Baywatch fic: Like the Ocean Tide (7/14)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
-o-
Dinner was good.
Matt was friendly and talkative. He listened, and he participated meaningfully in the conversation. There was nothing withdrawn or sullen in his behavior. Summer enjoyed herself at dinner, and Mitch was the one who suggested a Monopoly rematched.
The game was good, too.
When it was time for Summer to go, Matt handled it with grace and acceptance. He easily got ready for bed when Mitch instructed him to do so, and he readily read another chapter of Captain Underpants out loud for the two of them to enjoy.
Everything was good.
In fact, when he tucked Matt in, the kid was all smiles, telling Mitch what a great day he had.
In short, everything was great.
That was what made it all so hard.
-o-
In truth, Mitch didn’t want to go outside. He wasn’t convinced it was working; he wasn’t convinced it was ever going to work. He wasn’t entirely convinced he wanted it to work.
The only thing he knew was that it had to work.
This thing with Matt, it was changing him. Not a little, either. Not in small steps. He’d let it consume him. At work, he’d barely even been present. There’d been a time -- shit, it’d only been a week ago -- when nothing could have gotten him off the beach. He had refused to let Brody turn off the CB, and here he was, not listening it to days. Now, it was all Matt, all the time. Sure, it was a sacrifice and a responsibility, but he was starting to like it.
Like, really starting to like it.
More than he should.
He couldn’t forget that Brody had had hopes and dreams, too. At least, Mitch had to assume he did. The eight year old inside certainly did. Brody’s had probably been tempered by age and reality and pain, but he had to have them. And he deserved the chance to see those come to fruition.
Brody would never get that chance if Matt were here. Matt, as vibrant and consuming as he was, also wasn’t quite real. He was an aberration, something that existed outside the fold of things. Matt deserved a good life, but he’d already had that opportunity. This life was Brody’s now. Mitch wasn’t sure where the hell Matt fit in for any of them.
Summer included. If she’d been falling in love with Brody, having a kid in his stead would be a fascinating insight, but it wasn’t something that could last. What was she going to do? Adopt her boyfriend?
What were any of them going to do?
“You have to give him back,” Mitch said, looking up at the cloudy sky with a sigh. “Someone’s going to get hurt.”
The sky was dark and silent in reply.
Mitch shook his head. “We’re all going to get hurt.”
There was nothing in response, naturally. Mitch had never looked for miracles before. He’d never needed fate. But this one was beyond him.
With a soft swear, Mitch eased back into the lounge chair. These weren’t the reasons he didn’t want to be here tonight.
No, the truth was that he knew that these wishes would never work, not because Mitch hadn’t tried very hard or because he hadn’t done the right steps.
The wishes would never work because, deep inside, he wasn’t sure he wanted the wishes to come true.
There was part of him -- a larger part every day, it seemed -- that wanted to wake up in the morning with Matt inside.
Whether that made him a good person or a terrible person, Mitch wasn’t sure. He didn’t have the energy to think about it anymore tonight.
Instead, he closed his eyes and thought about the things he could do with Matt tomorrow.
-o-
For once, Mitch didn’t wake up to the sound of Mrs. Flores. In fact, Mitch wasn’t sure what woke him up at all. The sky was still dark, but hints of the sunrise were starting to lighten the dimness with the quiet hope of the early morning.
When Mitch pulled the early shift, he would get up this early.
There was no reason for it today.
Still, something had aroused him, and he sat up on the lounge with a grimace. He was in shape, but he wasn’t a kid himself anymore. Sleeping for four nights on a lounge chair was getting old.
That was a matter he could worry about another day, however.
Stiffly, he got to his feet, rolling his shoulders as he tried to work the kinks out of his still-dormant muscles. He hadn’t worked out in four days, either. He was going to have to focus on some of life’s basics tasks soon here, with or without Matt.
That might not be so hard. Matt might be inclined to start up an exercise routine, and Mitch would have to vary his own up to accommodate for a pipsqueak, but it might work. It might even be fun, especially since even at this age, Matt clearly had an affinity for swimming.
He’d consider that more, but first he had to wake up.
And figure out what the hell woke him up.
Quietly, Mitch made his daily trek inside, peeking around the kitchen and the living room like he always did. With no sign of Matt, Mitch walked carefully over the floor, and gently turned the knob to the spare room, just to give Matt a second glance. The last two days had gone perfectly, with Matt asleep and with Mitch having time to prep for the morning. There was no reason to suspect that anything would be different today.
Except, Mitch realized belatedly, that Matt was Brody, and Brody was Matt. It was easy, sometimes, to think of them as distinct entities, but despite the vast difference in age, they were the same person. They had a lot of the same tendencies and quirks, and Mitch would have done well to remember that.
If he had, what happened next might not have shocked him as much as it did.
After all, Brody had never shown himself capable of getting it right all the time, and he’d shown a habit of being awesome for a few days before flying off the rails. His propensity for repeated disaster was a learned behavior. Brody’s entire existence seem to hinge on the principle of taking one step forward just to fall two steps back. Shit, sometimes Brody seemed to skip all forward progress and crash back to the start.
But Matt had charmed him. With his floppy hair and big blue eyes. With his damaged backstory and his enthusiastic overtures. Matt had been so damn easy to, well, love.
Beyond all that, however, Mitch should have guessed that he would be just as easy to completely dislike.
Mitch really should have seen it coming.
And yet, it took him completely, wholly, uncharacteristically by surprise.
He knew at first glance that something was off, not because the scene before him was sinister, but because it was different. Matt -- like Brody -- thrived in routine. When something was different, he struggled to keep up.
Struggled, and often failed to keep his shit together.
Instead of sleeping peacefully, as Matt had been doing for two days now, Matt was already awake and seated cross legged on the floor next to his cot.
This was innocent enough, Mitch supposed, but the scene was off. Maybe it was the sand that peppered the floor and covered Matt’s feet. Maybe it was the way the bottoms of Matt’s pajama pants were wet up to the knees.
Or maybe -- just maybe -- it was the pile of items in front of Matt, spread out across the floor.
Shells and rocks. But also sand pails, plastic toy shovels. An umbrella and a damaged digital watch. A beach towel. And a shoulder bag.
Mitch owned none of these things.
Matt owned none of these items, given that Matt owned nothing that Mitch himself had not purchased for him.
Quickly, Mitch did the mental calculation. The innocent explanations were unsupportable. The unbelievable conclusions were deemed ridiculous.
Taken holistically, with the feet, the pants and the items themselves, Mitch had only one reasonable conclusion to stand by.
One horrible conclusion.
One conclusion that he’d thought they were past.
It was like walking in to find Brody drunk on the couch with his shit all over the house. It was like finding Brody getting smashed at a bar when he was supposed to be playing lookout. Damn it, it was just like Brody.
He stepped into the room, feeling the anger tighten like a vice in his chest. The hopes and dreams for the day were long forgotten now; his optimism, which had been built over the last two days, was dashed.
Wide eyed, Matt blinked up in surprise. He knew he’d been caught -- red handed -- but he did not seem quite ready to admit to the obvious. “It’s not what you think.”
“Really?” Mitch said, wishing that the kid would man up this time. Because Mitch could have at least respected the honesty, even if he had hated everything else. He could have at least worked with honesty. With a lie? Shit, all bets were off. “Because it looks like a whole bunch of stuff you stole.”
“I found,” Matt said quickly, as though he actually expected Mitch to believe or appreciate the distinction. “I found it all on the beach. Just, like, left there.”
“Oh, found,” Mitch said, sarcasm rising to solidify his anger. He couldn’t swear, he couldn’t rage, and that anger had to go somewhere, it had to so something. It had to be freakin’ something or he was going to explode. “You found a bunch of stuff that didn’t belong to you and decided to take it. It still sounds like stealing to me.”
Matt was shaking his head as Mitch spoke. “But it was trash,” he said. “I mean, you could say I was doing the right thing for the earth. Picking up trash.”
It was the justification an eight year old would give for making the absolute wrong choice. Maybe, if this were the first offense, Mitch could have at least given it some credence. But this wasn’t the first offense. It wasn’t the second offense.
Damn it.
“You stole,” Mitch said again, more definitively than before. Matt wanted to argue, but Mitch didn’t have the patience for it. He didn’t have anything for it. “After our talks, our deals, all of that -- you stole.”
Matt swallowed convulsively, eyes going even wider. It was obvious that the kid had miscalculated this offense -- and badly. But if he had to calculate where stealing was involved, then everything Mitch had tried to do for the kid in the past four days didn’t mean shit.
“The first time? I explained why it was wrong,” Mitch reminded im. “Second time, we dealt with the consequences like adults. But a third time? You really did it a third time?”
Matt blinked rapidly, scrambling to come up with an explanation Mitch would tolerate. “But it’s not the same,” he said. “I didn’t go to a store. I didn’t.”
“You think it matters if it’s a store?” Mitch asked. “This stuff doesn’t belong to you. It never belonged to you. It belongs to other people, people who don’t deserve to have their stuff taken from them. You can’t do that. You can’t walk around and ignore that other people exist just because you feel unhappy or left out or whatever.”
Surprise colored Matt’s expression for a moment, but it drained away quickly, taking all his defenses with it.
Mitch was going too strong to stop now. If the kid finally felt remorse, then it was about damn time. Maybe this time the lesson would well and truly stick.
At any rate, Mitch was going to give it his best shot.
“I tried being nice. I tried being patient. But you don’t want to learn,” Mitch said, enunciating each word with more vigor, letting them punctuate the air between them to hit Matt like punches. “You just want to be coddled and babied. You want to get everything you want without giving anything back.”
In his fury, Mitch bent down, violently pulling the items away, shoving them into the bag with more force than necessary while Matt flinched.
“I can’t believe this is what you did,” he seethed, his disbelief mounting higher. “I have half a mind to kick your butt to the curb right now, because I told you. I won’t have a thief living under my room, no matter how sad your story is.”
Matt sat, stock still now, holding himself erect though there were small tremors that wracked his thin frame.
He shook his head, disgusted now. “I thought you wanted to stay. I thought you were serious. I trusted you,” he said.
Matt’s countenance hitched, but he visibly kept it in check despite the fact that his cheeks had gone unnaturally pale.
Mitch huffed, an air of bitter disappointment now. This was the lesson he should have learned, even more than Matt. He couldn’t fix Matt. At least with Brody, it wasn’t his responsibility. At least with Brody, it didn’t fall back on him. This was why it couldn’t last. This was why he needed to break the spell or the curse or whatever the hell this was.
