Spark (4 page)

He and Summer had talked about this years ago, but it had been a very hypothetical conversation—a drunk conversation, if he recalled correctly—and so far off in the future that he never considered that it might happen. It wasn’t crazy, though. He loved Summer, and he knew she’d forever be in his life, no matter what. He could easily see himself parenting with her, but he also knew some of the legal stuff could be a nightmare if the experience of his friends Terra and Suzanne was anything to go by.

Charisse had told him over and over again about what a great dad he would make too. Maybe he would be.

He was silent for a long, long time, and Summer didn’t push but rather looked up at the stars, gaze shifting from east to west. So many thoughts drifted through his mind, but one constant came back to him time and time again. He loved Summer, and they were a great team.

“Yeah. Yes,” Hugo finally said, reaching and cupping Summer’s cheek in his palm, stroking his thumb over the arch of a blonde brow. “I’d love to be the father to your baby, but I honestly don’t think it will ever come to that. You’re going to find someone you fall so deeply in love with that you’ll make a million babies together. You will.”

Summer’s eyes filled with tears,
just
held back by her thick lashes. “I love you, Hugo Thorson, more than you can ever know.” Summer pulled him into a hug, squeezing him tightly to her chest.

“I love you too, sweetie,” he whispered into her hair before pulling away and looking deep into her eyes. “You’re going to find the love of your life, but if you don’t, I’ll help you. We’ll figure something out.”

Summer beamed, her face seeming to light up the night, and she released a relaxed sigh. “Wow! I feel twenty pounds lighter after asking that and another twenty after you answered yes. I don’t think I realized how much that’s been bothering me. I’ve been wanting to ask you again for a long time, even before Jason, but I was worried how you’d react considering we were drunk and dreamy the first time we talked about it.”

“I’m glad you finally felt comfortable enough to ask.”

“See? I couldn’t even admit what we just talked about to those people around that fire over there,” she said after looking over her shoulder. “Wow, when did they build a bonfire? Anyway”—she refused to be distracted—“no one would get it. They’d think I was desperate or assume I was crazy for wanting to have a baby without being married to the father. It’s too weird for them, too progressive. They don’t
know
me, no matter how many years they’ve known me.
You
know me. They’ve known me for twice as long as you, but you know me twice as deep. That’s what really matters.

“Sure does. I’m glad I gave you brandy.”

Summer laughed and slapped Hugo’s belly, making a hollow sound that filled the night. “Come on. Let’s get back before they start insisting we’re a couple again and we have to tell them they’ve spent the last few hours with a scary queer.”

Hugo chuckled and pulled Summer to her feet after he’d rolled to his.

“J
UST
in time,” Myles’s mom said when Summer and Hugo rejoined the group now circled around a large fire roaring in an outdoor fire pit. “Lemon bar?” she offered, passing a large platter with bars cut at least three inches square. “And soon we’ll take out the boats to go watch the fireworks on the lake.”

“Thank you,” Summer exclaimed, handing Hugo one of the yellow, powdered-sugar-dusted treats. He took a bite and moaned at how good they tasted.

“Wow. Amazing.”

More people had arrived while Hugo and Summer had been down on the dock, and Hugo was quickly introduced to Summer’s Aunt Karla, who looked so much like Summer’s mom it was spooky. Karla was Summer’s favorite aunt, her confidante, and Hugo had heard about her for years. Summer admitted to Hugo that she was hoping to see Karla while visiting the lake but never expected it to happen their first night there. Karla sat next to Summer, stroking her hair and hugging her, and Hugo watched as Summer melted into the affection.

All around the yard, people continued to ask pointed questions about Hugo and Summer’s relationship
,
which pushed Summer to finally admit her engagement to Jason had just been broken. Sounds of sympathy reverberated all around, but Summer brushed them off, saying it was all for the best but admitting the wounds were still quite fresh.

“That’s why I’m here with Hugo. I needed to get away but didn’t think I should be alone.” Silence blanketed the backyard but was suddenly broken, and not only by the random pops of fireworks going off in the distance.

“Kev!” Myles yelled to someone walking across the yard, startling Hugo and causing him to take a deep breath just as he moved in for another bite of his lemon bar. Powdered sugar flew into his airway, choking him and causing tears to quickly form.

