Lost and Found (Twist of Fate #1)(11)

Once my mother had graduated, she’d gone on to get a Master’s degree and my father had been left to continue caring for me during the day and working as the night janitor for the college my mother had attended. I’d spent the nights with my father’s parents, since my mother had been preoccupied with studying. I’d heard my parents argue often enough as a child to know that had always been the plan— for my mother to establish herself in a career that paid the bills, with the promise that my father would be able to finish his own education once they had more money to go around, as long as he took care of me until that happened.

That promise had been one in a long line of many that she had broken.

A mere two years after graduating with her MBA, my mother had accepted a prestigious job with a hoity-toity marketing firm overseas. When my father had expressed his worry about uprooting me to move to Europe, my mother had come up with a simple solution. The divorce had been finalized the day before she’d left the country, and neither my father nor I had ever seen her again. I’d learned later from Aunt Lolly that my mother had agreed not to seek sole custody of me if my father agreed not to ask for child support. It wasn’t that my mother had actually wanted me, she’d just used the threat of taking me thousands of miles away from my father to get out of any parental obligation the courts might have enforced upon her.

My father had done his best to insulate me from the fact that my mother hadn’t wanted me, but even before I’d known about the custody arrangement, I’d still felt left behind. Luckily, I’d had Bennett in my corner at that point, and on the days he hadn’t been able to draw me out of my sadness at being unloveable, even by my own mother, he’d held me and promised me he’d always want me.

Just like with my mother, it was a broken promise I hadn’t seen coming.

“Here.”

I glanced up to see a hand thrusting some gooey, chocolatey marshmallow goodness my way. While I should have berated whoever it was who’d wasted space in their pack for the ingredients necessary to make s’mores, I couldn’t begrudge the kids the fun of toasting marshmallows on sticks over an open flame and slapping them onto a perfectly-shaped chocolate bar between two crispy graham crackers.

“Thanks,” I said as I took the treat. I expected the kid to return to his spot by the fire, but to my surprise, he sat down next to me. Bear immediately began nuzzling the kid’s chocolate-covered fingers.

“It’s okay?” he asked as he motioned to Bear.

I nodded, since the amount of chocolate was so insignificant that it wouldn’t cause the dog any harm. The boy smiled when Bear’s big tongue came out to lap at his fingers.

I guessed the boy to be around fifteen or sixteen. Gary had told me that all the boys in the group were between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, while the group Jake had taken charge of had younger boys between twelve and fourteen. The kid next to me was on the short side and pretty scrawny. His short black hair was spiky, like he was constantly running his fingers through it. His darker skin tone had me thinking he was at least part Hispanic.

“You don’t want to listen?” I asked as I motioned to where the rest of the group was sitting.

He shook his head. “Heard it before. B tells it good, but…”

“He tells it too good,” I ventured.

The kid smiled slightly. “They’re gonna be pissing themselves all night in this place,” he said as he nodded towards the kids. True enough, each boy was completely fixated on the story, which was the point. In mere minutes, Bennett would be performing his signature shock and awe move that would have the kids falling all over themselves to get away. I’d at least had Bennett to hold onto when he’d been scaring the ever-loving hell out of me.

“You’re Lucky, right?” I asked. Bennett had had the kids introduce themselves one by one yesterday morning, but truth be told, I’d still been reeling from seeing Bennett again, so I’d only half-listened.

The boy nodded.

“I’m Xander,” I said as I reached over to shake his hand. I knew the introduction wasn’t really necessary, but it still felt like the right thing to do.

Lucky shook my hand and then put his hands back on Bear.

“You got a dog back home?” I asked as I finished the s’more.

“Nah,” he murmured. “Had a cat once when I was little, but Jerry got pissed that it kept scratching his good chair so he let the neighborhood dogs have it.”

The food I’d just eaten threatened to come back up as what he was saying sank in.

“Jerry?” I asked, simply because I had no idea what else to say.

“My mom’s, ah, boyfriend… well, at the time anyway. Not sure if she’s still with him.”

“You don’t live with your mom?”

Lucky shook his head, but didn’t say anything more. I fully expected that the conversation was over when the boy remained silent for several minutes, but he surprised me by saying, “It’s cool out here.”

“Yes, it is,” I acknowledged.

“Did you… did you like, go to school or something?”

It dawned on me what he was asking. “You mean college?”

He nodded.

“I did. But not specifically because it was a requirement for this job.”

Lucky glanced at me, his confusion clear as day in the firelight. “You went to school because you… wanted to?”