The bitterness rose in his throat, almost tasting like bile as his stomach churned painfully. “This is why you have to go,” he said, the words hoarse.
He’d lost his vigor, but not his cutting edge. Matt’s pale disposition seemed to shatter, but he hardened it nearly immediately. His eyes darkened; his brow turned down. The openness from moments before evaporated. The cheerful boy he’d enjoyed over the past two days changed before his eyes into the problem child that had slipped through eleven temporary placements in a year.
Mitch was too angry to feel guilty, though. He was too invested in the reality to turn back to the fantasy. He’d made a mistake here, not in trusting Matt, but in accepting this situation.
Matt wasn’t his lost cause.
Matt wasn’t his at all.
Mitch had been stupid or sentimental or downright delusional to think otherwise.
The only thing to do -- the only thing that mattered -- was getting Brody back.
As soon as possible.
“You’re grounded,” Mitch said, foregoing all other pretenses as his anger simmered. “You will not leave this room all day unless you ask me explicitly. Do you understand?”
Matt’s teeth were clenched so tight that his jaws seemed wired shut.
Mitch wasn’t giving him the easy out here. Not when he didn’t get one.
“Because I swear to God,” Mitch said, pointing up as if to invoke a higher power legitimately. “If you’re not going to listen, then we’re not going to talk about this any more. Do you understand?”
Matt was so still, he’d almost turned to stone.
Mitch advanced on him a step, until he was looming ominously overhead. “I said, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Matt said, and the word sounded like stone too. Heavy and hard. Not like an eight year old should sound.
But no eight year old acted like Matt did.
“Good,” Mitch said, holding the stuff tightly in his hand as he turned back for the door. “Maybe that’s one rule you can actually follow.”
He concluded sharply, swinging the door shut behind him with force. Only when it was closed, only when the barrier was erected between him, did Mitch remember to breathe again.
It didn’t help.
At all.
He was still hurt. He was still angry. He was still confused as hell. And mostly, he still had no idea what the hell he was going to do.
About Matt.
About Brody.
About anything.
-o-
Mitch made it to the kitchen with no actually memory of walking there. Instead, he merely became aware that he was standing at the counter, legs number, arms rigid and heart pounding. This strong of a reaction to a situation usually only occurred during a rescue, when his mind shut down to other distractions.
This time, however, it was pure rage.
Overwhelming rage that was impossible to describe. Impossible to contain.
He’d never actually been this angry before. People had pissed him off before, but this? Shit, this was personal. This was like a targeted insult, an attack designed specifically for him, by someone who mattered.
That was the real key. He’d only known Matt for four days, but he’d taken so much time and energy to give to the kid in those four days. He’d taken pleasure in Matt’s successes, so this failure felt impossibly calculated.
It was worse because it was so unexpected. He’d been so confident in his ability to reach and change Matt. He’d believed, foolishly, that he’d made a positive impact on the kid’s life and mindset. Over the course of just four days, he’d tied his own worth to Matt’s decisions, as though Matt’s ability to choose right and wrong was a direct reflection of his own success and failure.
That’d been all well and good when Matt was cute and responsive.
When he was a class A screw up?
Well, Mitch was pissed. At Matt, at himself. At children in general and the concept of parenting at large. At the whole damn world for deciding that procreation was a necessary element of sustaining life on the planet.
For nearly ten minutes, Mitch was so angry that he was practically paralyzed.. Eventually, he realized that the nausea in his stomach wasn’t just anger. He was hungry.
Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was time for breakfast. He thought about making something, but that made him think of Matt. His obligation to feed the child conflicted fundamentally with his need to hate the kid for the rest of eternity.
Vexed by this contradiction, Mitch gave up on the thought of food.
Instead, he looked at the items still clutched in his hand.
What he wanted to do was throw them away, never look at them again. Or, really, he wanted to just burn them so they ceased to exist and then maybe his problem would cease to exist, too. But the items were real, and Mitch at least owed it to whoever owned them to see what their worth might be.
Numbly, he dumped the items on the counter, quickly sorting through the rocks and shells from the other items. There were more shells than he’d remembered, though to be fair, he’d been so shocked and angry in Matt’s room that he hadn’t really had the ability to take things in full context. More than half the items were naturally occurring, a collection of smooth stones and distinctive shells. Exactly the kind a stupid kid from Iowa who had never been on the beach before might find special.
As for the other items, he had to admit, they looked worse for wear. The digital watch didn’t merely have a torn band; the entire display was ruined by water. The two sand pails were in varying states of disarray. One was missing a handle; the other had a long crack down the side. The shovels were the kind you bought for a dollar up the beach. Mitch found them in the sand all the time.
The beach towel was still intact, but the color suggested that it had been faded by the sun. Likely, no one was missing it. Mitch knew because a dozen or so were in the lost and found at HQ. The shoulder bag, which had been the most damning bit of evidence, even seemed less impressive upon closer examination. Though it was sandy and dirty, it was still in one piece. However, the zipper didn’t work. More notably, it was empty.
Mitch considered whether or not Matt would have already pocketed the wallet or other personal items, but that didn’t fit with the scene he’d walked into. Matt had been wallowing in the spoils of his unapproved trip. He would have been examining a wallet in great detail, had one existed.
And, truthfully, if it had had something of value in it, it would have been picked up a long time ago. Purses left on the beach rarely made it to HQ, much less survive the night on the sand by themselves.
Mitch didn’t want to think about how Matt’s declaration that these items were trash might have had some validity.
Because that didn’t change the facts.
The facts were still plain, simple, clear and totally irrevocable.
This stuff didn’t belong to Matt, and he’d taken it for himself. He’d taken it after clear conversations specifically aimed at why he didn’t need to steal.
Worse, Matt had snuck out.
This realization was colder, more horrifying than the rest.
Matt had slipped out of the house without asking, without telling. And he hadn’t just been sitting on the beach in the front yard. No, he’d been exploring, up and down, who knew how far. Not to mentioned, he’d gone wading. Mitch had explained to him how dangerous the ocean was, and the kid had blatantly ignored that.
In fact, Matt had shown no comprehension of anything Mitch had told him. He showed no valuation of the things Mitch had given him. This entire incident proved that Matt was still a screwed up kid who had no idea how to be part of a family.
It was easy for anyone to be good when they were being babysat 24-7 and coddled. But that wasn’t realistic. Mitch had managed it for four days, but he couldn’t do it forever. Physically or emotionally.
Which meant, by all accounts, he couldn’t do Matt forever.
This morning, shit.
This morning he didn’t even want to do it another day.
Just when he thought his morning couldn’t possibly get any worse, the doorbell rang.
Mitch looked up, wondering for a second if he’d arranged to have Summer come over. Her shift was in the morning, and while it was possible she’d stop by just for kicks, she was already supposed to be on the beach this morning. He racked his mind, trying to think of another reason for a visitor, but the doorbell rang again, and Mitch still came up with nothing.
The doorbell rang a third time when he got to his feet, and it was being rung a fourth time when he finally opened the door.
His shitty day just got worse.
“Hello, Mrs. Flores,” he said tiredly, wondering if she could tell how much he did not want to see her right now. “I missed our morning chat earlier.”
“Not for lack of trying,” she said. “I saw you outside, sleeping. Again.”
“I’m quite sure that you did,” Mitch said. She wasn’t wearing a housecoat at least, but the matronly sundress only highlighted the boniness of her arms. “It’s been great for my sinuses.”
That was the only thing it’d been good for, but there was no need to add fuel to her already burning fire of antipathy.
“Well, given that you like to frequent the outdoors at the oddest of hours, I thought maybe you’d seen something,” she segued, even while she eyed him with the utmost suspicion.
“Did your dog run away?” Mitch asked.
“Not hardly,” she snapped coldly. “But I did see some hooligan running up and down our beach at a very inappropriate hour.”
In any other context, Mitch would have dismissed this. Mrs. Flores was likely to think a jogger was a hooligan. She could have thought a street cleaner was a hooligan. Or, heaven forbid, there was an actual hooligan walking up and down a public beach as he or she had every right to do.
But that she would notice it today.
This morning.
The same morning that Matt had been out early, running up and down the beach, stealing shit.
He did his best not to betray any of these thoughts. “I was just sleeping, Mrs. Flores. I’m afraid I didn’t see anything.”
“He was quite suspicious, that one,” Mrs. Flores pressed on, narrowing her gaze at him. “Too young to be out by himself at that hour. No more than ten, if I had to guess. And not poorly dressed either, which you might expect from a transient.”
Clearly, Mrs. Flores had not noticed a passing jogger. She’d taken a keen interest in what she’d seen, and her description fit Matt better than Mitch wanted to acknowledge.
“Skinny thing, though,” she said. “Brown hair, too long. Seemed pale, too. I would have thought him to be a tourist, but at that hour? Without parents?”
And any hope that she hadn’t seen Matt was obliterated.
Painfully.
This day really just keep getting better and better.
“Well,” he said, wishing like hell he could slam the door in her face. “If it was a kid, then I’m sure he’s harmless.”
“But where were his parents, hm?” she asked, waggling her eyebrow in accusation. “What sort of parent lets their ten year old run amok in people’s backyards!”
The kind who didn’t know their children had betrayed their trust and generosity to sneak out at dawn. Mitch had found it hard to understand how parents lost track of their kids on a public beach, but Matt was starting to help him understand.
In all the worst ways possible.
“I was sleeping,” Mitch told her again, hoping that his attempts to plead total ignorance might have some effect. “I really didn’t see anything.”
That much was true, at least. He’d slept right through Matt’s unsanctioned beach trip, which was terrifying in its own right. He still hadn’t brought himself to fully imagine what could have happened to the kid. What if he’d tried to go swimming? What if there’d been an unexpectedly large wave that washed him out to see? What if he came across a real hooligan who saw him as an easy mark?
Matt had thought about any of that, though. Because Matt didn’t think about anything.
“I have half a mind to call the police,” Mrs. Flores said with a huff. “I swear, if I see him again--”
Mitch frowned. “I’m sure that’s not necessary if it’s just a kid--”
“All the more necessary!” she crowed, lifting a gnarled finger in the air. “His parents need to be found and brought to justice. The lack of supervision is appalling, and I will not have unsupervised children wreaking havoc in my neighborhood!”
