shiny green glove that stretched from her fingertips up to her shoulder. As usual, everything about her stood out from the sea of pressed shirts and sundresses that her classmates’ parents had picked out for their children’s big day.
As Caroline made her way across the stage, a shout went out from the back of the room. Kyle’s head popped up from the line of phones. He cheered like Caroline had won an Oscar, and clapped so loudly it echoed through the gym. There were nervous giggles from the assembled parents, then louder laughs. Beside Kyle, an older man—Adam recognized Kyle’s father—clapped reservedly.
Caroline paused center stage and swept into a deep curtsy. Ribbons tumbled forward. Her necklaces rattled together. More people laughed. One woman in the middle of the crowd stood up and joined Kyle and his dad in their applause. Caroline straightened and surveyed the people assembled before her. With a dainty tilt of her princess chin, she glided across the stage to stand in front of Adam. He handed h
er the tied paper tube of her diploma.
“Your Highness,” he said.
She giggled. “Daddy and I practiced that last night.” She dipped into one final curtsy and slid gracefully past him toward the rest of her graduated classmates. There was another round of smothered laughter from the crowd, and even the principal paused for a moment to watch Caroline’s descent from the stage before resuming with the roll call.
“Harvey Ferguson!”
After the ceremony, there was a short reception, organized by the parents’ association. Grown-ups drank iced tea, and kids ran around in controlled six-year-old chaos as games of tag broke out in the gym. As he chatted with parents, Adam kept half an eye on Kyle, who looked tired. Adam knew he was struggling. The few times they had managed to get together, Adam had been able to see the brittleness in Kyle’s smile and the tension in his shoulders. It had reminded him of the way Kyle had held himself when they’d first met. Adam was doing his best to be supportive, but Kyle kept insisting he was fine, even though that clearly wasn’t true. Adam hoped that, with the school year over, he’d be able to convince Kyle to let him help.
As the crowd started to thin, he heard another parent say, “Mr. Hathaway.”
Adam turned to find Kyle and his dad standing there, paper cups in their hands.
“Kyle, hi!” There was a half a breath where he started toward Kyle to hug him, but the nervous way Kyle tilted his head made Adam pause.
“Mr. Hathaway, I want to introduce you to my dad.” This time, Adam heard the difference, the formality of the title, instead of the teasing pet name.
“Mr. Fenton, hello! It’s nice to meet you.” Adam held out his hand to shake. Kyle’s dad stared at Adam for what felt like a long time before he took the offered hand and shook firmly.
“You can call me Gord. I’ve heard a lot about you.” His words made Adam’s practiced and professional smile falter a little, while a hint of panic tugged at the corner of Kyle’s dark eyes. Adam recovered first.
“Yes, well,” he said, “I’ve enjoyed having Caroline in my class. She’s bright and . . .” Across the gym, a flash of purple caught his eye as Caroline chased after a classmate, squealing. Her dress fluttered around her, and her hair appeared to have given up the fight and trailed a mass of brown curls and bright ribbons behind her like a comet. “Very memorable,” he finished. Kyle was obviously trying not to laugh now, and Adam resisted the urge to kick him in the shins for not helping out.
“Grandpa!” Like a purple bull in a china shop, Caroline crashed into their group, clinging to her grandfather’s legs. “Let me show you my desk!” She took his hand and pulled him toward the gym door, leaving Kyle and Adam alone.
They stood for a few seconds in silence. Kyle was wearing a black-and-white T-shirt that said Straight Outta First Grade on it. Adam thought he might spend an afternoon over the summer digging through Kyle’s collection to see what other T-shirt treasures there were.
“I’ve received several compliments about Caroline’s hair and outfit today,” Adam said. Kyle smiled, flashing dimples.
“Thanks! Sorry about the whole Mr. Hathaway bit. My dad. You know. He wanted to meet you and right now’s not . . .” Kyle gestured around them to the noisy gym. “This wasn’t really how I imagined us doing the whole meet-the-parents routine.”
Adam grinned. It wasn’t how he’d imagined it either, but it felt almost symbolic to be doing it here, like they’d crossed a threshold. The school year was over.
“Can I help you clean up or anything?” Kyle asked.
“That’s not necessary,” Adam said.
“I don’t mind. My dad and Caroline will be a bit. I know she’ll want to give him a whole classroom tour.”
Adam considered. On the stage, there was the podium, a number of chairs, and the table where they had laid out the diplomas.
“Come this way,” he said.
They folded up the table and carried it off into the darkened backstage area. Kyle, walking backward, tripped halfway to the storage closet and yelped.
“Are you okay?” Adam set down his end of the table and came around to hold Kyle up while he hopped on one foot.
“It’s fine.”
“Want me to kiss it better?” It was a stupid thing to say, but it didn’t matter once Kyle grinned at him.
“I thought cheesy pickup lines were my area of expertise.”
Adam moved closer toward him. They were mostly hidden by the stage’s curtains, and the urge to kiss Kyle after days of not seeing each other was hard to resist.
