The Years After (39 page)

He tried to push past them, and Noah let him. Then he followed Max down the stairs, just as Lindsey was coming in from the kitchen. Her eyes grew wide when she noticed what Max carried. Derek followed, unsure of what he should do, and what their reaction could be.

He had no idea if Noah and Lindsey would say to get out. Or maybe, Lindsey, being so nice and all, would beg Max to stay. He didn’t know what they’d do with the rules they so clearly set down being so flagrantly broken. He didn’t foster much hope. After all, wasn’t all of this based on one chance? Don’t fuck up? Well, Max had knowingly fucked up.

Lindsey put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing? Put that bag away right now, and get in here. We’re having a discussion, young man, about why you will
desist
from this moment on in running fight clubs at school.”

Max stopped on the bottom step, clearly confused. He glanced at Derek who shrugged back. Noah came up behind them. “What Lindsey means, is we are not allowing a thirteen-year-old to go running out of here in the middle of the night in the dark. Now—”

“No. What I meant was very clear. Get in there, sit down and take your punishment. You have to quit being such a little punk and running away from the smallest battles. You too, Derek. GO!”

Surprisingly, Max set his bag down and shuffled into the kitchen. Keeping his head down, he flopped into a chair, his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl that appeared menacing as he glared at the table before him.

Derek stood back, ready to finally protect Max when they kicked them out.

“Did you miss the lecture we gave about fighting?”

“N-n-no. I heard it.”

“So you deliberately chose to disobey us?”

Max shrugged. “You’re n-n-not my parents. You’re n-n-nothing to me.”

“Correction. We are your guardians right now. Who else is going to do it, Max? Derek? Your former drug-dealing brother who is as lost and alone and confused as you? Get real. We’re not letting a little kid take care of another little kid. Now, why the fighting?” Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest and waited for an answer.

“Stop! You can’t throw him out, Aunt Lindsey! It wasn’t his fault.”

The front door suddenly burst open and Christina came running in with Will on her heels. Will threw an apologetic glance at Lindsey. “I’m sorry, she’s freaking out.”

Lindsey grabbed Christina when she threw herself at Lindsey, crying hysterically. As she spoke, her words kept running all over each other. “You can’t just throw him out! You can’t. It wasn’t his fault. The kids are so mean. They make fun of how he talks. I tried to stop them, but they just keep teasing him. He just—” She was still sobbing as she buried her face into Lindsey’s chest. “It’s so mean. Why would anyone be so mean?”

Derek watched Will and Lindsey and Noah exchanging glances. Their concern over Christina’s outburst seemed genuine enough, but Derek was on edge over where all of this left Max.

She pushed Christina back and put her hand on her chin, lifting her face up. “No one is getting kicked out of anywhere.”

Max hunkered down further in his chair as Christina spoke. Derek could guess by the look Max first gave Christina that he liked her, and having her feel so sorry for him was humiliating. Probably worse than the names he was called.

Noah stepped forward, “Look, we don’t have any real authority over either of you. But we are not willing to let you go out into the night. We just need to talk about what behavior is—”

“Why can’t you just adopt him? Let him stay here for good? How is he supposed to behave properly when everyone is so mean to him? There’s no one he can count on. Just adopt him!” Christina interrupted, and her tone was sincere and impassioned. Everyone, even Max looked at Christina, and all were stunned.

Lindsey swallowed as she finally tried to collect herself. “Honey, we’re not going to be here next fall. I told you, we’re going to start gearing up for the senate race. That means we’re moving, honey. We can’t—”

Derek had no idea what they were talking about. Senate race? Was she for real? Was he living with a woman who might possibly become the next senator? His mouth dropped open. But Christina wasn’t done.

“So quit! It’s just some stupid race. You don’t have to do it. Someone else can. But who else can take care of Max?” Christina looked from Lindsey to Noah to her dad. “No one! There is no one. I’ve heard all of you talking. I’ve heard what Derek was and what happened to Olivia. What about Max? What will become of him?”

“Christina,” Will said in a stern, fatherly tone, “Enough.”

She was crying still. “No! It’s not enough. Not enough was ever done for him and so now he fights ‘cause he’s hurt and angry. And even now? There’s not enough being done.”