Summer slapped Hugo on the back as he tried to clear his throat to reestablish a decent way to breathe. “Keep coughing,” Summer encouraged, apparently recalling her first aid training and repeating the choking script perfectly while rubbing Hugo’s back. The rest of the crowd seemed to be greeting this newcomer, but Hugo couldn’t see through the tears in his eyes; everyone seemed to be glad to see him.

Myles’s mom pressed a cool glass of water into Hugo’s hand, and after taking a quick and much too shallow breath, he took cautious sips, finally feeling some relief. He felt people looking at him.

“Oh man. That was rough,” Hugo squeaked out, voice rough and raw. He coughed and coughed some more, taking a longer drink this time.

“You okay?” Summer asked.

Hugo wiped the tears from his eyes and took some long but unsteady breaths, finally nodding that he could breathe again.

“Who knew powdered sugar could be deadly?” He laughed, hoping any remaining attention paid to his choking would be withdrawn. “I’m good, though.”

Hugo turned so he faced Summer, still feeling people’s stares. He just wanted to blend in with the darkness until the redness on his face was gone. No matter what, he continued to feel one person’s eyes boring into the side of his head.

When he turned to see who it was, it was the newcomer, Kev.

Kevin Magnus.

At least, that’s who Hugo thought he saw through his tear-filled eyes.

SPAM, Arcades, & Kisses

K
EVIN
’
S
hair was much shorter than it had been when they first met, now cropped along the sides and back with thick, long strands pushed back off his forehead. It was still the same golden-blond that had attracted Hugo so many years ago when they introduced themselves on Kevin’s first day working at Hormel. When Kevin had stepped into the room where a nearly sixteen-year-old Hugo was just starting to hand-wash the delicate blown-glass vessels used in research and taste testing, Hugo almost broke a large beaker which probably cost more than he made in a week.

Nineteen years prior, Kevin had silky blond hair just skimming past his shoulders, which he had pulled back to look more office appropriate, but wispy bangs escaped the binding, framing his eyes and dark-blond brows. His eyes were gray and piercing, ringed in blue so dark it looked like the color of the sky at dusk right before it turned black. He was beautiful, but not classically so. His lips were too full for a man’s face, too full for him to not be called pretty, at least. But his long nose, high cheekbones, and strong jaw gave his face masculinity, even if all those distinctive lines did were draw Hugo’s focus right back to those pink, parted lips.

“Mr. Harrisburg’s office?” The blond boy’s voice rumbled deep from within his chest, causing Hugo’s breath to stop as he thumbed over his shoulder toward his boss’s door. He watched as the boy crossed the room, dropped a stack of letters into the wooden box attached to the wall, and pivoted to leave. Right at the doorway, he turned and smiled, pink mouth giving way to straight, white teeth. “I’m Kevin, by the way. Kevin Magnus.”

“Uh…. Hugh…. Hugo, actually.”
Seriously?
Hugo shook his head in disbelief at his own behavior and started again. “I’m Hugo Thorson. New, huh?”

“Yeah. First day. My dad started working here a few months ago, but my mom and I just moved down from Fargo now that school’s finally over. I’m gonna be a junior.” He seemed nervous, talking quickly. “A bit pathetic, but I heard about this job through my dad. So here I am.”

“Well, hi. My dad helped me get this job.” Hugo shrugged to show Kevin he didn’t think he was pathetic for having help finding a job at all. “I’m going to be a junior this year too. I basically wash dishes and get things ready for everyone who works in the lab.” Hugo gestured to the rolling cart in the hallway and asked, “Mailroom?”

“Yep. Dad thought it would be good for me to start at the bottom so I’d work hard to never be here again. Whatever.” Kevin rolled his eyes and gestured toward the door. “I’d better get back to work.”

“Say, do you work long enough to get a lunch break?”

Kevin nodded.

“Wanna eat together? I usually break at noon.”

“Sure. I’ll meet you here since my office is basically a cart on wheels,” he joked. “Okay?”

