The Humdrum Life of a Hero

Chapter 15

"So, there's good news and bad news," I say into the phone as I pull a pair of jeans out of the washer.

"Good news first, please," Jay requests.

I tuck the phone further into my neck as I grab a handful of Avengers t-shirts from the confines of the machine. "Well, Nick and Connor neglected to inform me of the soccer team sleepover, so I told Bridgette she was no longer needed, and we can be out as late as we want."

The good news is met with silence, which is something I've become accustomed to from Jay here in the past couple of days, but this silence is the better of the silences him and I have shared recently. Sunday morning when he came to pick up his car, anyone could've cut the tension between us with a knife.

He's figured out that I disapprove of his drinking and partying, but he has yet to do anything about it. Not to mention, there's still that thing that him and Tony are still keeping from me that I have yet to make progress on finding out what that is.

Jay has quite the list of things against him at the moment.

Nevertheless, I still kept the date for tonight because I think the kid deserves a chance to prove himself once and for all. I sure hope there's more than meets eye to Jay that I haven't dug deep enough to find yet in the two months I've known him.

But unfortunately, the bad news that I have yet to tell him will postpone my digging deeper until a later date. "But the bad news is that Connor's runny nose has evolved into a full-blown cold complete with ear infection. I'm dropping Nick off at the sleepover here in a couple of minutes because I want to minimize the casualties of this small-scale epidemic, and quite honestly, I hate taking care of Nick when he's sick. He acts just like Tony all pathetic and whatnot."

"Are you referring to when Tony's sick or just in general?"

"In general," I laugh. Jay meets my laugh and it soon turns to the familiar silence. "But anyway, sorry about the date. I was really looking forward to it."

"Me too," Jay sighs. "But, um, just for future reference, do you like Chinese food?"

"Um, yeah. Not my favorite thing in the world but it's not bad." I put the remaining clothes in the basket and hike it up on my hip. I open the door from the garage to the kitchen and step inside. I set the basket next to Nick's overnight bag and his sleeping bag and pillow on the counter.

"Okay. Well, I'll let you go so you can drop off your rugrat," Jay's voice crackles over the phone. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"I'm not promising that I'll answer," I sneer into the phone. I hover near the phone dock while I thumb through Nick's bag, making sure he has everything he needs, because last time he and Connor went to a sleepover, I ended up going to that house three different times to bring Nick things he had forgotten. They were only eight then, still too young in my opinion to be frequenting sleepovers, and as usual, I was right. Since then they have been to a total of zero sleepovers, so tonight ought to be interesting for everyone involved.

I realize I haven't put Nick's medicine in there, which could've been very extremely bad because even with the Adderall, Nick still bounces off the walls with energy and is a general menace to society.

"Ha. Ha," Jay's tone is flat. "I'm laughing, but you just can't tell over the phone. Anyway, if you don't answer, I will assume the worst: that the epidemic has infiltrated your system and that you're a lost cause. Don't worry, Tony and I will raise Nick and Connor, assuming he makes it out of his coma, as our own. We'll move in together, and we'll make a beautiful life together."

"Sounds like you need to be setting up a date with Tony rather than me." I throw the medicine in a plastic bag and write that he needs to take it with breakfast tomorrow morning, and, rather than stash it in his bag, I shove it in my pocket to give to whoever's mother I have to talk to when we get there.