“Mrs. Flores, surely you have better things to do--”
“Do I?” she asked, sharper now. “This is my neighborhood, my beach. I would have thought you, being a lifeguard, could appreciate that. Children must be controlled. They must be monitored and disciplined at all times. There should be no tolerance for malfeasance, and if the parents of this future convict are not going to take this seriously, perhaps an encounter with law enforcement will prove the point! At any rate, it will get the hooligan off my beach for the time being.”
Mitch blew out a terse breath. “Well, looks like you’ve got it well in hand, then,” he said. “I hope the rest of your day is not as frustrating for you.”
She looked like she wanted to object -- but Mitch could only imagine why -- and he didn’t care. Closing the door, he made a point to lock it, listening closely as he finally heard her shoes shuffle off his porch, clomping down his steps one at a time.
When she was gone, he closed his eyes. The nausea was back, worse than before.
Mrs. Flores had seen Matt; worse, she was suspicious of Matt. If she saw Matt alone, he didn’t doubt she’d be true to her word. And if she saw Matt with Mitch that might be just as bad. Mitch had been up and down this beach for a full day with Matt. People would be able to identify them together if they started investigated her lead, however petty. The cops took all crime seriously on the beach, largely thanks to Mitch’s determination.
That same attitude would make it easy for cops to followed up on Matt, and any story Mitch could give would fall apart instantly. He had no papers. Any testing would show that Matt was supposed to be an adult. Worse, what if Matt learned Mitch had no paperwork? What if Matt realized that Mitch was lying to him worse than Matt had ever lied to Mitch?
In short, his farce was about to be revealed as a farce.
All because Matt was a kleptomaniac who didn’t know how to obey.
Or, possibly, because Matt was a kid who was used to taking everyone else’ leftovers.
This would ruin Mitch, that much was sure.
But it would ruin Matt just as much.
Mitch cursed under his breath, wishing he could go back to uncontrolled anger again. That at least made sense. The curse of uncertainty, however?
Seemed to be the only constant Matt Brody would ever give him.
-o-
It was lunch time when Mitch realized he’d forgotten to eat breakfast.
He’d have liked to say that he used his time productively, but sitting around and brooding about how everything was going to shit hardly seemed like a valid activity.
That said, what else was he supposed to do? Matt had broken his trust, and he’d put everything Mitch had worked so hard to hold together completely at risk. Mitch was still pissed at Matt for being so selfish, and he was pissed at himself for not realizing that the kid hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had.
To effectively conclude how screwed he was, Mitch had brooded in the kitchen.
To contemplate how much he hated Matt’s bad habits, he brooded in the bathroom.
To completely hate that he hadn’t been able to change Matt, he brooded in the living room.
And to abhor the fact that he had the nosiest neighbor in the world, Mitch brooded while staring out his back porch door.
He wasn’t even hungry for lunch, but he felt a pang of guilt when he was brooding behind Matt’s door (under the pretense of feeding the fish, of course). He hadn’t even fed the kid breakfast. As much as he wanted to throttle the child, he didn’t actually want to hurt him.
Making up a plate of leftovers, Mitch knocked on Matt’s door. “You hungry?”
There was no reply.
Mitch sighed. Of course Matt was making this hard.
Unless..
“If you don’t talk to me, I’m coming in,” Mitch warned. “I know there’s a window in there.”
The door unlatched immediately, and Mitch was greeted with a scowl. “I didn’t sneak out the window.”
“So you think that makes it okay?” Mitch asked.
“I didn’t think it was really sneaking,” Matt told him hotly. Clearly, he hadn’t mellowed in the last few hours either. All of his brooding had taken place in the same, small enclosed space. Obviously, it hadn’t done him any good. “I was just, I don’t know, going out.”
“And you thought I wouldn’t want to know?”
“You were sleeping,” Matt said. “Whatever, okay. I didn’t realize it’d be a big deal.”
“You could have gotten hurt, you know,” Mitch told him.
“I was careful,” Matt told him with a scowl.
“You don’t understand your limitations,” Mitch corrected him. “You’re not invincible.”
“No one’s given a shit before,” Matt told him crassly.
Mitch pursed his lips, but didn’t have the energy to reprimand him for language. When no correction came, Matt’s anger seemed to deflate slightly.
“I swear, the stuff was trash,” he said. “I didn’t steal.”
“You also didn’t ask,” Mitch said. “You assumed.”
Matt shrugged. “Yeah? So?”
“So, you have to be certain about things.”
“About shit on the beach?” Matt asked, shaking his head. “I just saw it and no one wanted it and--”
“And you didn’t think about anyone but yourself,” Mitch told him flatly. “You didn’t think anyone would come back for it. You didn’t think I’d miss you or worry about you. You didn’t think about how you made a promise to me, and you didn’t think about what it would mean to break that promise. You were too busy thinking about yourself for any of that.”
Matt’s jaw clamped shut again, and Mitch could see color rising in his cheeks.
“You think I want an explanation, but I don’t care about why you did it,” Mitch said. “Your justifications mean nothing to me. I want you to understand why you can’t do it again.”
“Because you said so, mostly,” Matt snapped. “And I’m stuck here with you until they find the next stupid placement.”
It was more cutting than Mitch had expected. He found himself stiffening, his pretense at making nice dissipating. “Look, if you can bring yourself to apologize, then we can talk about all of this,” he said. “Food’s on the table.”
Sullenly, Matt did not appear compliant. “I’m not hungry.”
Mitch sighed. “We missed breakfast--”
“I’m not hungry.”
“We don’t even have to talk--”
Matt’s eyes were him, the blue bright with fury. “I said I don’t want your stupid food!”
Mitch had had enough of people being shitty to him today.
“Fine,” he said, resolving not to bitch out an eight year old, no matter how much he deserved it. “Then you can sit in here until you’re ready to act like a regular human being.”
Matt was already stomping toward the bed when Mitch closed the door. He heard the hinges creak as the kid flopped onto it, and he waited a moment longer before the stillness told him all he needed to know.
Mostly this: that this day was far from over.
Worse, it could always, always get worse when Matt Brody was involved.
-o-
Mitch ate his lunch in some kind of perverse protest. He ate angrily, bite by bite while he stared at the untouched portion he’d laid out for Matt. He’d heard the kid apologize so well to a stranger yesterday, and he couldn’t muster up something good for him? Even Brody, when push came to shove, had humbled himself and admitting that he was an idiot and an asshole.
So what the hell was this kid’s problem?
How could he be so fun one moment and a total jerk the next? Brody had always been a little all in or all out in the way he approached things, but he’d at least been mature enough to recognize that his issues were the critical problem in, well, everything.
Brody as mature, now that was a thought. It figured that Mitch had to compare him to an eight year old to come to that conclusion. Not just any eight year old. An eight year old version of Brody. At least that proved that Matt was capable of learning, eventually. And even if only marginally so.
All the same, why was this Mitch’s problem again?
Why was he supposed to care?
None of this would have happened if Brody hadn’t gone out and got drunk, showing up late and hungover for work? None of this would have happened if he had just admitted that he was stupid and accepted that Mitch knew better?
Or maybe none of this would have happened if Mitch had stuck to his guns and never hired Brody in the first place. No permanent crasher in his spare room. No smart-ass eight year old who could get him arrested for kidnapping. None of that shit.
And why did Mitch still feel guilty all the time? Why did Matt screw up and leave Mitch feeling like he was the one who had screwed up?
Why did people ever want children in the first place?
He was so lost in this train of thought, that he almost didn’t hear the doorbell until it rang twice.
Bracing himself, Mitch prepared a terse word for Mrs. Flores about how she was an old lady who needed to take up knitting instead of being a busybody. To his surprise, Summer was there.
She looked concerned. “Everything okay?”
“What?” Mitch asked.
“You didn’t check in this morning,” she said. “I had to cover for you with Steph.”
“Oh,” Mitch said. He’d sort of forgotten that. In fact, he hadn’t even looked at his phone today. “Sorry.”
She gave him another look, her concern only ratcheting up a few notches. “Seriously, Mitch,” she said. “You’re acting weird.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Besides, you’re here early.”
“Uh, no,” she said. “It’s 1300. I’m here just like I said I would be after shift.”
Was it really? Had Mitch really been sitting here pissed off that long? Had Matt really refused food for half a day?
Summer took a step inside, despite the fact that Mitch had made no move to let her in. “You’re starting to freak me out,” she said. Her eyes darted anxiously around the room. “Where’s Matt? Is everything okay?”
Mitch sighed. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he probably had to. There was no way he could hide it from Summer. “Matt’s fine,” he said. “But--”
“But what?” she asked, her voice starting to rise a little. “Seriously, Mitch--”
“We need to talk, Summer,” he said, and now he gestured toward the living room.
She looked to the empty room and back at Mitch again.
Mitch closed the door behind her warily. “Trust me,” he said, making his way to the couch. “I think you’re going to want to sit down.”
-o-
Summer listened to his story without interruption.
When he’d fully explained about everything Matt had done and everything Mrs. Flores had said, her first question was telling. “Can’t you tell her neighbor to mind her own business?”
Mitch patiently wet his lips. “I told her not to worry about it, and that I didn’t know anything, but she’s not wrong,” he said. “Matt shouldn’t have been out.”
“Okay, sure,” she said, as if this was not a big deal. “But if she’s snooping and finds out you’ve got a kid--”
“It wouldn’t have happened if Matt didn’t follow the rules and think,” Mitch said. “I’m not saying I love Mrs. Flores’ behavior, but it’s not her behavior that’s really the problem here. It’s Matt.”
She didn’t appear completely convinced.
“He shouldn’t have snuck out. Even if I did believe he didn’t think it was wrong, he should have known better,” he said. “And no matter what those items were worth, he has no right to be taking them.”
“Mitch, you’re making a big deal out of it--”
“Summer,” he said, cutting her off. “Matt’s already tried shoplifting twice. I told him he couldn’t do it again. He didn’t listen.”
“Because he’s eight,” she said. “Because he’s a foster kid in a strange home with rules he doesn’t always remember.”
“So, what?” he asked, growing indignant. “It’s my fault?”
She rolled her eyes. “This isn’t about fault, I don’t think,” she said. “It’s about the fact that Matt’s a kid. We’re not.”
“All the more reason he needs to follow our structure,” Mitch insisted.
“Sure, but you forget he’s been in eleven different homes. That’s eleven different structures,” she said. “And he’s told me about most of them, Mitch. And they haven’t all been good.”
