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“This,” Harold says when John drags twelve-year-old Aaron Reyes up the steps into the house, “is a terrible idea.”
“You keep saying I need to find more constructive ways to spend my time,” John reminds him, and then pushes Aaron into the house.
==
In Harold’s defense, John had spent a very, very long time bored before the topic of constructive pastimes came up in conversation.
“I’m not having you clean your guns where we eat,” he’d complained, looming over the kitchen table in his bathrobe and matching silk pajamas. John preferred the ensemble crumpled on the bedroom floor, not gently enveloping Harold’s limbs, but one can’t always get what one wants.
John’d glanced down at the various barrels, pins, springs, and other gun parts. “I’ll only be a few more minutes.”
“No,” Harold’d said firmly. “You need to find a hobby. Something constructive.”
“This is constructive.”
“This is going to see you homeless by the end of the week.”
Harold’d eaten breakfast in the den, that day.
Three weeks later, John brought Aaron Reyes home.
==
“You realize you’re gonna get me in trouble for this, right?” Lionel Fusco demands. He crosses his arms over his chest in an attempt to look intimidating. The attempt fails horribly; John raises his eyebrows to communicate that very thing, and Fusco abandons the pretext. “Random strays in off the streets, locked up in your gated compound or whatever—”
John feels his lips quirk up into an accidental smile. “Don’t say that too loud, Harold might like it.”
“Yeah, well, your friend or hubby or whatever he is, he’s a weird one.” Behind them, the unmarked police car shudders and a voice yells out. Fusco reaches over, pounds twice on the glass, and then turns back to John. “New kid’s got a lot of personality,” he warns.
“We’re used to that here,” John assures him, and presses the button on the intercom for Harold to buzz them in.
==
There are never more than eight boys in the house, but never fewer than three, and they all stay for as long as they need. Aaron, for instance, stays until he decides returning to his aunt in Poughkeepsie is actually not too bad an idea; Reggie sticks around until his mom’s finally released from rehab; Jeremy announces on a Friday night that he’ll stay until he’s done with high school, but only because he “can’t get with that fine girl from school” if he transfers again.
“I’m beginning to think I created a monster,” Harold comments one night. He’s propped up in bed, reading Sun Tzu. He claims to have read it before, but John suspects he fed Darren that line to earn his grudging respect.
John stops reviewing Christian’s e-mail—he’s learned enough from Harold to guess birthdates and pets’ names for the boys’ passwords, and it’s yet to fail him—to glance over. “You said I needed a hobby.”
“I expected you to take up running or needlepoint, not the rearing of wayward children.”
“Are you complaining?” Across the bed, Harold sends him a withering glance over the top of his glasses. John smiles. “I didn’t think so,” he replies, and feels vindicated when Harold allows him to keep his hand on his thigh until he puts the book away.
==
“Well, you’re safe for now,” Zoe Morgan reports. The merlot swirls in her glass for a few seconds before she finally sips, shaking her head. “Turns out, the supervisor at your local Department of Family Services likes them barely-legal and thoroughly paid-for. He’ll stop asking so many questions.”
“Thank you,” John says.
She shrugs off his gratitude and leans back in her chair at the dining room table, one arm draped back like she’s just begun to get comfortable. “You two have got to be more careful,” she chides, and John knows from the way Harold sighs that she’s already told him the exact same thing. “Harboring a runaway these days makes you look like human traffickers—or worse. And then, all their phones pinging back to the same spot—”
“Yes, well,” Harold cuts in sharply, his fingers still clattering across his laptop keyboard, “it certainly isn’t my fault that not all the phones were properly confiscated, is it?”
John sighs. “Are you still annoyed about—”
“Yes. Because now, rather than spending the evening as I intended, I am masking our internet signal so every Faceook status, tweet, and tum-blog—”
“Tum-what?” Zoe repeats, and John simply shakes his head.
“—appears to have come from an internet café rather than my living room.” He lifts his head only long enough to glare at John. “Thank you for this gift, Mister Reese.”
“Any time, Mister Finch,” John replies, nodding.
Zoe leans forward, forearms on the table. Her lips purse into a devilish little smile. “Am I witnessing a nasty little marital spat?” she asks.
“No,” they both say, and John knows from the way Harold’s fingers pause for a split-second that neither of them are lying.
==
Mickey brings the dog home on a Tuesday.
“This is definitely getting out of hand,” Harold complains.
“You’re the one who said a normal security system wasn’t enough,” John reminds him, and scratches the dog behind the ears.
==
“He fell out of a tree,” Will Ingram repeats.
“Yes,” Harold says tersely. His terse voice is reserved for when he’s either most annoyed or most worried, and right now, John knows it’s the latter. Adrian spits dozens of curses as Will manipulates his shoulder, shaking his head all the while. The other boys watch, faces all masks of uncertainty.