“Tiny, it’s a complicated situation. You can’t just adopt a kid. He already has a mother. We don’t know where this will go, but—”

“I could find her.” Derek spoke before he realized what he would say. He was shocked when all of the eyes in the room were instantly pinned on him, and even more shocked he’d spoken. He cleared his throat and continued, “I could find our mom. I could make her sign off or whatever you need for custody or whatever. I mean it, she won’t care. She’d do it for a few hundred dollars or even a couple of fixes.”

He kept his gaze down and could not believe what he just said. The room grew as silent as if it were underwater. Only the clock in the next room that kept ticking broke the overbearing silence.

“All right.”

His face jerked up, as did those in the entire room, and they all looked towards Lindsey. She shrugged and a slow smile started on her lips and ended in her cheeks. She spread her hands out in front of her as she stared at Noah. Derek glanced at Noah. His eyes were fastened firmly on Lindsey and they were nodding at each other.

“All right, what?” Christina finally asked. She lifted her head off her dad’s chest and stared at her aunt and uncle for a long, solemn moment.

Derek didn’t even know how to hope. What were they talking about? He couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

“All right, we would be willing to adopt you, Max.”

Derek’s ears started to ring.
No. No way.
He didn’t hear that right. This decent, typical, nice couple, who ate normal meals and worked good jobs, and never seemed to hit each other or anyone else surely did not just say they would adopt Max?

Max’s gaze shot to him, looking for reassurance, as well as normalcy. His expression was panicked, and Derek felt it too. What was the trick? What was the catch? People didn’t do things like that. People didn’t just help others for free. Not without some great benefit to themselves. What could they possibly hope to get out of Max?

But he’d been around them enough to know if there was some strange perversion, hadn’t he? And… well, Tony recommended them, and he just didn’t think Tony would let Max stay somewhere unsafe.

The room fell in complete silence. Then Christina nearly whooped out loud as she suddenly rushed to Lindsey and threw her arms around her. “Do you mean it?”

Lindsey saw Max and met Derek’s gaze over Christina’s short head. “We mean it. If you’re interested.”

Max shrugged and his face grew pink as he dropped his head down. “I don’t know.”

Of course, he didn’t know. No one had ever wanted him, just as they hadn’t wanted Derek. Not their own parents. That they shared the same parents was still debatable. Other than both of them sharing the coloring of their mother, there was no real guarantee they had the same father. Still… they were offering Max a home? Derek’s heart lifted and dropped. It was good. Great. Unbelievable. But a weird stab cramped his stomach. Jealousy? Was he jealous? That seemed impossible. But maybe he was. Could anyone be lower than him? Being jealous of his brother, who was only thirteen, because he was offered a real home and therefore, a real chance in life?

Will cleared his throat. “Come on, Tiny, let’s go. They need some privacy now.”

She pushed back from Lindsey’s chest as she dried her eyes. “This is epic, Aunt Lindsey!” She rushed over to Max and threw her arms around him. He stood there like a frozen statue. He really hated to be touched. Other than getting hit, Derek never witnessed anyone touching Max. Christina was tiny for her age, and about the only thing that could make Max seem big. He was even smaller than Derek was at thirteen. He kept his arms straight by his sides and didn’t respond. But Christina didn’t care. She leaned back, smiled shyly and then turned and went over to her dad to leave.

Derek stared after them before turning back to Noah and Lindsey. They were both sharing some kind of coded eyelock. Noah finally nodded and cleared his throat. “Why don’t we all sit down?”

So civil, it was odd. They always just talked. They asked questions. They were… completely reasonable. There was nothing odd, or hard to follow. If anyone ever talked to Derek, it was in drunken, high rants that made no sense. He remembered the litany of mean words. Taunting. Jeering. Freaking. Crying. Not… talking. Conversation. Communication.

Max, of course, was the least likely to ever converse. Derek sat at the kitchen table when Noah indicated he do so. So did Max finally.

