said furiously, coming out of the kitchen, a dish towel in her hands. “You close those flapping lips of yours right this second.”
Bob scowled at her. “Someone needs to say it. Aren’t you tired of all the pining? You’re lucky I didn’t tell him about how Seth is—”
She slapped the dish towel over his mouth while glaring up at him.
He waggled his eyebrows at her.
They looked at Nick.
Nick, who was in the middle of a full system shutdown.
“Oh dear,” Martha said as she pulled the dish towel away. “I think you’ve broken him.”
Bob poked Nick on the cheek. “Imagine how he’d react if I told him the other thing.”
“Robert Gray.”
His eyes were twinkling when he said, “Probably a good idea just to keep it at one thing at a time.”
“Why, you old rascal. You’re gonna get it, I promise.”
“I should hope so,” Bob said, kissing her cheek.
Three minutes later, Nick found himself standing on the porch of the Gray brownstone, a plate of cookies in his hand, the door closing behind him after Martha told him to come back as soon as he could.
It took him at least ten more minutes before he was able to somehow make his legs work again.
He didn’t remember much about the walk home.
11
It’s well known that regardless of what else they are, teenage boys are inherently stupid.
Oh, they try to act like they aren’t; their egos don’t allow for such magnanimity. They strut and preen like tiny little show dogs, carrying themselves with an undeserved sense of accomplishment. They can be rude and mostly daft, their lack of self- and spatial-awareness making it a slight wonder they’ve somehow managed to stay alive in order to puff out their body-spray-saturated chests and put copious amounts of product in their hair.
The problem with this is, sometimes, certain events can occur to break through this shield of teenage futility.
Nicholas Bell was a stupid teenage boy. He was partially aware of this fact, but still. He was absolutely convinced that he could become an Extraordinary, that he was destined for something more. Maybe he wasn’t a tiny show dog, per se, but he did believe himself to be somewhat invincible.
That was, of course, until Bob Gray flapped his lips and told Nick something that altered the shape of the entire world.
“Oh my god,” Nick said while in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“Oh my god,” Nick said, three hours later, still staring up at the ceiling.
His mother smiled at him like she always did.
* * *
In addition to being inherently stupid, most teenage boys tend to have an attention span that leaves a lot to be desired. Now, imagine if you will, an inherently stupid teenage boy who is afflicted with an attention deficit disorder of the most hyperactive variety regulated by something with the ridiculous name of Concentra. And, as luck would have it, this same teenage boy got maybe an hour or two of sleep before his alarm went off and he managed to trudge his way down the stairs like some amorphous blob.
Only to reach the kitchen and remember he was angry with his father.
“Crap,” this teenage boy muttered when he saw his dad in the kitchen and the previous day’s events burst through the fog.
Dad grunted in return.
Cereal sat on the counter next to an empty bowl and a carton of milk. This was almost enough to distract Nick since he was reminded from one of his late-night internet adventures that Canadians had bags of milk instead of cartons or jugs (something he would never understand), but then he remembered Dad asking why he had to be this way, and he forgot all about Canadian milk bags. Nick’s lunch sat in a brown paper sack next to the milk.
He and Dad had fought before. They were two guys living together under one roof, so it was to be expected. However, even after the Great Romance of Nick and Owen when Nick wasn’t doing so hot in school and his father had sat him down to have the talk where Things Were Going To Change, he’d never felt like … this. Like he was a burden.
Dad leaned against the counter, the newspaper in his hands, but Nick knew he wasn’t reading it. He was waiting to see what kind of mood Nick was in.
Well, two could play at this game, because Nick was in a foul mood. But it wasn’t the usual I hate everything because all my feelings are real and valid kind of