“Why was he climbing a tree?” Will presses.
The boys all look at one another. Harold, however, looks at John.
“A dare,” John says. He’s wearing his sweats, like the rest of the boys, his bare feet peeking out from under the cuffs. There are grass stains on his knees and elbows, lending to the appearance that he might have spent the last half-hour rolling around on the ground.
Or being tossed, thrown, gripped, and otherwise sparred into the ground.
Will, however, cannot prove that.
“It’s dislocated,” Will diagnoses, and Adrian heaves a sigh of relief as the doctor’s careful hands release him. “You might want to take him to a doctor, Uncle Harold.”
“It’ll be fine if you fix it, Will,” Harold assures him.
“But—”
“It’ll be fine,” Harold repeats, and Will rolls his lips together for one second too long before nodding.
==
“Go back to bed,” John tells a shadow at midnight on a Wednesday.
On the stairs, the shadow freezes. John can feel it weighing its options, but finally Kevin steps into the dim glow of moonlight seeping into the front foyer.
“I was thirsty,” he says.
John crosses his arms over his chest. He’s wearing a t-shirt and his boxers, plus Harold’s robe. It is not the very best of his looks, but it’s also midnight. “And your backpack?”
“Uh,” Kevin grunts. He glances over his shoulder at the offending bag. “Wanted to get a head start on my homework?”
“Right. Now, go back to bed.”
For a brief second, Kevin considers the offer, his sneakers still on the foyer rug. When he attempts one careful step forward, John shoves away from where he’s leaning against the wall. “Bed,” he repeats.
“Man, why are you being like this?” Kevin demands. He throws up his hands, not in intimidation but frustration. In the living room, Bear raises his head from his paws. “The rule is that we can leave whenever we want. You and Harold both said it.”
“You’re right,” John acknowledges. “You can leave at any time during daylight hours, when Harold and I can at least make sure you have bus fare, a sandwich, and a clean set of clothes.” Kevin stops pacing, right in the middle of the floor, and John watches his shoulders soften. “Now, again, please. Go back to bed. I don’t want to have to do this the hard way.”
John drops Kevin’s backpack at the foot of the bed and slips under the covers ten minutes later. He listens momentarily to Harold’s breathing, then curls around him.
“You can say you told me so if you want,” he notes.
Harold sighs and relaxes into his grip. “Another victory?”
“For tonight,” John replies, and presses his lips against the soft spot at back of Harold’s neck.
==
“I don’t know how you two keep this up, but I kinda don’t want to,” Joss Carter says one Saturday afternoon at the high school football field. Adrian and Mickey are playing in the game alongside Carter’s son Taylor; Darren’s trumpet blares in the marching band. Their three other boys are clumped with friends and cheering the team on.
“Byron’s still fascinated with Marissa, I see,” Harold comments as he walks up to where John and Carter are standing at the foot of the bleachers. He holds out a coffee, which John accepts with only a minimal amount of lingering touch.
“Byron is fascinated with any female who’ll speak to him,” he replies.
Beside him, Carter shakes her head. “You two have got to be the weirdest whatever-you-are I’ve ever met,” she informs them. Her attention flickers from John to Harold, and then back. “Fusco tells me he knows two guys, drags all these kids into their big, weird house, sets them straight, I think they’re probably perverts of the worst order.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s assumed that about one of us, I’m sure,” Harold remarks off-handedly. John thinks Carter misses the way his lips tip up into a smile, or how his elbow presses very briefly against John’s side.
“But instead,” she continues, “you’re some kinda super-powered group home for wayward street kids.” She waves a hand. “Like I said, I don’t get it, but I like that it works.”
John shrugs. “We just like having a purpose,” he says, but he knows from the way Harold raises his eyebrows that his smile gives it all away.
==
There are never more than eight boys in the house, but never fewer than three, and there are always new ones coming. Fusco and Carter help, of course, but it’s mostly word-of-mouth, news between street kids of the guy in the suit who shows up on corners and can keep them safe until they’re back on their feet. John hears the rumors, of course, stories about rooms full of books and a dog named Bear, about learning martial arts in the backyard and extreme internet security, about leaving whenever you want as long as you say goodbye.
“I know we’ll have to stop eventually,” John mentions one evening in the quiet of their bedroom, the whole house asleep but still thrumming with the energy of seven other humans (and one dog).
“Will we?” Harold asks.
“They’ll leave. They always leave. Someday, there won’t be any left.”
Harold rolls onto his back slowly, his head resting on John’s arm. They watch each other in the moonlight for a moment, Harold’s face soft and open. “There will always be more people who need our help, Mister Reese,” he says quietly.
“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that,” John replies, and kisses him goodnight in the dark.