Del could feel his heartbeat in his ears as he unlocked and wrenched open the door.
He fell to his knees, and Harper pushed Scarlett at him, following her into his arms. Wyatt clung onto them all, and all the kids were in a state of panicky crying.
“What’s going on?” Abigail asked behind Del.
Del was going to say he didn’t know, when Harper pulled back and wailed, “Uncle Steve’s gonna kill Justin!” 17
If there was one thing Justin had learned when he was growing up, it was that nobody said no to Uncle Steve. Uncle Steve didn’t need to order people around. It wasn’t like that. But if he said he wanted something and he didn’t get it, or if he felt slighted or insulted or the butt of someone’s joke…Justin couldn’t even say that his moods turned on a dime because the threat was always right there, just under the surface, lurking just behind his smile. So when Steve said that he wanted to see the kids, Justin knew that leaving it until after dinner the next night was already pushing it as far as he could.
Harper’s screams that she hated him lasted right up until she saw the lights on at the O’Dwyer house.
“Who’s there?” she asked, her eyes wide in the darkness. Justin couldn’t read her expression well, but he could hear the sudden waver in her voice.
“Uncle Steve,” he said. Wyatt wouldn’t remember him, probably, and Scarlett had never met him, but Justin could tell by the way that Harper seemed to suddenly curl into herself that she remembered Uncle Steve.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she ducked her head when he tried to cup her cheek. “I’m sorry, but they only let me keep you guys because we have the house to live in. If he kicks us out, it all goes away. Do you understand?”
It would all go away. The kids, and cooking together, and being a real family, and Del. He needed Harper to understand that. She was only six, but she was smart. She must know how precarious this all was.
It was too early, he wanted to tell her. It was too early to pressure Del into saving them all from this. Because Justin was still enough of a kid that he could see the obvious solution ticking over in Harper’s head—why couldn’t they just live with Del? Except Justin was also old enough to know that wasn’t fair on Del. Del cared for him, he knew that, and he loved the kids, but this thing between them was still new and fragile, and Justin couldn’t let it snap under the weight of all his baggage. He wanted Del to be his boyfriend. He didn’t want to be indebted to him, at least any more than he already was. Because he knew he already was.
“We’ll go home,” he told Harper, “and it’ll be okay. We’ll figure it all out later, but for now we just need to go home.”
Home
It wasn’t his house with the sagging roof and the holes in the walls that he thought about now when he said that word. It was Del’s home he thought of. Del’s kitchen, and couch, and the soft comforter on his bed. Del’s arms around him when they slept.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to.”
And he knew, as Harper fell into step beside him, that it had nothing to do with whatever bullshit he’d just told her. Since when did Harper listen to him? He knew that she was only obeying him now because she was scared of Uncle Steve too.
As they drew closer to the house, their shoes crunching in the dirt, Justin could hear the television blaring. He tightened his grip on Scarlett, and checked that Harper was holding Wyatt’s hand. Wyatt had two fingers of his free hand jammed in his mouth.
“We’re just going to say hello, then you guys can go to bed, okay?” And maybe that would be it. Maybe Steve would be in a good mood. Maybe even a generous one. Justin could remember when he was a kid sometimes Steve would give him quarters for no reason. Maybe that was the side of him that the kids would meet tonight.
The front door was ajar, and Justin climbed the shallow steps and pushed it open. The sound from the TV blared louder. The house stank of cigarette smoke and weed.
“Who’s there?” Uncle Steve yelled from the living room.
“It’s me,” Justin called back, still holding Scarlett close as he moved down the hallway and into the living room.
Uncle Steve was sitting on the couch, his legs splayed wide. He had a can of beer in his hand. The floor was littered with empties. Justin hoped they were from the party last night, and that Steve hadn’t drunk that much today.