Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,33
was surprised at the relief he felt in being with Peter, one of only two people in the building he actually looked forward to seeing. Wincing against the discomfort, Evan set the boy down and searched the party for the other.
“Looking for my mom?” Peter asked.
Evan said, “No.”
Peter grabbed an apple from a nearby table and mashed it into his upper teeth where it remained, impaled on his braces. His voice came out muffled. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
Evan said, “A bit of spinach.”
Peter’s laugh, like his voice, was raspy. Though most of his mouth wasn’t visible behind the apple, his big charcoal eyes pinched up at the corners in a smile.
Evan plucked the apple from Peter’s braces and handed it back to him. Without missing a beat, Peter returned it to the bowl. Evan grimaced.
“How’s school?” he asked, having a hard time taking his eyes from the spit-glistening fruit.
Peter wore a man’s button-up shirt that drooped to the tops of his knees. “Today was crazy,” he said animatedly, the cuffed sleeves swaying like the ones on a magician’s robe. “Sebastian? The tall kid with BO that smells like onion rings? He dropped the F-bomb in music, and Ms. Lipshutz got super mad and tripped over the brass section…”
Conga-lining by, Lorilee plucked Peter’s apple from the bowl and took a hearty bite, winking at Evan. He manufactured a smile, though he had little doubt it looked pained.
As she twirled beneath the HAPPY TRAILS banner, he had to admit a pang of envy at the seeming ease with which she was launching into a new life. What would it be like to feel so free to leave the past behind?
Peter was still going, talking loud over the music. “… it was Sebby’s second strike after he got in trouble in Spanish, ’cuz he says ‘grassy ass’—get it? Like ‘thank you’? And so one more and he’s out, which would suck, ’cuz he’s the only one who knows how to pitch in kickball, so—”
Evan sensed someone approaching, the scent of lemongrass. A warm hand pressed into the small of his back, and he felt a jolt of something like adrenaline. He turned a bit too quickly, his face nearly knocking into Mia’s.
As always, her curly chestnut hair was a bit wild. She was still dressed from work—not her court suit but a suit nonetheless. The top button of her blouse was undone, a delicate silver necklace resting across her sternum, a few freckles faintly visible against her olive skin.
Her smile came, as always, unannounced, as if it were catching her by surprise. “I have to say, you’re the last person I’d expected to see at Lorilee Smithson’s farewell party.”
“I didn’t know there was a party,” Evan said. “I didn’t even know she was moving.”
“You just came for the boxed merlot?”
“I got dragged off the elevator.”
“Poor defenseless baby.”
“Mom?” Peter tugged at Mia’s sleeve indelicately. “I have to get a poster board for that stupid family report.”
Mia said, “Poster board. Stupid family report. Got it.”
“And, Mom? Mom? You said we could get the Christmas tree this weekend.”
“Christmas tree. Weekend. Copy that.”
“And, Mom?”
“That’s it. You’ll get your poster board for the stupid family report and a Christmas tree, but that’s where I’m drawing the line. Mom’s closed.”
Peter’s lank blond hair swirled in the front, a cowlick that served almost as a side part. It gave him a bit of gravitas, though it was undercut by the smear of chocolate on his chin. “I was just gonna ask if I could have a Coke.”
“Sprite. No caffeine.”
He scrambled off toward the drink cooler, his shirttails swaying.
“What’s with the shirt?” Evan asked.
“It was Roger’s,” Mia said. “Peter got into my closet and started wearing them last month.”
Mia’s husband had passed away when Peter was three. Adopted by Mia and Roger as a baby, Peter had always grappled with questions about his lineage.
“I’m not sure how to handle it. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He just says he likes the shirts.” Mia ran a hand through her curls, heaped them on the other side. “Maybe I should’ve thrown them out? The shirts?” She leaned close, put her mouth to Evan’s ear to talk over the music. “There’s no handbook for this stuff, you know?”
“No.”
“What do you think? You said you never knew your birth parents, right?”
Evan flashed on Veronica crouching by that ancient statue of a lost baby in the cemetery, her head bowed as if in prayer. How he could see the mirror of