For weeks they met, eating a quick lunch before they finished up the final few hours of the day and each headed home by about three o’clock. They kept running into each other right outside the front doors and soon realized their hours were pretty much the same, both starting their shifts early in the morning. When Kevin saw that Hugo rode his bike to work and found out it was because he wasn’t sixteen until August and still had only a learner’s permit, Kevin offered to drive him to work instead. It didn’t hurt that they got to spend the drive over and back getting to know each other better.

They had much in common and a lot they didn’t, but those differences didn’t get in the way. If anything, the differences enhanced their friendship because they both learned new things from each other. Kevin taught Hugo how to skateboard, even helping him build his first board. Hugo showed Kevin secrets to many of the games at Merlin’s Hallow, the arcade in the air-conditioned mall.

Soon they spent all their time together, and Charisse teased Hugo about having a boyfriend. It wasn’t like that, despite Hugo’s attraction to Kevin. There was no denying his attraction, but there had been no signs anything like that would ever happen. They were fast friends. One might even say passionate friends, and there was no getting past that, but romance seemed far from the picture, especially considering how Kevin looked at pretty girls at the mall.

They lived only a few blocks away from each other but hung out after work and on the weekends in public, skating over to Merlin’s Hallow to play video games until the heat of the early summer wore off. They laughed at each other’s failures but encouraged or challenged each other to try again. Then they’d head outside in the evening, often ending up at Hormel Nature Center or Todd Park, walking or skateboarding the various trails. Sometimes, they’d just get lost in the woods near their houses or sit along Wolf Creek and lazily fish, even fly-fish on occasion. Throughout it all, they talked, explored, and simply grew closer.

It was on one of those hikes in a fairly wooded area of the nature center that Kevin headed off the trail and Hugo followed. Kevin was looking down at the ground, rooting around near the trunks of dead trees.

“What are you looking for?” Hugo asked.

“Probably nothing. I think it’s way too late in the year, but this one time my dad took me hunting for morel mushrooms. I don’t know why I thought of that. Just bored, I guess.”

Hugo leaned against a tree and watched as Kevin bent over and rifled thorough decaying leaves and green grasses with a large stick he carried. Kevin was thin, all long and lean, but with a broad chest and muscular shoulders. His arms flexed under his thin T-shirt, and Hugo allowed himself a few moments to really sit back and admire his friend’s body. He so rarely did—allowed himself to look—fearful he’d be caught staring and ruin the still-new friendship they had spent the summer building.

They got along well, but they were obviously from two different worlds. At Kevin’s house, it sounded as if everything had to be done properly and in a particular order, which was why Kevin avoided the place as much as he could. Kevin complained often about his parents and their ridiculous expectations. He was an only child, and apparently that meant his parents put all their eggs in one basket. Well, his dad did, but his mom supported Kevin’s father even if she wasn’t nearly as uptight about Kevin following the rigid rules at home or doing things to perfect standards, unless it would get Kevin in trouble with his dad if he didn’t follow along. On occasion, his mom would see sense and logic where his dad seemed blind to it.

“They have plans for me, and I have to make sure I go along with them, or….”

“Or?”

Kevin shook his head and frowned. “Or, I don’t know. I guess that’s it. I
don’t
know, but I know they’d be disappointed in me.” He was far more mature than other sixteen-year-old boys Hugo knew, but to hear Kevin say he didn’t want to let his parents down made him seem about five years older.

“I doubt you’ll ever disappoint them,” Hugo offered.

“I already have. My dad keeps threatening to cut my hair while I’m sleeping. He hates it this long.”

“It’s just hair,” Hugo downplayed.

“Not to him. He’s a businessman, a really successful agribusinessman. Companies from all over the country have been trying to hire him, but my mom wants to stay close to her parents. Hormel recruited him away from American Crystal Sugar. That’s why we moved here. And image is everything to him. ‘I didn’t get where I am today by wearing my hair like a hippie or a good-for-nothin’ wannabe surfer dude who has no waves to ride except for amber waves of grain.’” He exaggerated his father’s affected Minnesotan accent. “There are plans already in place for where I’m going to go to college and what I’ll study when I get there, and he doesn’t give a shit about how I feel. I haven’t even been included in the negotiations. Negotiations?” He scoffed. “Geez. Listen to me. It’s like he puts words in my mouth, but he’s nowhere near me. It sounds like I’m talking about a business take-over or making a deal.”