“What does that mean?” Mitch asked.
She shook her head, as if she could dismiss the notion that she’d brought up. “Those are his stories to tell, not mine,” she said. “But honestly? I’m surprised he hasn’t run away more. Or, you know, just stayed away. No kid should have to live like he has.”
Mitch had hoped Summer would be his source of support in this ordeal. That was why he’d trusted her with the secret in the first place. But here she was, taking Matt’s side. Mitch didn’t want a conversation about how he’d screwed up. Not when this wasn’t about him. “But I’ve been good to him,” Mitch said. “Like, really good.”
“You think it’s easy for him to see that, but it’s not, not for him,” she said. “A lot of placements have seemed nice and then they weren’t. Or they were and then they ended. He has no clue how to trust, Mitch. Like, the idea doesn’t even make sense to him.”
Mitch laughed, short and incredulous. “Then how the hell am I supposed to help him at all? When he’s got eight years of baggage I can’t do anything about?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her own defenses flaring.
“That’s not really going to cut it,” he said.
“Think about Brody on Baywatch,” she said. “It took him time to adjust. It took him screwing up time and again, but he got it together. We both know that Baywatch has been good for him.”
“Until it isn’t good enough,” Mitch said. He scoffed. “I mean, that’s how this started, right? Brody goes off and screws up again, and we’re supposed to pick up the pieces again.”
“It’s not the same--”
“You were literally gone one night, Summer,” Mitch remembered candidly. “One night, and he’s too hungover to come to work on time the next day. As his boss, I call him on his shit, and he proceeds to fall apart even more, which turns him into a literal child. I mean, come on, you want to know how this started. He acted like a child so the universe turned him into one. This is on him.”
Her incredulity matched his own. “But can’t you see it now?” she asked. “In Matt, can’t you see that he’s got the same hangups and insecurities? He’s unlearning years of bad habits. A lifetime of habits.”
“If we keep forgiving those things, he’s never going to learn,” Mitch argued.
“But he’s also not going to learn if we kick him to the curb,” she shot back. “It’s his fault in some ways, but it’s not his fault in others.”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Mitch said. “I don’t know how to do this shit anymore.”
“Do what?” she asked.
“Everything,” Mitch said. “I don’t know how to be his roommate and his boss and his mentor. I don’t know how to be his friend. I don’t know how to be his entire…” He paused, searching for the word he wanted, the word that encompassed everything. “...Family.”
The moment he said it, he knew how wrong it sounded. Summer went quiet across from him, and Mitch wondered what Matt was doing. He had to be hungry; he had to be sorry on some level. He had to be ready for this to be over as much as Mitch was.
Except, Mitch was the adult.
He breathed a curse and closed his eyes.
“But Baywatch is family,” he said, not making Summer bring it up for him. “That’s always been the heart of it.”
Across from him, Summer is still quiet. She took a long breath, before speaking, softer and more tentative than before. “I’m not trying to get after you,” she said. “I know what you’ve done for Brody. I know what you’ve done for Matt. More than me. More than any of us. I have no right to ask anything else of you, much less judge you.”
His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “But?”
She shrugged one shoulder meekly. “But I love Baywatch, the thing you’ve made it for all of us,” she said. “And I don’t know. I think I might love Brody, too. The guy you found in him. The guy you brought out and made stick around.”
Her words were raw and honest; they weren’t easy for her to say.
They were just as hard for Mitch to hear.
Her smile was watery as she continued. “Brody wants to do good things. He wants to be a good person,” she said. “But seeing him like this, as a kid -- he doesn’t have a clue how to make the right choice sometimes. He doesn’t know how to trust. He just...doesn’t. And if we give up on him, if you give up on him…”
She trailed off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the obvious conclusion.
Obvious, maybe. But Mitch needed to say it for both of them. “If I give up on him, then he really is the lost cause he believes he is.”
She shifted in her seat, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I know it’s shitty of me to come in here and load this on you,” she said. “And I do understand that this is your choice, in the end, especially where Matt’s concerned. But what you’re doing for him is great. And he’s screwed up and he’s going to keep screwing up, but it means a lot to him.”
If only it were that easy, though. If only Mitch could break it down into simple black and white, right and wrong. He’d never been one to equivocate, but in unexpecting parenting? Did he have another choice?
Matt was breaking him, in every possible way. If this continued, Mitch couldn’t imagine a happy ending. “There’s a reason I haven’t kicked Brody out of my spare room,” he reminded her. “But this is a kid, Summer. My life isn’t designed for a kid.”
“But you said it yourself,” she pressed. “This can’t be permanent. I thought we were working on a solution?”
“What solution?” Mitch asked. “All I’ve got is an eight year old who lies and steals going on his own personal hunger strike in my spare room. You’re the one who bops in and out when she can, having a good time playing good cop.”
Her sympathetic stance darkened. “Hey,” she said. “I’m helping you out.”
“Not exactly by reinforcing my discipline,” Mitch objected. “It doesn’t make things easier when he has Summer’s rules to look forward to.”
“I’m being his friend,” she said. “And I’m being your friend.”
“But I thought you were his girlfriend?” Mitch asked.
She scoffed this time. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“I thought you were his friend, too.”
“No, I’m playing Dad right now,” Mitch pointed out. “So, the idea of this being permanent isn’t cute or awkward or weird. It’s downright impossible.”
“I’ve told you all along,” Summer argued. “I want Brody back.”
“And I’m telling you now,” Mitch returned with strong, even words. “What if we can’t? This isn’t even just about whether or not we can fix him. This is about the fact that we can’t support an undocumented kid much longer. Brody is ours, maybe. But Matt? He’s not. And I’m asking you if you’re able to let him go.”
The question posed was a bit more dramatic than he’d framed it in his own mind, and it hit Summer harder than he anticipated. The grief became evident immediately, and her breathing hitched as she visibly paled. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I know it’s not up to me, because you’re right. You’re the parent here. You get to make the choice, not me.”
He’d asked for that answer; he’d practically demanded that validation. Getting it didn’t assuage anything, however. If anything, it only made him feel worse.
“I just...I’m not ready to let him go, Mitch,” she said. “He’s still Brody. You know?”
That was a conclusion he couldn’t disagree with. It was one he couldn’t deny. His own frustration turned to sadness again, and he lifted his mouth into a half smile for Summer. “Yeah,” he said. “Still a pain in my ass.”
When she smiled back, there were tears in her eyes. “Always Brody.”
She said it like it was enough.
Mitch wished it was.
Biting her lip, Summer tried to ease herself into a more comfortable position. “So, do you know what you’re going to do?”
Mitch laughed at that, thinking about Matt’s foray outside, their epic fight and Mrs. Flores’ snooping. Not to mention Stephanie and the rest of Baywatch and Summer herself. There were too many pieces to make them all fit.
Too much of everything else.
Not enough of him to fill in the gaps.
“No,” he said, having no choice but to admit what they both knew. “Not a clue.”
“Anything I can do to help?” she offered. “If you want to talk, I promise I won’t play good cop.”
He chuckled weakly. “No,” he said. “No, I think…” He trailed off, wondering how hard this was for Matt if it was this hard for him. “I think I’ve got to figure this one out on my own. Or with Matt.”
“Okay,” she said, getting to her feet. “You know if you need anything--”
He followed her up, escorting her to the door. “I know your number.”
“Even if you want to talk,” she said. “Or if Matt needs to talk.”
“I know,” he said, opening the door for her.
She turned in the doorway, imploring him. “And if something changes--”
“I’ll let you know,” he promised. “I will.”
She nodded, unconvinced even if she had no reason to doubt him. “I really do think you’re good for him,” she said.
“Matt?” Mitch asked. “Or Brody?”
“Both of them,” she told him. “Just...remember that.”
With that she turned to leave. Mitch watched her go, wondering if he should have asked her to stay after all. She turned, lingering at her car as she waved goodbye, but Mitch couldn’t bring himself to call her back.
Instead, he closed the door behind him, looking back toward Matt’s room.
Summer was right about most of it.
But Mitch was right, too.
Children, it seemed, were a series of contradictions.
How any parent ever stood a chance, Mitch had absolutely no idea.
-o-
Summer’s visit left Mitch even more vexed about his current situation. Angry and frustrated as he was, her points had left him fundamentally convicted. On the one hand, he wanted to provide Matt (and, by extension, Brody) with the stabilization he needed. On the other hand, Mitch needed to manage his own sanity as well. Not to mention the rest of Baywatch or even the bay.
If Mitch were everything Matt needed, then he could never be the guy he was before to the rest of the world. Something would have to give. He just hated that it felt like a choice between an eight year old kid and himself. There was no way to choose himself without feeling like shit.
And he didn’t exactly want too. He wanted to help Matt. That was what he’d tried to do all week. And this morning, Matt had thrown it all away on an impulsive and reckless act.
Summer’s presence only made this more complicated. It wasn’t that she was more inclined to overlooked Matt’s problems that concerned him. It was that she loved him. She loved Matt in a maternal way, but she’d admitted it to Mitch just now: she loved Brody. To let Brody down was now to let Summer down.
Honestly, did it really end there? Was Mitch the guy he said he was if he willingly cut one of his own loose? Could he go back to his perfect life if he declared Brody to be a lost cause? Would his word mean shit at Baywatch if he did that?
That was all theoretical. The practical realities were even more depressing. Mitch had an eight year old stashed in his spare room that he had no legal right to. Worse, that eight year old was supposed to be his roommate and coworker and Mitch didn’t know how to turn him back. Even if he wanted to, was it possible to maintain this facade at all? Mrs. Flores was already noticing something was up; it wouldn’t take long for other people to make the same conclusion.
What was Mitch supposed to do?
There’d been a time when making such decisions had been easy for him. When he’d been confident and sure and unwavering. Hell, he’d not blinked when deciding to defy orders to go after Leeds. Shit, he’d barely hesitated when he chose to stab himself with a poisonous urchin to finish the job he started and save Brody’s ass.
The moral and ethical considerations didn’t even start to satisfy the pure emotional exhaustion of it all. Investing in another imperfect human being was inevitable disappointment. But was it also inevitable joy?
He thought about yesterday and the day before. He thought about the way Matt’s joy and wonder had affected him.
The highs and lows, the best and worse.
Could Mitch go back to the middle ground to save himself from the worst if he knew that he’d also give up the best?
Mitch sighed. He didn’t know.
That was the story of the day, of the last week, of the last few months with Brody in his life.
