Two Steps Ahead
Autor:in
Janie Crouch
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Prologue
“Weston?”
He heard a tap on his door and stiffened, backing away from the homework sitting on his desk. It was Sheila, the only female voice in the Patterson house.
He liked Sheila pretty okay. She laughed a lot. Got up every morning and made lunches for him and the three other boys who lived in the house.
She worked as a nurse every other weekend, only taking shifts when her husband, Clinton, would be home. Weston didn’t understand that. It wasn’t like he or the other guys needed a babysitter. He was thirteen. Clinton and Sheila’s other kids were around that age too.
But Weston liked that there was always an adult around. And that the adults were pretty nice.
His dad hadn’t been pretty nice. The opposite of pretty nice. Weston rubbed at a burn scar on his arm. One of dozens.
“Do you want me to come back later? That’s no problem,” Sheila said softly from the other side of the door.
That was another thing he liked about his foster mother. She didn’t push.
“It’s okay, you can come in.” He had to force himself to use a loud enough voice for her to hear.
Weston was quiet. He’d always been quiet.
He’d been in multiple other foster homes before coming to live with the Pattersons three months ago. Most of the homes had been pretty good, but temporary.
He liked it here, even with three other boys—Chance, Luke and Brax—living in the same house. They were not quiet, but they didn’t seem to mind if he was.
“School go okay today?” Sheila asked as she opened the door.
He nodded. Every time he’d gone to a different home, it had meant a different school. At least with this one he’d had someone to ride the bus with and sit with at lunch.
Brothers.
That’s what they called each other. Brax and Luke had already been adopted by the Pattersons. They were in the process of adopting Chance.
Weston wasn’t about to get his hopes up. Who would want to adopt four teenage boys?
But if they asked...
“I wanted to ask you something,” Sheila said.
Weston’s heart thumped in his chest. Was she about to ask him to be a permanent member of their family too?
He acquiesced with another slow dip of his head.
She continued, used to him not talking unless he had to. “I’m tired and don’t want to cook, so we’re going out to eat. I thought I’d ask you first if you had a preference for where we went. It’s hard to get a word in edgewise with the other three.”
Oh. Going out to eat, not asking him to be a part of the family. He was stupid to have even thought that might be the case.
Sheila took a step closer. “Hey, you okay? What just happened?”
He quickly looked down at the notebook on the desk. There was no way he was going to tell her what he’d been thinking.
“I like spaghetti,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear him.
It probably wasn’t his favorite, but was the first thing he could think of. Hopefully it would keep Sheila from pushing to see if anything else was wrong.
It worked. “Okay, Italian it is. Luke will love you for it. I’ll round everyone else up. Meet downstairs in ten minutes?”
He nodded. He didn’t look up when she came closer. Didn’t flinch as she slowly—making sure he was very aware of where her hand was—reached over and squeezed his shoulder gently.
Didn’t say anything as she removed her hand a second later and left.
Ten minutes later, he headed down the stairs. He could hear the rest of the boys running around, bouncing a ball, yelling about some video game—the general chaos always present in the house.
As he waited, Weston silently stared at the photographs all over the wall. They were pretty chaotic—snapshots Sheila or Clinton had taken. Some of just the two of them, some with Luke, Brax or Chance in them.
A family.
No pictures of Weston, but that was okay. Sometimes there wasn’t room for everyone.
But at least tonight he’d get to eat spaghetti.
