Beloved: A Henry Dawncraft Novel |boyxboy| Sequel to Lover for Pay

VI - Consideration.

Henry, age 9

"Hey!" Munro called out before Henry went inside his own house. They had just gotten off the school bus a moment ago, finally returning home on a Friday afternoon. "Ask your dad if you can come over. My brother finally let me play his Sega Genesis, and we have to check out his games!"

At the thought of asking his dad something like that, Henry felt like he already knew what the answer was going to be, but he said, "Sure, but I might be busy. I have that – uh – homework, y'know?"

Munro nodded and waved goodbye to Henry. The nine-year-old then unlocked the door to his house and went inside. The moment he entered, he saw Travis coming out of the kitchen where Elaine was. The man looked towards his son without saying a word, and then continued on into the living room. Sometimes Henry couldn't tell if his dad was in a sour mood, but decided to give it a little while before asking to go to Munro's house.

"Hey, baby!" Elaine called from the kitchen, and she waved her son over. "You want a cookie? I just baked some and they're nice and gooey right now. Take one."

"Oh, thanks, mom," Henry smiled, and took a chocolate chip from the container held in front of him. When she stared at him as if waiting for him to eat the treat, Henry bit into it and chewed it down. "It's really good," he said.

Elaine's smile brightened, "Yay, you can have another if you want, sweetie!"

Taking another cookie, Henry suddenly thought it was strange that his own mother was being this generous towards him. Not that he had a problem with it, but she usually focused more on Travis than him or London, so, unfortunately, receiving her affection wasn't always the most normal thing in the world. "Thanks, mom," Henry said, "But I have homework. I should probably do it now before I forget how."

"Oh, of course," Elaine set the tray down on the counter. "Why don't you do it at the dining table? I'm gonna be cooking dinner in a few minutes, and when you're done, you can help me with it."

"Uh, okay," Henry shrugged.

He circled around to the dining table just before the kitchen area and set his backpack down. Unzipping it, he pulled out his sheets of homework and a pencil. He got started on his reading assignment first, answering the questions himself, and then moved on to fractions in multiplication. The first few gave him a bit of trouble so he got up to ask his mother for some help. "Mom," he tapped her arm, "Do you know how to do this?"

Elaine looked down at the paper held up towards her, "Oh, hun, fractions and decimals or whatever have never been my thing. Why don't you ask your father? He was way better in school than I ever was."

Henry chewed his inner cheek before heading into the living room. Travis was sitting in his recliner with a beer in his hand. It was half empty, and there were a couple crushed cans already on the floor around him. "Dad," Henry approached him, having waited for the boxing rerun to go to commercial. When he stepped up beside the chair, Travis met the boy's eyes. "Can you help me with this?"

The man licked his lips and glanced towards the worksheet held out to him. "Ain't your teacher teaching you anything? Or are you not paying attention in class?"

"I am paying attention," Henry said, trying to defend himself, "It's just, I'm not that good at math."

"Maybe if you spent more time reviewing your school work, and stopped jumping on your games right after school, you wouldn't be struggling so much." Travis snatched the worksheet from Henry, causing a small paper cut, but Henry tried to act like it didn't happen.

He stood there patiently as his father seemed to familiarize himself with the material, and then took his time explaining what Henry needed to do to get the right answer. "Now go back and do it yourself," he said. "I'll check it when you're done."