Mitch just didn’t know.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
-o-
Dinner was good.
Matt was friendly and talkative. He listened, and he participated meaningfully in the conversation. There was nothing withdrawn or sullen in his behavior. Summer enjoyed herself at dinner, and Mitch was the one who suggested a Monopoly rematched.
The game was good, too.
When it was time for Summer to go, Matt handled it with grace and acceptance. He easily got ready for bed when Mitch instructed him to do so, and he readily read another chapter of Captain Underpants out loud for the two of them to enjoy.
Everything was good.
In fact, when he tucked Matt in, the kid was all smiles, telling Mitch what a great day he had.
In short, everything was great.
That was what made it all so hard.
-o-
In truth, Mitch didn’t want to go outside. He wasn’t convinced it was working; he wasn’t convinced it was ever going to work. He wasn’t entirely convinced he wanted it to work.
The only thing he knew was that it had to work.
This thing with Matt, it was changing him. Not a little, either. Not in small steps. He’d let it consume him. At work, he’d barely even been present. There’d been a time -- shit, it’d only been a week ago -- when nothing could have gotten him off the beach. He had refused to let Brody turn off the CB, and here he was, not listening it to days. Now, it was all Matt, all the time. Sure, it was a sacrifice and a responsibility, but he was starting to like it.
Like, really starting to like it.
More than he should.
He couldn’t forget that Brody had had hopes and dreams, too. At least, Mitch had to assume he did. The eight year old inside certainly did. Brody’s had probably been tempered by age and reality and pain, but he had to have them. And he deserved the chance to see those come to fruition.
Brody would never get that chance if Matt were here. Matt, as vibrant and consuming as he was, also wasn’t quite real. He was an aberration, something that existed outside the fold of things. Matt deserved a good life, but he’d already had that opportunity. This life was Brody’s now. Mitch wasn’t sure where the hell Matt fit in for any of them.
Summer included. If she’d been falling in love with Brody, having a kid in his stead would be a fascinating insight, but it wasn’t something that could last. What was she going to do? Adopt her boyfriend?
What were any of them going to do?
“You have to give him back,” Mitch said, looking up at the cloudy sky with a sigh. “Someone’s going to get hurt.”
The sky was dark and silent in reply.
Mitch shook his head. “We’re all going to get hurt.”
There was nothing in response, naturally. Mitch had never looked for miracles before. He’d never needed fate. But this one was beyond him.
With a soft swear, Mitch eased back into the lounge chair. These weren’t the reasons he didn’t want to be here tonight.
No, the truth was that he knew that these wishes would never work, not because Mitch hadn’t tried very hard or because he hadn’t done the right steps.
The wishes would never work because, deep inside, he wasn’t sure he wanted the wishes to come true.
There was part of him -- a larger part every day, it seemed -- that wanted to wake up in the morning with Matt inside.
Whether that made him a good person or a terrible person, Mitch wasn’t sure. He didn’t have the energy to think about it anymore tonight.
Instead, he closed his eyes and thought about the things he could do with Matt tomorrow.
-o-
For once, Mitch didn’t wake up to the sound of Mrs. Flores. In fact, Mitch wasn’t sure what woke him up at all. The sky was still dark, but hints of the sunrise were starting to lighten the dimness with the quiet hope of the early morning.
When Mitch pulled the early shift, he would get up this early.
There was no reason for it today.
Still, something had aroused him, and he sat up on the lounge with a grimace. He was in shape, but he wasn’t a kid himself anymore. Sleeping for four nights on a lounge chair was getting old.
That was a matter he could worry about another day, however.
Stiffly, he got to his feet, rolling his shoulders as he tried to work the kinks out of his still-dormant muscles. He hadn’t worked out in four days, either. He was going to have to focus on some of life’s basics tasks soon here, with or without Matt.
That might not be so hard. Matt might be inclined to start up an exercise routine, and Mitch would have to vary his own up to accommodate for a pipsqueak, but it might work. It might even be fun, especially since even at this age, Matt clearly had an affinity for swimming.
He’d consider that more, but first he had to wake up.
And figure out what the hell woke him up.
Quietly, Mitch made his daily trek inside, peeking around the kitchen and the living room like he always did. With no sign of Matt, Mitch walked carefully over the floor, and gently turned the knob to the spare room, just to give Matt a second glance. The last two days had gone perfectly, with Matt asleep and with Mitch having time to prep for the morning. There was no reason to suspect that anything would be different today.
Except, Mitch realized belatedly, that Matt was Brody, and Brody was Matt. It was easy, sometimes, to think of them as distinct entities, but despite the vast difference in age, they were the same person. They had a lot of the same tendencies and quirks, and Mitch would have done well to remember that.
If he had, what happened next might not have shocked him as much as it did.
After all, Brody had never shown himself capable of getting it right all the time, and he’d shown a habit of being awesome for a few days before flying off the rails. His propensity for repeated disaster was a learned behavior. Brody’s entire existence seem to hinge on the principle of taking one step forward just to fall two steps back. Shit, sometimes Brody seemed to skip all forward progress and crash back to the start.
But Matt had charmed him. With his floppy hair and big blue eyes. With his damaged backstory and his enthusiastic overtures. Matt had been so damn easy to, well, love.
Beyond all that, however, Mitch should have guessed that he would be just as easy to completely dislike.
Mitch really should have seen it coming.
And yet, it took him completely, wholly, uncharacteristically by surprise.
He knew at first glance that something was off, not because the scene before him was sinister, but because it was different. Matt -- like Brody -- thrived in routine. When something was different, he struggled to keep up.
Struggled, and often failed to keep his shit together.
Instead of sleeping peacefully, as Matt had been doing for two days now, Matt was already awake and seated cross legged on the floor next to his cot.
This was innocent enough, Mitch supposed, but the scene was off. Maybe it was the sand that peppered the floor and covered Matt’s feet. Maybe it was the way the bottoms of Matt’s pajama pants were wet up to the knees.
Or maybe -- just maybe -- it was the pile of items in front of Matt, spread out across the floor.
Shells and rocks. But also sand pails, plastic toy shovels. An umbrella and a damaged digital watch. A beach towel. And a shoulder bag.
Mitch owned none of these things.
Matt owned none of these items, given that Matt owned nothing that Mitch himself had not purchased for him.
Quickly, Mitch did the mental calculation. The innocent explanations were unsupportable. The unbelievable conclusions were deemed ridiculous.
Taken holistically, with the feet, the pants and the items themselves, Mitch had only one reasonable conclusion to stand by.
One horrible conclusion.
One conclusion that he’d thought they were past.
It was like walking in to find Brody drunk on the couch with his shit all over the house. It was like finding Brody getting smashed at a bar when he was supposed to be playing lookout. Damn it, it was just like Brody.
He stepped into the room, feeling the anger tighten like a vice in his chest. The hopes and dreams for the day were long forgotten now; his optimism, which had been built over the last two days, was dashed.
Wide eyed, Matt blinked up in surprise. He knew he’d been caught -- red handed -- but he did not seem quite ready to admit to the obvious. “It’s not what you think.”
“Really?” Mitch said, wishing that the kid would man up this time. Because Mitch could have at least respected the honesty, even if he had hated everything else. He could have at least worked with honesty. With a lie? Shit, all bets were off. “Because it looks like a whole bunch of stuff you stole.”
“I found,” Matt said quickly, as though he actually expected Mitch to believe or appreciate the distinction. “I found it all on the beach. Just, like, left there.”
“Oh, found,” Mitch said, sarcasm rising to solidify his anger. He couldn’t swear, he couldn’t rage, and that anger had to go somewhere, it had to so something. It had to be freakin’ something or he was going to explode. “You found a bunch of stuff that didn’t belong to you and decided to take it. It still sounds like stealing to me.”
Matt was shaking his head as Mitch spoke. “But it was trash,” he said. “I mean, you could say I was doing the right thing for the earth. Picking up trash.”
It was the justification an eight year old would give for making the absolute wrong choice. Maybe, if this were the first offense, Mitch could have at least given it some credence. But this wasn’t the first offense. It wasn’t the second offense.
Damn it.
“You stole,” Mitch said again, more definitively than before. Matt wanted to argue, but Mitch didn’t have the patience for it. He didn’t have anything for it. “After our talks, our deals, all of that -- you stole.”
Matt swallowed convulsively, eyes going even wider. It was obvious that the kid had miscalculated this offense -- and badly. But if he had to calculate where stealing was involved, then everything Mitch had tried to do for the kid in the past four days didn’t mean shit.
“The first time? I explained why it was wrong,” Mitch reminded im. “Second time, we dealt with the consequences like adults. But a third time? You really did it a third time?”
Matt blinked rapidly, scrambling to come up with an explanation Mitch would tolerate. “But it’s not the same,” he said. “I didn’t go to a store. I didn’t.”
“You think it matters if it’s a store?” Mitch asked. “This stuff doesn’t belong to you. It never belonged to you. It belongs to other people, people who don’t deserve to have their stuff taken from them. You can’t do that. You can’t walk around and ignore that other people exist just because you feel unhappy or left out or whatever.”
Surprise colored Matt’s expression for a moment, but it drained away quickly, taking all his defenses with it.
Mitch was going too strong to stop now. If the kid finally felt remorse, then it was about damn time. Maybe this time the lesson would well and truly stick.
At any rate, Mitch was going to give it his best shot.
“I tried being nice. I tried being patient. But you don’t want to learn,” Mitch said, enunciating each word with more vigor, letting them punctuate the air between them to hit Matt like punches. “You just want to be coddled and babied. You want to get everything you want without giving anything back.”
In his fury, Mitch bent down, violently pulling the items away, shoving them into the bag with more force than necessary while Matt flinched.
“I can’t believe this is what you did,” he seethed, his disbelief mounting higher. “I have half a mind to kick your butt to the curb right now, because I told you. I won’t have a thief living under my room, no matter how sad your story is.”
Matt sat, stock still now, holding himself erect though there were small tremors that wracked his thin frame.
He shook his head, disgusted now. “I thought you wanted to stay. I thought you were serious. I trusted you,” he said.
Matt’s countenance hitched, but he visibly kept it in check despite the fact that his cheeks had gone unnaturally pale.
Mitch huffed, an air of bitter disappointment now. This was the lesson he should have learned, even more than Matt. He couldn’t fix Matt. At least with Brody, it wasn’t his responsibility. At least with Brody, it didn’t fall back on him. This was why it couldn’t last. This was why he needed to break the spell or the curse or whatever the hell this was.
