be back in a minute.”
She crossed the room, pausing by the watercooler, filling a paper cup and pretending to get a drink, but really trying to see how Cody was doing. Of the two boys, Cody had taken their father’s sudden departure the hardest. It had been easier when Keith had left the first time, because Cody was only two, but ten years later, when Keith had returned to try again, Cody had started to put trust in his father. The problem was Keith had never fully committed to his family and had never really intended to stay forever.
The second time, Cody had turned twelve the day before and gone to sleep believing the world was perfect because he had a new bike and another game for his Xbox. When he got up the next morning, there’d been an empty spot at the kitchen table and a dark oil stain on the driveway where Keith’s Malibu used to be.
Keith had walked out the door, leaving her with a newborn baby, forty dollars in the bank, a sheaf of bills as high as her elbow and the Herculean task of explaining why to two boys who didn’t understand.
There were days when she wanted to throttle her ex-husband for what he had done to their family, for how he had hurt his children. She had known he’d wanted out for a long time, but had never thought he’d up and move, to live with the twenty-year-old college student who was the “love of his life.”
Keith Cooper had been irresponsible and selfish, two traits that Abby had been blind to for far too long. She’d kept thinking he would change, that he would settle down, find a career, not just a job, and become the family man she’d foolishly hoped he’d be.
She’d been wrong.
Abby leaned against the wall beside the watercooler, a paper cone of cool water in her hand, and watched Cody. He was hunched into the corner of one of the sofas, looking angry and sullen. Par for the course with a sixteen-year-old who thought his life sucked.
To his left sat Dylan Millwright, Ty’s nephew. He was a good-looking guy—tall and lean, with dark hair and green-brown eyes. She hadn’t really noticed him before, but she did now.
He had a roguish look to him, with the scuffed black boots, the battered jeans, the faded T-shirt. Like one of those guys in a modern-day fairy tale who roared up on a motorcycle and whisked the bored debutante away for a life of adventure.
Except Abby knew full well those kinds of guys didn’t make good boyfriend or husband material. They were as temporal as spring weather, gone with the next gust of wind.
“Hey, Cody, want to join us?” Dylan asked.
Cody shrugged and hunkered down more, as if his hoodie could hide him from the world.
“We’re just talking,” Dylan said.
One of the other kids, a fair-haired tattooed kid wearing a T-shirt with Kurt Cobain’s picture, leaned forward. “Yeah, like about girls and crap.”
Another boy, with long dark hair and a dirty white T-shirt, leaned back against the couch. “My girl’s all mad at me today. I spent the day in solitary and she’s acting like I did it on purpose.”
In solitary was slang for in-school suspension, something Abby knew all too well from Cody’s frequent trips down that hall. She leaned back against the wall, waiting to see where the conversation would lead.
“Well, did you?” Dylan said.
Long Dark Hair snorted. “No. Who gets suspended on purpose?”
Dylan chuckled. “Some of us have done that. So I can sympathize.”
“What do you know about our lives, man?” Cobain Fan scoffed. “What’d you do, skip a class? Blow off an essay?”
“I was a lot like you guys. One of those angry kids who thought he knew better than any adult. Now I—”
“Let me guess,” Cody said. He had pushed the hoodie off his head. He had the same mop of dark brown hair as his little brother and his father, except he wore his long on the top and shaved on the sides. “You grew up, got a good job, bought a sweet house in the suburbs where you mow the lawn on Saturdays and crap like that. Matt’s right. You don’t know anything about how tough our lives are.”
“I’m not claiming to be an expert, even if you all think I’m too old to understand,” Dylan said. “Just someone who has made my fair share of mistakes.”
“Doesn’t mean you know anything about us,” Matt—previously known as Cobain Fan—said.
“True. But it doesn’t hurt to talk about your lives, does it? Maybe I can learn a thing or two from you guys, too.” Dylan shrugged. “So let’s talk.”
Cody cursed. “Talking doesn’t change jack. Waste of time.”
“Hey, I get it that you all don’t really want to sit here and go on and on about your lives. I’m not exactly Mr. Conversation myself. But I don’t think sitting around here—” Dylan waved at the motley set of battered sofas “—pissed at the world is going to change anything. And I’m betting every one of you has something he wants to change about his life. So let’s talk.”
Abby couldn’t have been more surprised if Dylan had stood up and started singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She never would have imagined—given his appearance—that he would be so smart and intuitive with how he handled these kids. There was color in Cody’s cheeks, interest in his eyes—
Two things Abby hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Abby clutched the paper cup so hard it crumpled, praying her son would open up, stop shutting himself off from the world.
“Whatever, dude,” Cody said finally, then got to his feet, flipping the hoodie back over his head as he rose. “I’m not here to have a Dr. Phil moment with some guy I don’t even know. I’m just trying to survive.”
Then he headed out the door, snagging a basketball from the bin as he went. The door shut behind him with a solid thunk.
Abby looked at Dylan. She could see the same disappointment in his face that she felt herself. For one brief second, Abby had felt like she had an ally.
And that was a dangerous thing to depend on, Abby reminded herself. She knew full well how a man could let her—and more, her sons—down. So she went back into the office and went back to work, doing the only thing she knew how to do, to—
Survive.
Dylan straightened the sofas, replaced the cushions and pillows and picked up the empty soda cans from the scarred coffee table. The rest of the teenagers had headed outside after Cody, a sort of group mutiny. Dylan could hear the ping-ping of a basketball hitting the pavement.
Well, that hadn’t gone too well. He’d hoped maybe he could connect with the teenagers, have an open discussion, maybe warn them off from making the same mistakes as he had. But so far, his batting average at being a teen group leader was pretty close to zero. For the hundredth time, he wondered why Uncle Ty had thought he could be good at this.
The little kids had finished their craft project, and were sitting in a circle on the carpet while Mavis read
