The Key to my HeART

12 Beretta

H A R P E R

I'm a morning person, mostly because I have trouble sleeping some days. I'm already up half the time anyway. My family is not full of morning people. My mom can't be roused before ten on weekends and my dad is a zombie before three cups of coffee. Josh may as well be a hibernating bear. I'm used to having the house to myself weekend mornings. Which was why seeing Max eating cereal at seven in the morning, reading his phone, was such a shock.

He looked at me with wide eyes, like I'd caught him doing something bad. I wondered if he stayed up late thinking about that moment in my bedroom too. I'd heard him come in and go to bed. All the while I had tossed and turned, replaying the episode. It was hard knowing he was right next door.

"I thought I was the only morning person," I said. I decided not to make things weird. We hadn't talked at the party and after a certain point, I didn't see him anywhere.

"When your parents are screaming at each other from across the house at six in the morning, you tend not to get much sleeping in." He'd been in such a good mood the latter half of the week. He looked sullen now. I thought he had settled in with us and coped with his parents leaving abruptly. I guess I was wrong.

"Have you heard from them since that morning?" I grabbed a bowl and the sugariest cereal we had. It was important to start the weekend on a good note.

"Nope. Maybe they ran off for Mexico or something." He spooned more marshmallow laced cereal into his mouth.

"What happened exactly?"

My parents refused to give us details. They said we shouldn't ask Max either. It was an invasion of privacy and it was rude to ask about such a personal matter. Josh and I were to be accommodating with Max, but not pry. However, my parents weren't awake to stop me now.

"I won't use the word embezzlement, but well, embezzlement lite maybe?"

"How do you sort of embezzle money?"

"It's more like, on the bad advice of their business partner, they misled financial backers of my dad's tech company. They said it was unintentional, that they didn't know, which I don't know, it maybe true. They didn't get arrested, but something went sour. They're trying to save the company and save face in Boston right now. They didn't really feel they needed to elaborate with me what that entails. All I know is the past year has been tense. It's affected their marriage and our house."

I sat down with my breakfast, surprised at how easily he'd given up all that information. Max looked down into his cereal, swirling the milk with his spoon. The last bits of cereal floated around, but he didn't look like he planned to eat them.

"Wow. I'm sorry. Could they go to prison?"

"Maybe? I don't know how deep any of this runs. A lot of the stuff affecting us is because of Karl Berger. He was supposed to take care of the books and woo investors. Karl's gone and bankruptcy seems more likely than jail time from what I've pieced together."

It sucked. I hated to see anyone look this defeated. Max must not have slept. There's deep purple bags under his eyes and a sallow look to his face. His frown was so deep I didn't think the corners of his mouth would ever turn upwards again. He kept his eyes on his cereal, never once looking up at me.

"Why don't we go see Beretta this morning?" I offered.

He perked up at that. And yes, the corner of his mouth twitched upwards a little.

"You sure you're ready for the longest game of fetch in your life?"

"Since I've never played fetch, you tell me? Am I up for the challenge?"