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.No honors, no AP.It should be easy. Good. Ryan leaned back in the chair and listened to the kid play.After a while, without lifting his fingers from the strings, Mark asked,  Didyou have, like, acne when you were a teenager? Some.Not as bad as yours.If it s bugging you, maybe your dad could seeabout getting antibiotics for it or something.I hear there s more treatments now.Although I expect you ll grow out of it eventually. Not soon enough, Mark muttered. I get so tired of being called zit-face. Already? First day? I guess I was talking to this guy s girlfriend.But we were just talking.Hetold me to get lost.How was I to know she was taken? No one gets taken, Ryan said, and then flashed on John, last night,underneath him. In an ownership sense, anyway.He must be pretty damnedinsecure if he won t let her talk to a lowly freshman. I guess. Mark squinted at him. I can handle him.It wasn t serious.Thisgay thing with you guys though.I don t need anything else for them to get on208 www.samhainpublishing.comThe Rebuilding Yearmy case for.You re not going to, like, show up for teacher conferences with Dador anything? God, no.Why would I want to walk into a high school again if I don t haveto? Don t worry.John put me down on your paperwork as an alternate localcontact, because it makes sense.It doesn t make me an alternate parent.Mostlikely no one at school will know your dad is gay, unless you tell them. Like that s gonna happen. Mark looked him over. You re too young to bemy parent anyway. Yeah, Ryan reflected. I d have had to be fourteen.I was probably a virginthen.No wait, maybe not. He grinned. Yuck! Jesus, TMI, dude. Hey, I m talking girls here, Ryan told him. Mary Jo Peterson.Red hairdown to her butt, face like an angel, brain like an empty sponge. He made aface. Man, I had bad taste back then.But she was the hottest bod in thefreshman class, and at fourteen I wasn t thinking much past that. He eyed Mark. Did you leave a girl behind in California? Nope. Mark picked out a dissonant chord. Not enough money for theLoyola girls.They wanted the guys with serious bank. Well, now you re in a band, Ryan pointed out. Lead guitar is a hot ticket. I guess.Cal s the singer though.The guys won t even let me sing backupuntil my voice quits breaking.Ryan laughed. Won t be long.Is practice going to work out with yourschool schedule? Yeah.I had plenty of time to get there today, even with staying late to getall the assignments written down.Band practice is good.Although Patrick brokeup with his girlfriend.I guess she dumped him.He was pretty down. Markwww.samhainpublishing.com 209Kaje Harpershrugged. On the plus side, he wrote this song called Bitter that s really cool.The melody needs a little work, but the lyrics are sharp. Nothing like suffering to improve one s art, Ryan quipped.Downstairs, they heard the door open, and then John s voice drifted up thestairs. Hey, where s my dinner? In the Domino s Pizza oven where you left it, Ryan yelled back. If you callfor it and pay them, of course.He heard John s footsteps on the stairs and then the man poked his head inthe door. Here you are. He smiled at each of them. Hey, Mark, how wasschool? Fine, Mark grunted.Ryan stood slowly and then turned to John, an eye on Mark as he did so. You go shower, he told John. I ll call Domino s. He laid a palm on John scheek and kissed him, lightly and briefly.Mark didn t look up, but he didn twince too badly.It was a start.By Saturday, he was less certain.Mark was spending a lot of time locked inhis room, appearing mainly for meals.Ryan wasn t sure if it was not wanting tosee him and John together, or some other source of teenage angst.Directquestions got monosyllabic answers at best.School was okay.Practice was good.Homework was done.No, he didn t need anything.Ryan figured they had nochoice but to let him stew.John would have backed off on any contact with Ryan when the boy was inthe room.Ryan, remembering past discussions, made a point of brief hugs andoccasional dry kisses in front of Mark.Despite occasional exaggerated wincesand mutters of  yuck or  get a room , Ryan got the feeling that Mark was210 www.samhainpublishing.comThe Rebuilding Yearstruggling as much or more with other issues.When the boy wasn t payingattention, their gestures of affection didn t even rate a glance.Mark s studiedreactions seemed more a way to guilt trip his dad than genuine.Unfortunatelythe guilt thing was wearing on John.Ryan was sitting at the breakfast table, struggling with the intricacies of theadrenal hormones, two books and a chart open in front of him, when John cameback in from taking out the trash and sat at the table across from him.Ryanlooked up, and then slid his books to one side. Problem? No.I just& parenting is the most important job there is, and you have to flyby the seat of your pants.I like the seat of your pants.Ryan kept the joke to himself, and searched forsomething supportive to say. It s early days yet.And Mark doesn t seemactively unhappy.He showed me his math quiz.He got a B+. Really? He didn t tell me. John brightened but then frowned. How comehe talks to you more than to me? I matter less? Ryan speculated.A clatter of teenage feet on the stairs heralded the wonder boy himself.Ryanand John watched as Mark went straight to the fridge, grabbed a coke, and thenturned back to the stairs.But this time he hesitated, and came back toward them.He sat at the table, and cracked open the pop top. Coke.Breakfast of champions, Ryan quipped [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]