“I was thinking we could write a book over the summer. One Hundred Terrible Pickup Lines.”
“My pickup lines are amazing, Mr. Hathaway. It’s only yours that are terrible.”
Adam brushed his lips over Kyle’s. “Missed you this week.”
“Me too. Sorry. It’s been tough since—”
Adam cut his words off with another kiss. The sensation of their mouths on each other’s sent a shiver up his spine. They’d done it. The school year was over. Kyle was no longer the parent of one of Adam’s students.
“What are you doing next week? Wednesday and Thursday?” Kyle wrapped his arms around Adam’s neck.
“Nothing? I’m on holidays for the next two months, in case you missed that whole last-day-of-school thing.” Adam smiled and kissed him again as Kyle’s fingers grazed over the back of his neck where his hair met skin.
“Wanna get away for a couple days? Leave the Bean at home with my dad and hit the road?”
“Away?” Adam warmed. He’d been ready to figure out how to fit himself into Kyle and Caroline’s routine for the summer, but the idea of having Kyle to himself . . . Adam was definitely on board with that.
“Yeah. I have to go to Richmond for a couple days. Thought you might want to come. We could get a hotel, have a fancy dinner, watch pay-per-view, sleep in!” Despite the dim backstage light, Adam could see Kyle’s eyes dancing over that last offering.
“Richmond?” It was farther away than he’d expected to go, and there wasn’t much to do in Richmond. Not that Adam really wanted to play tourist. A bedroom with no chance of being disturbed for twenty-four hours was attraction enough.
“We could drive— You could drive,” Kyle said quickly when Adam raised an eyebrow. “You’re right. The van’s not very road trip worthy. But yeah, we could drive. Check into a hotel and relax. I have a thing on Thursday morning, but other than that, it would be a great chance to spend some time together.” He leaned in to kiss Adam, and there was nothing polite about the kiss this time. It felt like a promise, and Adam wanted to see where that promise led.
“What’s the thing?” he asked between kisses.
“What?” Kyle’s long fingers wove into Adam’s hair and pulled so his mouth could get a better angle.
“What’s the thing on Thursday morning?” Adam tensed as Kyle’s mouth slid down his neck. He enjoyed the thrill of this, as they teetered on the edge of breaking all of his rules. Kyle slid his face into the crook between Adam’s neck and shoulder.
“Don’t get mad until I’ve told you everything, okay?”
Adam froze. What kind of question was that?
“Mad about what?” Usually the answer was a spilled pot of craft glue on the floor, or someone had accidentally hurt a classmate at recess and didn’t want to be blamed for it. Sometimes Adam laughed it off; other times he had to put on his serious Mr. Hathaway voice and talk about accepting responsibility.
Kyle hesitated. There were circles under his eyes, and he wouldn’t quite meet Adam’s gaze.
“What’s wrong?” Adam said.
“I have an interview on Thursday morning.”
“An interview?”
“Yeah.” Kyle’s hands played with the front of Adam’s shirt.
“Like a job interview?” Adam’s mouth was dry.
Kyle made a noise that wasn’t a yes or a no. “I’d say it’s a casual discussion about whether or not a job might exist?”
/> Adam stiffened as he pieced through what Kyle was saying. “In Richmond?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“That’s like five hours away from here.”
“Six.”
Six hours. Kyle had an interview in a place that would take half a day to drive to. Adam’s parents lived four hours away, and he only went to see them a few times a year. Six hours between him and Kyle would—
“Is it a virtual job?” He hoped it was. It was possible that an employer might want to meet Kyle in person before unleashing him on their internet needs.
Kyle made the same noncommittal noise. “Like I said, it’s not totally clear if there’s a job at all so—”
“But it’s not a job here. And you’re actually considering it?” Adam pulled himself free and stumbled over a stack of blue athletic mats. “You never told me about this. I didn’t know you were looking for jobs out of town.” They hadn’t seen each other much lately, but they’d talked and texted, and Kyle had never mentioned this.
“Because I just found out,” Kyle said. “Shannon called me this morning after I brought Caroline to school.”
“Shannon?”
“Yeah.” Kyle stepped in closer to rest his fingers on Adam’s chest. The gesture was more uncertain than it had been a minute before, and Kyle’s sudden tentativeness made Adam clench his fists to keep from brushing him away. He had to stay calm. This couldn’t be going where Adam thought it was.
“Shannon called,” Kyle continued. “She said she felt bad about having to let me go, and she’d reached out to someone she knew who runs a charity out here. They invited me down to chat. Just a discussion. Please don’t make a big deal about this. I don’t know if there’s an actual job, but if there is, I need to go check it out. I can’t wait around here and hope the perfect opportunity is going to fall in my lap, you know?”
What Adam knew was that the mature thing would be to say that yes, in fact, he understood. He couldn’t quell the uneasy feeling that vibrated through him though. Kyle was leaving, and Adam hadn’t known that it might be a possibility.
“What about the conference center job?” He grabbed onto the mental life raft, and Kyle pierced it with a single shake of his head.
The Pick Up Page 23