Thomas and Niko in the City of Trees

Chapter 7 - Part 2

I'm walking pretty quick, winding my way out of the apartment complex. I get to Cole and just stand there on the corner for a while. Man, I can't even tell you the number of times in my life I've stood on this street without a plan in the world. The maple trees lining it are kind of gently shuffling around in the warm breeze. The leaves are still new and practically glow this intense green. It's such a beautiful sight.

I walk absentmindedly to Thomas's house. His dad left this morning on a business trip to Salt Lake. I imagine he'll be down there for a few days. Alfred's lying down in the middle of the front lawn, looking up at his phone. He's wearing these bright red Jordans that he finally bought last month after saving up for half a year. He's so proud of them.

"What are you up to?" I say as I pass by.

"Reading," he says. He has about a million books on his phone, and he always has his nose in one of them. I hate reading books on a screen but it seems to work out fine for him.

I go into Thomas's room and he's taking a nap. I decide to let him sleep but as I'm leaving he starts moving around and I hear his deep, gravelly voice go, "I'm up, I'm up." He sits up. He's got this worn-out white t-shirt on from when he was smaller. That shit barely fits him anymore. He slowly props himself agains the headboard and gives me kind of a blank stare. "What's up?"

"Not much," I say. "My mom and I had a thing. I had to get out of there."

"Fuck, man," he says. "I'm sorry to hear that. Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," I say. The truth is, now that I'm around him again, I don't really care about anything else. "You look tired."

He shrugs. "I ran around the reserve earlier."

I sit down on his desk chair. "What did you get up to last night?"

"Not too much. Just hung out with Madison." He crawls out from under the covers and lies on his back. His running shorts are riding way up his leg. "So what did you and your mom fight about?"

"I don't know, man. She's just giving me shit about how she missed the graduation ceremony."

He looks right at me. "How does that work? She's the one who didn't fucking show up. Remember how pissed you were about that?"

"I guess so," I say. I don't remember being that pissed but I guess Thomas remembers it differently.

"And she's the one giving you shit?"

"I don't know," I say. "She just said some stuff about it, so I got out of there."

He takes a minute to think about it. He sort of scoffs and looks off to the side. "Shit, man." He gets up. I'm still sitting on his desk chair and I roll myself out of the way as he goes over to his dresser. He changes his shirt and pants right in front of me. For a quick moment he's down to just his underwear. I could probably count on one hand the number of times he's done that before. Once he's done he says, "How about we go get something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, Delsa's or some shit like that?"

"Sure," I say. Thomas loves his ice cream, that's for sure. He always has this low-key way of bringing it up, but I bet he's been thinking about that little parlor ever since he ran by it earlier.

We walk, since it's not too far away. You should see the inside of this place. It's got the classic red and white booths, mint green paint all over the walls, the whole thing. We go up to the counter and I order first. As I'm taking out my card, Thomas grabs me by the shoulder and shoves me out out the way. By the time I recover he's already said his order and he's taking out his own card to pay for both of us. I just stand there, staring at him for a second. The whole thing is coming across as a pretty baller move. The good kind of baller, I mean. I get this weird little rush. He knows how to look out for me. That's for sure.

I say thanks as we're sitting down.

He's just casually spooning that ice cream into his mouth. He says, "You deserve it," and just leaves it at that. He has this goofy smile on his face.

We get back to his place and he takes a shower. Then we're just sitting in the living room doing nothing and he says, "Maybe we should invite some people over, seeing as my dad's out of town."

"Sure," I say. "The girls?"

"And a few more?"

"Sure."

We start texting people, and before we know it, about ten or twelve people say they'll show up. We tell everyone to be here around eight. I'm actually looking forward to it quite a bit. My attitude has changed since the last day of school. Just because I didn't specifically plan on seeing anyone again doesn't mean I'm going out of my way to avoid them. I still have an entire summer to kill in this town, so I might as well light that shit up.

"The best part is, the neighbor's gone too."

"He is?"

Thomas nods. "His daughter came to pick him up for the rest of the weekend. We can be as loud as we want."

All right, I'm actually getting excited for this thing. "What about Alfred?" I say.

He shrugs and thinks about it for a minute. "Freddie's old enough to learn how to party, don't you think?" He gets up and goes over to the screen door. "Hey butthole," he says. "We're having a party. Anyone you want to invite?"

I can't hear what Alfred says. I bet he's super into it, though. A while later, he comes in and watches Thomas and me play Mario Kart. "Can two of my friends come?" he says.

"That's what I fucking said."

"Hell yes." The kid looks so excited. He's back on his phone, texting away.

All I know is, moments like this are never as simple as they seem on the surface. Part of the reason Thomas is being so nice is because if Alfred is involved, there's no way he'll ever tell, purely out of gratitude. It's a genius move. But I'll bet you a million dollars that Thomas isn't just passing over the moment unmoved, either. His baby brother is finally old enough to join in the fun. That's actually a big deal in the whole scheme of things, if you stop and think about it.