Lindsey sat next to Noah and took his hand in a discreet hold just beneath the table where they continued to squeeze each other’s hands. Derek glanced at the simple, sweet gesture and then up into her eyes. Was that healthy? Was that what he’d been trying, albeit totally incompetently, to have with Olivia?

Derek leaned forward on his elbow. “Did Will say something about the senate race?”

Lindsey ducked her head and a small smile brightened her face. “Yes. I was going to run starting this fall, for the following year.”

“And with one sentence, some maniac, teeny-bopper threw out, you decided not to run for one of the most powerful positions in the country?”

“No. We’ve talked about it. We talked before you and Christina so eloquently asked. She has a huge heart, and I think she’s taken you into hers, Max.”

Max just shrugged. His gaze went straight down to the table top. Derek didn’t believe them. His tone was rude when he started again. “You don’t just decide to
not
run for the senate.”

Lindsey sighed and rested her hands on the table before her. This time, she dropped her eyes to a wayward fingernail, and began picking the polish on her nail. “So remember that scar we talked about? And how I got it?”

Noah’s eyebrows lifted in obvious surprise. Max didn’t react. Derek glanced from her to Noah. “Yeah. I remember.”

“He was the governor of the state of Virginia. He was shot down and killed shortly after getting elected.”
Holy crap. Did she kill him?
Derek sat up straighter, and she noticed. She lifted her hands up and shook her head, “Not by me. I swear. Anyway, he died before he thought to change his will, so I got his fortune. It was and still is, a lot. It allows me to do things I could have never done before. I intended to run for senator mostly, I think, to snub him and slap him in the face. He was only the governor and would have rolled over in his grave if I ever attained a more powerful position than he. I mean, I was doing it for more than the usual reasons: you know, to make a difference, draw national focus to domestic violence, etc. Those reasons are noble, but a huge part of my motivation was to prove, once and for all, he could not break me or ruin me. Because for so long, I let him.”

“The ultimate revenge,” Derek muttered, feeling seriously impressed with Lindsey. She was kind of stately and grand, with nice manners and an even nicer demeanor. But he didn’t see a trace of the mean streak. It made him finally smile. “I like it.”

She shrugged. “We’ve been talking, and really, that wasn’t my lifelong ambition. It was something I could do. I had the money, thanks to my ex. I had the experience from running this town. I did some good here, I think. I wanted to expand that. I was at a point where I didn’t know what I wanted next. But… this seems important too.”

Derek glanced at Max and nodded. His stomach tightened.
Important.
If Max or he were important to anyone, especially adults, it felt weird and untrustworthy. “You would give up being a senator for one kid?”

“Two kids.”

Derek glared at her. “How do you figure?”

“You’re nineteen. I know. And in no need of a guardian. But I’ve never in my life met two boys who needed the structure and love of a family more than you two do. And you need it together. If this is Max’s home, it will always be yours too, Derek. You’re brothers first.”

He shoved back from the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”

They glanced at each other and then at him. “What do you mean, what do we want?”

“What do you want? People don’t just take in kids like us. People don’t give up their plans for, for—”

“You. Yes, they do and they can. We can. We want to. We don’t want anything from either of you. I was never ready to have kids. But you’re here now, and suddenly I’m ready to. Go figure. I know it can’t be instant. But it can happen over time. Max? What do you think?”

He shrugged and kept his head down as he said, “O-kay. If you want to.”

Derek’s heart simply melted. Max wanted this, but was too afraid to let himself believe them. As was Derek. But there were no other options out there. Just this last Hail Mary pass, a chance to have something besides the hopeless dysfunction from which they were born. This was their chance to have a real family.

Lindsey sat up straight. “I want to.”

Noah, this time, leaned across the table and set his hand on Max’s shoulder. Max flinched as if Noah hit him. “He doesn’t like to be touched,” Derek said, sharing a look with Noah.

He withdrew his hand and Max relaxed a half an inch. “That’s just fine. And I want to too.”

“It will take some time and there are some legalities to wade through. We’ll get married, so that will make the process a little cleaner. So thank you, Max. You finally got Lindsey to do what I could never achieve.” Noah flashed a smile. Max lifted his head and Lindsey shrugged it off with a self-conscious smile. “Stupid hang-ups about being a wife after…”