The bitterness rose in his throat, almost tasting like bile as his stomach churned painfully. “This is why you have to go,” he said, the words hoarse.
He’d lost his vigor, but not his cutting edge. Matt’s pale disposition seemed to shatter, but he hardened it nearly immediately. His eyes darkened; his brow turned down. The openness from moments before evaporated. The cheerful boy he’d enjoyed over the past two days changed before his eyes into the problem child that had slipped through eleven temporary placements in a year.
Mitch was too angry to feel guilty, though. He was too invested in the reality to turn back to the fantasy. He’d made a mistake here, not in trusting Matt, but in accepting this situation.
Matt wasn’t his lost cause.
Matt wasn’t his at all.
Mitch had been stupid or sentimental or downright delusional to think otherwise.
The only thing to do -- the only thing that mattered -- was getting Brody back.
As soon as possible.
“You’re grounded,” Mitch said, foregoing all other pretenses as his anger simmered. “You will not leave this room all day unless you ask me explicitly. Do you understand?”
Matt’s teeth were clenched so tight that his jaws seemed wired shut.
Mitch wasn’t giving him the easy out here. Not when he didn’t get one.
“Because I swear to God,” Mitch said, pointing up as if to invoke a higher power legitimately. “If you’re not going to listen, then we’re not going to talk about this any more. Do you understand?”
Matt was so still, he’d almost turned to stone.
Mitch advanced on him a step, until he was looming ominously overhead. “I said, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Matt said, and the word sounded like stone too. Heavy and hard. Not like an eight year old should sound.
But no eight year old acted like Matt did.
“Good,” Mitch said, holding the stuff tightly in his hand as he turned back for the door. “Maybe that’s one rule you can actually follow.”
He concluded sharply, swinging the door shut behind him with force. Only when it was closed, only when the barrier was erected between him, did Mitch remember to breathe again.
It didn’t help.
At all.
He was still hurt. He was still angry. He was still confused as hell. And mostly, he still had no idea what the hell he was going to do.
About Matt.
About Brody.
About anything.
-o-
Mitch made it to the kitchen with no actually memory of walking there. Instead, he merely became aware that he was standing at the counter, legs number, arms rigid and heart pounding. This strong of a reaction to a situation usually only occurred during a rescue, when his mind shut down to other distractions.
This time, however, it was pure rage.
Overwhelming rage that was impossible to describe. Impossible to contain.
He’d never actually been this angry before. People had pissed him off before, but this? Shit, this was personal. This was like a targeted insult, an attack designed specifically for him, by someone who mattered.
That was the real key. He’d only known Matt for four days, but he’d taken so much time and energy to give to the kid in those four days. He’d taken pleasure in Matt’s successes, so this failure felt impossibly calculated.
It was worse because it was so unexpected. He’d been so confident in his ability to reach and change Matt. He’d believed, foolishly, that he’d made a positive impact on the kid’s life and mindset. Over the course of just four days, he’d tied his own worth to Matt’s decisions, as though Matt’s ability to choose right and wrong was a direct reflection of his own success and failure.
That’d been all well and good when Matt was cute and responsive.
When he was a class A screw up?
Well, Mitch was pissed. At Matt, at himself. At children in general and the concept of parenting at large. At the whole damn world for deciding that procreation was a necessary element of sustaining life on the planet.
For nearly ten minutes, Mitch was so angry that he was practically paralyzed.. Eventually, he realized that the nausea in his stomach wasn’t just anger. He was hungry.
Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was time for breakfast. He thought about making something, but that made him think of Matt. His obligation to feed the child conflicted fundamentally with his need to hate the kid for the rest of eternity.
Vexed by this contradiction, Mitch gave up on the thought of food.
Instead, he looked at the items still clutched in his hand.
What he wanted to do was throw them away, never look at them again. Or, really, he wanted to just burn them so they ceased to exist and then maybe his problem would cease to exist, too. But the items were real, and Mitch at least owed it to whoever owned them to see what their worth might be.
Numbly, he dumped the items on the counter, quickly sorting through the rocks and shells from the other items. There were more shells than he’d remembered, though to be fair, he’d been so shocked and angry in Matt’s room that he hadn’t really had the ability to take things in full context. More than half the items were naturally occurring, a collection of smooth stones and distinctive shells. Exactly the kind a stupid kid from Iowa who had never been on the beach before might find special.
As for the other items, he had to admit, they looked worse for wear. The digital watch didn’t merely have a torn band; the entire display was ruined by water. The two sand pails were in varying states of disarray. One was missing a handle; the other had a long crack down the side. The shovels were the kind you bought for a dollar up the beach. Mitch found them in the sand all the time.
The beach towel was still intact, but the color suggested that it had been faded by the sun. Likely, no one was missing it. Mitch knew because a dozen or so were in the lost and found at HQ. The shoulder bag, which had been the most damning bit of evidence, even seemed less impressive upon closer examination. Though it was sandy and dirty, it was still in one piece. However, the zipper didn’t work. More notably, it was empty.
Mitch considered whether or not Matt would have already pocketed the wallet or other personal items, but that didn’t fit with the scene he’d walked into. Matt had been wallowing in the spoils of his unapproved trip. He would have been examining a wallet in great detail, had one existed.
And, truthfully, if it had had something of value in it, it would have been picked up a long time ago. Purses left on the beach rarely made it to HQ, much less survive the night on the sand by themselves.
Mitch didn’t want to think about how Matt’s declaration that these items were trash might have had some validity.
Because that didn’t change the facts.
The facts were still plain, simple, clear and totally irrevocable.
This stuff didn’t belong to Matt, and he’d taken it for himself. He’d taken it after clear conversations specifically aimed at why he didn’t need to steal.
Worse, Matt had snuck out.
This realization was colder, more horrifying than the rest.
Matt had slipped out of the house without asking, without telling. And he hadn’t just been sitting on the beach in the front yard. No, he’d been exploring, up and down, who knew how far. Not to mentioned, he’d gone wading. Mitch had explained to him how dangerous the ocean was, and the kid had blatantly ignored that.
In fact, Matt had shown no comprehension of anything Mitch had told him. He showed no valuation of the things Mitch had given him. This entire incident proved that Matt was still a screwed up kid who had no idea how to be part of a family.
It was easy for anyone to be good when they were being babysat 24-7 and coddled. But that wasn’t realistic. Mitch had managed it for four days, but he couldn’t do it forever. Physically or emotionally.
Which meant, by all accounts, he couldn’t do Matt forever.
This morning, shit.
This morning he didn’t even want to do it another day.
Just when he thought his morning couldn’t possibly get any worse, the doorbell rang.
Mitch looked up, wondering for a second if he’d arranged to have Summer come over. Her shift was in the morning, and while it was possible she’d stop by just for kicks, she was already supposed to be on the beach this morning. He racked his mind, trying to think of another reason for a visitor, but the doorbell rang again, and Mitch still came up with nothing.
The doorbell rang a third time when he got to his feet, and it was being rung a fourth time when he finally opened the door.
His shitty day just got worse.
“Hello, Mrs. Flores,” he said tiredly, wondering if she could tell how much he did not want to see her right now. “I missed our morning chat earlier.”
“Not for lack of trying,” she said. “I saw you outside, sleeping. Again.”
“I’m quite sure that you did,” Mitch said. She wasn’t wearing a housecoat at least, but the matronly sundress only highlighted the boniness of her arms. “It’s been great for my sinuses.”
That was the only thing it’d been good for, but there was no need to add fuel to her already burning fire of antipathy.
“Well, given that you like to frequent the outdoors at the oddest of hours, I thought maybe you’d seen something,” she segued, even while she eyed him with the utmost suspicion.
“Did your dog run away?” Mitch asked.
“Not hardly,” she snapped coldly. “But I did see some hooligan running up and down our beach at a very inappropriate hour.”
In any other context, Mitch would have dismissed this. Mrs. Flores was likely to think a jogger was a hooligan. She could have thought a street cleaner was a hooligan. Or, heaven forbid, there was an actual hooligan walking up and down a public beach as he or she had every right to do.
But that she would notice it today.
This morning.
The same morning that Matt had been out early, running up and down the beach, stealing shit.
He did his best not to betray any of these thoughts. “I was just sleeping, Mrs. Flores. I’m afraid I didn’t see anything.”
“He was quite suspicious, that one,” Mrs. Flores pressed on, narrowing her gaze at him. “Too young to be out by himself at that hour. No more than ten, if I had to guess. And not poorly dressed either, which you might expect from a transient.”
Clearly, Mrs. Flores had not noticed a passing jogger. She’d taken a keen interest in what she’d seen, and her description fit Matt better than Mitch wanted to acknowledge.
“Skinny thing, though,” she said. “Brown hair, too long. Seemed pale, too. I would have thought him to be a tourist, but at that hour? Without parents?”
And any hope that she hadn’t seen Matt was obliterated.
Painfully.
This day really just keep getting better and better.
“Well,” he said, wishing like hell he could slam the door in her face. “If it was a kid, then I’m sure he’s harmless.”
“But where were his parents, hm?” she asked, waggling her eyebrow in accusation. “What sort of parent lets their ten year old run amok in people’s backyards!”
The kind who didn’t know their children had betrayed their trust and generosity to sneak out at dawn. Mitch had found it hard to understand how parents lost track of their kids on a public beach, but Matt was starting to help him understand.
In all the worst ways possible.
“I was sleeping,” Mitch told her again, hoping that his attempts to plead total ignorance might have some effect. “I really didn’t see anything.”
That much was true, at least. He’d slept right through Matt’s unsanctioned beach trip, which was terrifying in its own right. He still hadn’t brought himself to fully imagine what could have happened to the kid. What if he’d tried to go swimming? What if there’d been an unexpectedly large wave that washed him out to see? What if he came across a real hooligan who saw him as an easy mark?
Matt had thought about any of that, though. Because Matt didn’t think about anything.
“I have half a mind to call the police,” Mrs. Flores said with a huff. “I swear, if I see him again--”
Mitch frowned. “I’m sure that’s not necessary if it’s just a kid--”
“All the more necessary!” she crowed, lifting a gnarled finger in the air. “His parents need to be found and brought to justice. The lack of supervision is appalling, and I will not have unsupervised children wreaking havoc in my neighborhood!”
