Page 22 of Catcher's Lock

Hoping he’s only avoiding me because of the flu and not because he’s still pissed at me, I head to his trailer after school. The rain has finally let up, but the gravel squelches under my feet, and the air is rich with salt and evergreen as I pick my way up the drive.

“He’s sick.”

Paul Garrity is more pathetic than intimidating, with his half-empty twelve-pack between his feet and his beer gut pressing into the porch railing, but my steps still falter.

I’m notscaredof Josha’s father, exactly. I’ve only seen him blow up twice—once when Rachael took his car without asking and once when Josha let Jeremy build a massive Lego castle inthe living room. Josha sent me outside with his brother while he crawled around throwing the little plastic landmines into a basket, ears flaming, and his dad raged.

There was that one night when Diana came home while Josha and I were watching movies on his laptop, and she and Paul went at it for so long in the living room that I ended up spending the night to avoid having to walk past them.

But usually, he’s half asleep on the couch, or drinking in the tool shed, and he’s never paid much attention to me at all. It’s more that I’ve always had Josha to act as a buffer, and that I suck at parents in general.

Maybe I’m weirded out because even after two and a half years of friendship, Josha doesn’t talk about his dad that much, except in roundabout ways—“I need to get home early to watch Jeremy” or “My mom’s not working tonight, can I stay in the Airstream with you?”

It’s too late to backtrack and climb through the window, though, which means I’ve gotta respond.

“I know.” I hold up the paper bag I’m carrying and edge closer to the porch. “I brought soup.”

“You’re just like his mama. Thinks I can’t take care of a sick kid. I changed plenty of diapers and cleaned up my share of puke when they were babies, same as her.”

And what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?Looks like you’re doing a bang-up job right now, drinking on the porch?Father of the year shit, right there.

“Yeah. Okay.” The carton of soup is cooling in my hands. Garrity crumples his beer can and stoops down to grab another.

“You fucking my boy, then?” he asks, oh so casual.

What. The. Fuck?

“No.” The forest weeps, a sodden symphony in the stretching silence.

He grunts. “I guess Rachael was right.”

“You asked—” I shake my head. Low embers of outrage kindle at the base of my spine. “Would it matter if I was?”

Another grunt, this time accompanied by a shrug of his heavy shoulders.

“Want a beer?”

Is this a test? No way Josha’s been talking about my drinking with his dad, right?

“No thanks.” Wrapping my confusion in the dregs of my shock, I shoulder past him and let myself into the home.

Josha’s room is full of shadows, discarded Kleenex, and the faint, familiar odor of teenage boy in sweaty sheets. He’s half slumped against the pillow, playing on his phone, when I enter.

“You look like shit,” I tell him, even though he doesn’t. His hair is tousled, his cheeks are fever-flushed, and his freckled shoulders are lean and bare, poking up from under the blankets. He goes even pinker at my comment and slouches further down in the bed.

“Thanks. I feel like shit.”

“If it’s any consolation, so do I. At least yours isn’t self-inflicted.”

“Hungover?”

I search his tone for sympathy and find none.

“That too.” Holding his gaze, I let him see the apology I’m too self-conscious—and too stubborn—to say out loud. “I brought chicken noodle.”

“From Mendoza’s?” He perks up, peace offering accepted.

“Obviously. I can nuke it for a few if you want it hot.”