is the definition of masculinity and question how he can say “Rainbow Sparkle” with a straight face.
He takes one look at my expression and shakes his head. “You’re being extremely difficult. How about Bear since he’s a teddy bear?”
“Sure. We’ll go with that since I can pretend you were referring to a grizzly bear. I hope naming our first child doesn’t go this poorly.”
He snorts. “Awfully optimistic, aren’t we? I thought you’d given up on the seducing me part.”
“Why, because you broke me out? I mean, I still need you to keep me safe.” And maybe because I like him just a little bit.
“No, because I was disgusted after you drooled on me while snoozing in the waiting room.”
I walk in silence, slightly mortified by that fact, which only makes him laugh. Never mind, I don’t like anything about him. Although, he is the only person who’s shown me kindness in a while. “Don’t make me regret liking you.”
“I would never.”
After picking our way to my home on the rich side of town, we hide Bear about a block away. It took longer than I thought to get there because there were certain roads Shepherd made us avoid. While I never saw anyone looking our way, he seemed to catch little things that made us duck down an alley or wait in the shadows. When we arrive at my house, it’s past midnight, but we don’t head in yet. Instead, Shepherd leaves me under a large evergreen I used to play under as a child. The branches are low and the needles soft, allowing me to treat it as a fort where I could pretend I was the ruler of a great kingdom. I wonder what the me from back then would think if he saw the me now. Would he have done things differently? Would he be less of a coward?
I didn’t grow up to be the king, I grew up to be the jester. Merely here for the entertainment of others.
Thankfully, Shepherd is back after about five minutes, long before the pessimism could consume me.
“Let’s go.”
“Anyone watching?”
“I… took care of it.”
“You murdered them?” I ask in shock.
“No, I just busted their teeth in. Come on.”
I decide that maybe I don’t need to know any more and follow him up to the front door. The lights in the house are off and it’s a weekday, so I’m sure my father is asleep. I have my doubts that my absence has affected his sleeping a whole lot. Maybe it’s even made him sleep better.
I walk up to the door and punch the numbers into the lock before pulling it open. As soon as I’m inside, I rush over to the keypad on the wall and type the five-digit code in before it stops flashing. Once we’re clear, I turn to Shepherd, who is still standing in the doorway.
“Were you going to leave me if it failed?” I whisper.
“Hell yeah, I was. I don’t like you that much,” he says as he follows me through the house. I stick to the carpet, since the wooden floor of the dining room likes to creak if anyone steps on it. When I reach the basement door, I slowly pull it open before creeping down the stairs. The steps groan as we walk, but my father is two flights up, not likely to hear anything.
“Do you have a flashlight?” I ask.
“No, I ditched my phone in the car in case Tony tries tracking it.”
I switch the light on, knowing I wouldn’t be able to do much in the dark. Once it lights up the room, I quickly move over to the safe that’s set into the wall.
The basement was originally supposed to be a toy room when I was a child. My father bought table tennis and a pool table so all the kids would come over and see how awesome my house was.
But after middle school, I stopped inviting anyone over, and eventually, I stopped talking to people at school. That was all before Rose butted her way into my life, though.
“Do you guys have enough stuff? Why exactly would you want to leave this place?” Shepherd asks as he looks around.
“Stuff doesn’t equal happiness. You know that, right?”
“I don’t know,” Shepherd says as he walks over to the safe and watches me input the numbers. “I always thought it did. When people would say that money can’t buy happiness, I knew they’d never spent a night out on the streets.”