“Mrs. Flores, surely you have better things to do--”
“Do I?” she asked, sharper now. “This is my neighborhood, my beach. I would have thought you, being a lifeguard, could appreciate that. Children must be controlled. They must be monitored and disciplined at all times. There should be no tolerance for malfeasance, and if the parents of this future convict are not going to take this seriously, perhaps an encounter with law enforcement will prove the point! At any rate, it will get the hooligan off my beach for the time being.”
Mitch blew out a terse breath. “Well, looks like you’ve got it well in hand, then,” he said. “I hope the rest of your day is not as frustrating for you.”
She looked like she wanted to object -- but Mitch could only imagine why -- and he didn’t care. Closing the door, he made a point to lock it, listening closely as he finally heard her shoes shuffle off his porch, clomping down his steps one at a time.
When she was gone, he closed his eyes. The nausea was back, worse than before.
Mrs. Flores had seen Matt; worse, she was suspicious of Matt. If she saw Matt alone, he didn’t doubt she’d be true to her word. And if she saw Matt with Mitch that might be just as bad. Mitch had been up and down this beach for a full day with Matt. People would be able to identify them together if they started investigated her lead, however petty. The cops took all crime seriously on the beach, largely thanks to Mitch’s determination.
That same attitude would make it easy for cops to followed up on Matt, and any story Mitch could give would fall apart instantly. He had no papers. Any testing would show that Matt was supposed to be an adult. Worse, what if Matt learned Mitch had no paperwork? What if Matt realized that Mitch was lying to him worse than Matt had ever lied to Mitch?
In short, his farce was about to be revealed as a farce.
All because Matt was a kleptomaniac who didn’t know how to obey.
Or, possibly, because Matt was a kid who was used to taking everyone else’ leftovers.
This would ruin Mitch, that much was sure.
But it would ruin Matt just as much.
Mitch cursed under his breath, wishing he could go back to uncontrolled anger again. That at least made sense. The curse of uncertainty, however?
Seemed to be the only constant Matt Brody would ever give him.
-o-
It was lunch time when Mitch realized he’d forgotten to eat breakfast.
He’d have liked to say that he used his time productively, but sitting around and brooding about how everything was going to shit hardly seemed like a valid activity.
That said, what else was he supposed to do? Matt had broken his trust, and he’d put everything Mitch had worked so hard to hold together completely at risk. Mitch was still pissed at Matt for being so selfish, and he was pissed at himself for not realizing that the kid hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had.
To effectively conclude how screwed he was, Mitch had brooded in the kitchen.
To contemplate how much he hated Matt’s bad habits, he brooded in the bathroom.
To completely hate that he hadn’t been able to change Matt, he brooded in the living room.
And to abhor the fact that he had the nosiest neighbor in the world, Mitch brooded while staring out his back porch door.
He wasn’t even hungry for lunch, but he felt a pang of guilt when he was brooding behind Matt’s door (under the pretense of feeding the fish, of course). He hadn’t even fed the kid breakfast. As much as he wanted to throttle the child, he didn’t actually want to hurt him.
Making up a plate of leftovers, Mitch knocked on Matt’s door. “You hungry?”
There was no reply.
Mitch sighed. Of course Matt was making this hard.
Unless..
“If you don’t talk to me, I’m coming in,” Mitch warned. “I know there’s a window in there.”
The door unlatched immediately, and Mitch was greeted with a scowl. “I didn’t sneak out the window.”
“So you think that makes it okay?” Mitch asked.
“I didn’t think it was really sneaking,” Matt told him hotly. Clearly, he hadn’t mellowed in the last few hours either. All of his brooding had taken place in the same, small enclosed space. Obviously, it hadn’t done him any good. “I was just, I don’t know, going out.”
“And you thought I wouldn’t want to know?”
“You were sleeping,” Matt said. “Whatever, okay. I didn’t realize it’d be a big deal.”
“You could have gotten hurt, you know,” Mitch told him.
“I was careful,” Matt told him with a scowl.
“You don’t understand your limitations,” Mitch corrected him. “You’re not invincible.”
“No one’s given a shit before,” Matt told him crassly.
Mitch pursed his lips, but didn’t have the energy to reprimand him for language. When no correction came, Matt’s anger seemed to deflate slightly.
“I swear, the stuff was trash,” he said. “I didn’t steal.”
“You also didn’t ask,” Mitch said. “You assumed.”
Matt shrugged. “Yeah? So?”
“So, you have to be certain about things.”
“About shit on the beach?” Matt asked, shaking his head. “I just saw it and no one wanted it and--”
“And you didn’t think about anyone but yourself,” Mitch told him flatly. “You didn’t think anyone would come back for it. You didn’t think I’d miss you or worry about you. You didn’t think about how you made a promise to me, and you didn’t think about what it would mean to break that promise. You were too busy thinking about yourself for any of that.”
Matt’s jaw clamped shut again, and Mitch could see color rising in his cheeks.
“You think I want an explanation, but I don’t care about why you did it,” Mitch said. “Your justifications mean nothing to me. I want you to understand why you can’t do it again.”
“Because you said so, mostly,” Matt snapped. “And I’m stuck here with you until they find the next stupid placement.”
It was more cutting than Mitch had expected. He found himself stiffening, his pretense at making nice dissipating. “Look, if you can bring yourself to apologize, then we can talk about all of this,” he said. “Food’s on the table.”
Sullenly, Matt did not appear compliant. “I’m not hungry.”
Mitch sighed. “We missed breakfast--”
“I’m not hungry.”
“We don’t even have to talk--”
Matt’s eyes were him, the blue bright with fury. “I said I don’t want your stupid food!”
Mitch had had enough of people being shitty to him today.
“Fine,” he said, resolving not to bitch out an eight year old, no matter how much he deserved it. “Then you can sit in here until you’re ready to act like a regular human being.”
Matt was already stomping toward the bed when Mitch closed the door. He heard the hinges creak as the kid flopped onto it, and he waited a moment longer before the stillness told him all he needed to know.
Mostly this: that this day was far from over.
Worse, it could always, always get worse when Matt Brody was involved.
-o-
Mitch ate his lunch in some kind of perverse protest. He ate angrily, bite by bite while he stared at the untouched portion he’d laid out for Matt. He’d heard the kid apologize so well to a stranger yesterday, and he couldn’t muster up something good for him? Even Brody, when push came to shove, had humbled himself and admitting that he was an idiot and an asshole.
So what the hell was this kid’s problem?
How could he be so fun one moment and a total jerk the next? Brody had always been a little all in or all out in the way he approached things, but he’d at least been mature enough to recognize that his issues were the critical problem in, well, everything.
Brody as mature, now that was a thought. It figured that Mitch had to compare him to an eight year old to come to that conclusion. Not just any eight year old. An eight year old version of Brody. At least that proved that Matt was capable of learning, eventually. And even if only marginally so.
All the same, why was this Mitch’s problem again?
Why was he supposed to care?
None of this would have happened if Brody hadn’t gone out and got drunk, showing up late and hungover for work? None of this would have happened if he had just admitted that he was stupid and accepted that Mitch knew better?
Or maybe none of this would have happened if Mitch had stuck to his guns and never hired Brody in the first place. No permanent crasher in his spare room. No smart-ass eight year old who could get him arrested for kidnapping. None of that shit.
And why did Mitch still feel guilty all the time? Why did Matt screw up and leave Mitch feeling like he was the one who had screwed up?
Why did people ever want children in the first place?
He was so lost in this train of thought, that he almost didn’t hear the doorbell until it rang twice.
Bracing himself, Mitch prepared a terse word for Mrs. Flores about how she was an old lady who needed to take up knitting instead of being a busybody. To his surprise, Summer was there.
She looked concerned. “Everything okay?”
“What?” Mitch asked.
“You didn’t check in this morning,” she said. “I had to cover for you with Steph.”
“Oh,” Mitch said. He’d sort of forgotten that. In fact, he hadn’t even looked at his phone today. “Sorry.”
She gave him another look, her concern only ratcheting up a few notches. “Seriously, Mitch,” she said. “You’re acting weird.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Besides, you’re here early.”
“Uh, no,” she said. “It’s 1300. I’m here just like I said I would be after shift.”
Was it really? Had Mitch really been sitting here pissed off that long? Had Matt really refused food for half a day?
Summer took a step inside, despite the fact that Mitch had made no move to let her in. “You’re starting to freak me out,” she said. Her eyes darted anxiously around the room. “Where’s Matt? Is everything okay?”
Mitch sighed. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he probably had to. There was no way he could hide it from Summer. “Matt’s fine,” he said. “But--”
“But what?” she asked, her voice starting to rise a little. “Seriously, Mitch--”
“We need to talk, Summer,” he said, and now he gestured toward the living room.
She looked to the empty room and back at Mitch again.
Mitch closed the door behind her warily. “Trust me,” he said, making his way to the couch. “I think you’re going to want to sit down.”
-o-
Summer listened to his story without interruption.
When he’d fully explained about everything Matt had done and everything Mrs. Flores had said, her first question was telling. “Can’t you tell her neighbor to mind her own business?”
Mitch patiently wet his lips. “I told her not to worry about it, and that I didn’t know anything, but she’s not wrong,” he said. “Matt shouldn’t have been out.”
“Okay, sure,” she said, as if this was not a big deal. “But if she’s snooping and finds out you’ve got a kid--”
“It wouldn’t have happened if Matt didn’t follow the rules and think,” Mitch said. “I’m not saying I love Mrs. Flores’ behavior, but it’s not her behavior that’s really the problem here. It’s Matt.”
She didn’t appear completely convinced.
“He shouldn’t have snuck out. Even if I did believe he didn’t think it was wrong, he should have known better,” he said. “And no matter what those items were worth, he has no right to be taking them.”
“Mitch, you’re making a big deal out of it--”
“Summer,” he said, cutting her off. “Matt’s already tried shoplifting twice. I told him he couldn’t do it again. He didn’t listen.”
“Because he’s eight,” she said. “Because he’s a foster kid in a strange home with rules he doesn’t always remember.”
“So, what?” he asked, growing indignant. “It’s my fault?”
She rolled her eyes. “This isn’t about fault, I don’t think,” she said. “It’s about the fact that Matt’s a kid. We’re not.”
“All the more reason he needs to follow our structure,” Mitch insisted.
“Sure, but you forget he’s been in eleven different homes. That’s eleven different structures,” she said. “And he’s told me about most of them, Mitch. And they haven’t all been good.”
“What does that mean?” Mitch asked.
