Page 36 of String Boys

Dad laughed then, and some of the sadness left his voice. “Well, we’ve got frozen burritos. I’ll put them in the microwave and come watch TV with you guys until Kelly’s folks get home. How’s that?”

“Sure, Dad. Uh, we were going to ask you something anyway.” And it was funny, because when he looked at Kelly for confirmation, neither of them was thinking about sex, just like that.

“Yeah? What’s on your mind?”

Seth and Kelly started talking about the kids by the bus stop, and how Castor Durant was the son of someone at Isela’s church, and he was threatening without saying anything, and they were afraid.

Dad came back into the room with the burritos on plates and some apple slices with them, because he made sure Seth had vegetables or fruit with every meal.

He regarded the boys seriously and grabbed the remote to put the show they were watching on pause.

“Areyouafraid of these boys?” he asked bluntly, taking his seat in the battered corduroy recliner. Seth used to sit there alone, doing his homework, before Kelly’s dad had started taking Seth’s dad to meetings.

“Yes,” Seth replied without hesitation. He darted his eyes to Kelly, who was nodding quickly.

“They’re nobody to mess with. They smell bad. Like they been lighting up. And they’re dirty. And they bump into us all the time. And call us names. It’s, like, if my brother just goes and decides to turn on us, we’re toast, ’cause Seth can run, but neither of us can fight, and—”

“What sort of names?” Dad asked, looking them both in the eye in turn.

Seth’s stomach grew cold. “Just… you know. Names.”Oh God. No. Not going there.“Just… you know. They’re not nice. And there’s rumors about them and drugs and kids and the school and—could you just make sure Linda doesn’t let the girls walk home alone anymore?”

Dad nodded and gave them both a weak smile, chewing thoughtfully. “I think that’s a very good idea. And you know what?Idon’t have any ties to that church. Maybe I’ll stop by and give Castor Durant’s dad a happy hello.”

“Yeah, just don’t tell Isela’s dad you likemyhappy ass,” Kelly muttered. “That man doesnotlike me.”

“I’m starting to get that,” Dad said grimly. “And he probably wouldn’t like Seth either.”

“I would imagine not.”

Seth and Kelly exchanged glances again, and Seth’s dad hit Play on the remote.

Later, Seth would remember that moment and think about how funny it was. Kids always thought they knew everything, when adults often saw through them from the start.

He’d also think about his father’s lingering guilt about the bad times, the dark times, when there had been yelling and hitting, and about how his dad had worked so very hard to fix the thing he had broken when they’d both been young and sad.

And how this moment, right here, went a long way to putting paid to all that went on before.

A Dark Alley

“AGNES!” SETHcalled, treading water by where the rope swing let off. “I’m freezing! C’mon, baby girl, do it or let me come in!”

Kelly wrapped a towel around his shoulders and made himself comfortable on the camp chair.

“I think we should bring Seth on all our outings,” Mom said next to him. “He’s the best toy the girls have ever had.”

Well, of course he was. While Kelly and his dad were busy helping Mom build the camp and help with the dishes and the food—and Matty was busy showing Isela that he didn’t have to do anything but be freaking useless unless he was stepping and fetching for her—Seth was playing with the girls, inventing games, going swimming, and taking them out in the rented canoe. Matty sneeringly said he made a great little woman.

Kelly was done with his older brother.

But he was falling more and more in love with Seth every day.

Soccer Wednesdays had continued. Seth’s birthday gift had been another blowjob, this one with Seth lying in bed and Kelly between his spread thighs.

Kelly had also given him a present—stickers to put on his violin case, because his father had given him his own violin for his birthday. It was used, because a new one, custom-made, would have cost more than Seth’s dad made in a year, but Seth’s face had lit up the moment he played it.

His father had put his heart and soul into finding that gift.

The stickers on the violin case were rainbow ones—LGBTQ if someone wanted to read that into them—but they also had a leprechaun on them, and Kelly was very aware his name could be construed as Irish.