Boys Will Be Boys (v.2)

chapter twelve - licorice

chapter twelve — licorice

MUM MET ME ON THE PORCH. She had a bandana in her hair, holding back her short dark locks as she leaned forward to hug me. She smelled like paint and I returned the hug briefly, turning my head away from Lukas' grinning face as he backed out of the driveway with a wave, cheeks warm. We watched his car leave and the sky went overcast.

"Did you bring the laundry in, Mum?"

Mum looked away from the street, eyes reflecting the clouds and my own. She smiled blankly, tilting her head to the side.

"The laundry? It's gonna rain, Mum. We should take the clothes off the clothesline," I repeated myself, unable to be angry with the tranquil expression plastered on my Mum's face. Realization dawned on her face, shy smile sprouting up as she ruffled my hair.

"I nearly forgot! Thank you, my heart" Mum pressed a quick kiss to my temple before scurrying around the porch to the backyard.

I let myself in, lazily scraping my shoes on the doormat. Mum liked to put our clothes out on the clothesline to dry during the summer. I helped her out with it whenever I could. It was one of our little rituals: listening to the cicadas and the Beatles as we draped the damp clothes over the drooping rope. Sometimes we'd find spiders on the line, tiny little webs formed overnight and slick with dew. I usually batted them away with my Mum's gardening spade, not wanting to mess with the eight-legged fuckers. Mum, on the other hand, would coax the disgusting things into her hand and set them by her gardenias.

I liked gardenias.

My nose crinkled as the smell of cigarette smoke broke through my thoughts. Mum smoked on occasion, but never in the house with the fear that I would become addicted to second-hand smoke. Dad had no such qualms, a trail of ash leading me to him.

I'll clean that up before Mum sees.

"There's my big lad!" The smell of nicotine made my eyes water, face too suddenly coming in contact with the stiff, scratchy material of Dad's sweater. I held still for a second, stomach churning, before breathing a sigh of choked relief as he stopped hugging me.

"How are you, Kieran?" He lounged back into the chair he was sitting in before, a cigarette snub crushed and hidden beside the side table where he always hid them. Dad wasn't a scary looking man by any means. I'd already surpassed him in height, and my Mum stooped whenever she was around to not make him feel bad. Marco affectionately called him Midget Man behind his back, and I pretended not to hear. He wasn't a certifiable midget, he stood around five foot three inches, but Marco and I were the people least concerned with facts.

He leaned back, awkwardly propping his short legs up on the couch, tracking dry dirt onto Lukas' spot. I frowned, quickly moving to fill the space so he'd move his shoes. He complied, chuckling when I dusted the upholstery before sitting down. When I was little I used to tuck myself into a ball in the same spot whenever Dad came to visit, his loud voice reminding me of the annoying kids at school.

Those silly fears were dead and gone now. My Dad, though admittedly prone to assholic tendencies, wasn't nearly as bad as my kid-self had made him out to be.

"'M good Dad," I answered honestly, eyes level with his own icy gaze. Mum's eyes were the color of paintings of the ocean, the old ones with a film of dust on top. With a faint sense of chill, they were mostly calm and deep, usually crinkled at the edges with a small smile. Lukas liked to compliment Mum on her eyes. Both DJ and Roger agreed that they were arguably perfect. I wasn't lucky enough to have her eyes.

My eyes mimicked my Dad's: cold and sharp. It was as if the same painting of the ocean had been taken and put in the sun for too long, the blues fading to an ugly, slated ice-color. There was nothing kind about our eyes, yet people still called them lovely.