She shook her head, as if she could dismiss the notion that she’d brought up. “Those are his stories to tell, not mine,” she said. “But honestly? I’m surprised he hasn’t run away more. Or, you know, just stayed away. No kid should have to live like he has.”
Mitch had hoped Summer would be his source of support in this ordeal. That was why he’d trusted her with the secret in the first place. But here she was, taking Matt’s side. Mitch didn’t want a conversation about how he’d screwed up. Not when this wasn’t about him. “But I’ve been good to him,” Mitch said. “Like, really good.”
“You think it’s easy for him to see that, but it’s not, not for him,” she said. “A lot of placements have seemed nice and then they weren’t. Or they were and then they ended. He has no clue how to trust, Mitch. Like, the idea doesn’t even make sense to him.”
Mitch laughed, short and incredulous. “Then how the hell am I supposed to help him at all? When he’s got eight years of baggage I can’t do anything about?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her own defenses flaring.
“That’s not really going to cut it,” he said.
“Think about Brody on Baywatch,” she said. “It took him time to adjust. It took him screwing up time and again, but he got it together. We both know that Baywatch has been good for him.”
“Until it isn’t good enough,” Mitch said. He scoffed. “I mean, that’s how this started, right? Brody goes off and screws up again, and we’re supposed to pick up the pieces again.”
“It’s not the same--”
“You were literally gone one night, Summer,” Mitch remembered candidly. “One night, and he’s too hungover to come to work on time the next day. As his boss, I call him on his shit, and he proceeds to fall apart even more, which turns him into a literal child. I mean, come on, you want to know how this started. He acted like a child so the universe turned him into one. This is on him.”
Her incredulity matched his own. “But can’t you see it now?” she asked. “In Matt, can’t you see that he’s got the same hangups and insecurities? He’s unlearning years of bad habits. A lifetime of habits.”
“If we keep forgiving those things, he’s never going to learn,” Mitch argued.
“But he’s also not going to learn if we kick him to the curb,” she shot back. “It’s his fault in some ways, but it’s not his fault in others.”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Mitch said. “I don’t know how to do this shit anymore.”
“Do what?” she asked.
“Everything,” Mitch said. “I don’t know how to be his roommate and his boss and his mentor. I don’t know how to be his friend. I don’t know how to be his entire…” He paused, searching for the word he wanted, the word that encompassed everything. “...Family.”
The moment he said it, he knew how wrong it sounded. Summer went quiet across from him, and Mitch wondered what Matt was doing. He had to be hungry; he had to be sorry on some level. He had to be ready for this to be over as much as Mitch was.
Except, Mitch was the adult.
He breathed a curse and closed his eyes.
“But Baywatch is family,” he said, not making Summer bring it up for him. “That’s always been the heart of it.”
Across from him, Summer is still quiet. She took a long breath, before speaking, softer and more tentative than before. “I’m not trying to get after you,” she said. “I know what you’ve done for Brody. I know what you’ve done for Matt. More than me. More than any of us. I have no right to ask anything else of you, much less judge you.”
His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “But?”
She shrugged one shoulder meekly. “But I love Baywatch, the thing you’ve made it for all of us,” she said. “And I don’t know. I think I might love Brody, too. The guy you found in him. The guy you brought out and made stick around.”
Her words were raw and honest; they weren’t easy for her to say.
They were just as hard for Mitch to hear.
Her smile was watery as she continued. “Brody wants to do good things. He wants to be a good person,” she said. “But seeing him like this, as a kid -- he doesn’t have a clue how to make the right choice sometimes. He doesn’t know how to trust. He just...doesn’t. And if we give up on him, if you give up on him…”
She trailed off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the obvious conclusion.
Obvious, maybe. But Mitch needed to say it for both of them. “If I give up on him, then he really is the lost cause he believes he is.”
She shifted in her seat, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I know it’s shitty of me to come in here and load this on you,” she said. “And I do understand that this is your choice, in the end, especially where Matt’s concerned. But what you’re doing for him is great. And he’s screwed up and he’s going to keep screwing up, but it means a lot to him.”
If only it were that easy, though. If only Mitch could break it down into simple black and white, right and wrong. He’d never been one to equivocate, but in unexpecting parenting? Did he have another choice?
Matt was breaking him, in every possible way. If this continued, Mitch couldn’t imagine a happy ending. “There’s a reason I haven’t kicked Brody out of my spare room,” he reminded her. “But this is a kid, Summer. My life isn’t designed for a kid.”
“But you said it yourself,” she pressed. “This can’t be permanent. I thought we were working on a solution?”
“What solution?” Mitch asked. “All I’ve got is an eight year old who lies and steals going on his own personal hunger strike in my spare room. You’re the one who bops in and out when she can, having a good time playing good cop.”
Her sympathetic stance darkened. “Hey,” she said. “I’m helping you out.”
“Not exactly by reinforcing my discipline,” Mitch objected. “It doesn’t make things easier when he has Summer’s rules to look forward to.”
“I’m being his friend,” she said. “And I’m being your friend.”
“But I thought you were his girlfriend?” Mitch asked.
She scoffed this time. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“I thought you were his friend, too.”
“No, I’m playing Dad right now,” Mitch pointed out. “So, the idea of this being permanent isn’t cute or awkward or weird. It’s downright impossible.”
“I’ve told you all along,” Summer argued. “I want Brody back.”
“And I’m telling you now,” Mitch returned with strong, even words. “What if we can’t? This isn’t even just about whether or not we can fix him. This is about the fact that we can’t support an undocumented kid much longer. Brody is ours, maybe. But Matt? He’s not. And I’m asking you if you’re able to let him go.”
The question posed was a bit more dramatic than he’d framed it in his own mind, and it hit Summer harder than he anticipated. The grief became evident immediately, and her breathing hitched as she visibly paled. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I know it’s not up to me, because you’re right. You’re the parent here. You get to make the choice, not me.”
He’d asked for that answer; he’d practically demanded that validation. Getting it didn’t assuage anything, however. If anything, it only made him feel worse.
“I just...I’m not ready to let him go, Mitch,” she said. “He’s still Brody. You know?”
That was a conclusion he couldn’t disagree with. It was one he couldn’t deny. His own frustration turned to sadness again, and he lifted his mouth into a half smile for Summer. “Yeah,” he said. “Still a pain in my ass.”
When she smiled back, there were tears in her eyes. “Always Brody.”
She said it like it was enough.
Mitch wished it was.
Biting her lip, Summer tried to ease herself into a more comfortable position. “So, do you know what you’re going to do?”
Mitch laughed at that, thinking about Matt’s foray outside, their epic fight and Mrs. Flores’ snooping. Not to mention Stephanie and the rest of Baywatch and Summer herself. There were too many pieces to make them all fit.
Too much of everything else.
Not enough of him to fill in the gaps.
“No,” he said, having no choice but to admit what they both knew. “Not a clue.”
“Anything I can do to help?” she offered. “If you want to talk, I promise I won’t play good cop.”
He chuckled weakly. “No,” he said. “No, I think…” He trailed off, wondering how hard this was for Matt if it was this hard for him. “I think I’ve got to figure this one out on my own. Or with Matt.”
“Okay,” she said, getting to her feet. “You know if you need anything--”
He followed her up, escorting her to the door. “I know your number.”
“Even if you want to talk,” she said. “Or if Matt needs to talk.”
“I know,” he said, opening the door for her.
She turned in the doorway, imploring him. “And if something changes--”
“I’ll let you know,” he promised. “I will.”
She nodded, unconvinced even if she had no reason to doubt him. “I really do think you’re good for him,” she said.
“Matt?” Mitch asked. “Or Brody?”
“Both of them,” she told him. “Just...remember that.”
With that she turned to leave. Mitch watched her go, wondering if he should have asked her to stay after all. She turned, lingering at her car as she waved goodbye, but Mitch couldn’t bring himself to call her back.
Instead, he closed the door behind him, looking back toward Matt’s room.
Summer was right about most of it.
But Mitch was right, too.
Children, it seemed, were a series of contradictions.
How any parent ever stood a chance, Mitch had absolutely no idea.
-o-
Summer’s visit left Mitch even more vexed about his current situation. Angry and frustrated as he was, her points had left him fundamentally convicted. On the one hand, he wanted to provide Matt (and, by extension, Brody) with the stabilization he needed. On the other hand, Mitch needed to manage his own sanity as well. Not to mention the rest of Baywatch or even the bay.
If Mitch were everything Matt needed, then he could never be the guy he was before to the rest of the world. Something would have to give. He just hated that it felt like a choice between an eight year old kid and himself. There was no way to choose himself without feeling like shit.
And he didn’t exactly want too. He wanted to help Matt. That was what he’d tried to do all week. And this morning, Matt had thrown it all away on an impulsive and reckless act.
Summer’s presence only made this more complicated. It wasn’t that she was more inclined to overlooked Matt’s problems that concerned him. It was that she loved him. She loved Matt in a maternal way, but she’d admitted it to Mitch just now: she loved Brody. To let Brody down was now to let Summer down.
Honestly, did it really end there? Was Mitch the guy he said he was if he willingly cut one of his own loose? Could he go back to his perfect life if he declared Brody to be a lost cause? Would his word mean shit at Baywatch if he did that?
That was all theoretical. The practical realities were even more depressing. Mitch had an eight year old stashed in his spare room that he had no legal right to. Worse, that eight year old was supposed to be his roommate and coworker and Mitch didn’t know how to turn him back. Even if he wanted to, was it possible to maintain this facade at all? Mrs. Flores was already noticing something was up; it wouldn’t take long for other people to make the same conclusion.
What was Mitch supposed to do?
There’d been a time when making such decisions had been easy for him. When he’d been confident and sure and unwavering. Hell, he’d not blinked when deciding to defy orders to go after Leeds. Shit, he’d barely hesitated when he chose to stab himself with a poisonous urchin to finish the job he started and save Brody’s ass.
The moral and ethical considerations didn’t even start to satisfy the pure emotional exhaustion of it all. Investing in another imperfect human being was inevitable disappointment. But was it also inevitable joy?
He thought about yesterday and the day before. He thought about the way Matt’s joy and wonder had affected him.
The highs and lows, the best and worse.
Could Mitch go back to the middle ground to save himself from the worst if he knew that he’d also give up the best?
Mitch sighed. He didn’t know.
That was the story of the day, of the last week, of the last few months with Brody in his life.
Mitch just didn’t know.