Starting Point (28 page)

Yumi looked at me and smiled warmly. Then a thought must have struck her. “Oh!” she cried, then scurried out of the room and into the dining room. “Come in here, Matty, I show you something.”

I followed her dutifully. Across her dining table was an array of colour selections, material swatches, wedding magazines, pictures of floral arrangements and wedding cakes.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Yumi rifled through some papers, looking for something in particular. She held up a notepad victoriously. “Here!” she said. “I need to ask you.”

Still bewildered at the sight before me, all I could do was nod. Or shake my head. I possibly did both. At the same time. I needed back-up, possibly a SWAT team. I needed Kira. “Um…”

“I need seating arrangements,” Yumi said, flipping through pages of her notepad.

“Um, Yumi, I…”

She still flipped through pages, and I waited until she’d found the page she was searching for and looked at me.

I had to swallow so I could speak. “I don’t have any.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Any what?”

“Any family.”

Yumi’s face fell. “Matt…”

“I don’t have any aunts or uncles, or grandparents. There are no brothers or sisters, no cousins,” I said quietly. “I don’t have any family.”

“You have the police boys, and the gym boys,” Yumi said with a nod. “They’re your family.”

“You’re my family,” I said, not meaning to say those words out loud.

Yumi gave a teary smile and hugged me. “You are family, Matty.” She squeezed me. “You’re one of my boys. We love you like a son. You no need to get married to be in this family.”

I choked up at her words. “I want to,” I squeaked. “I want to marry him. So much.”

Yumi pulled back from me, smiling. “Oh!” she cried, remembering something else. “You need to sign this.” And again, she started to rummage through papers on the table.

Kira spoke from the door, “Do I even want to know what’s going on in here?”

I looked pointedly at the table. “Your mom’s planning the wedding,” I said slowly. I picked up the material swatches, an array of blues and silvers and held them up for Kira to see. “We were just talking about seating arrangements, and I was just saying I don’t have any family so I guess it didn’t matter.”

Kira walked over to me, smiling. He took my face in both hands and kissed me soundly. “Yes, you do. You have family.”

“I already told him,” Yumi said, not looking up from her papers, still rummaging for something in particular. “Here it is!” she declared and held up a single piece of paper. “You both need to sign this.”

Kira slid his arm around my shoulder and kissed the side of my head. “What is it, Mom?” he asked, not sounding overly enthused. He seemed transfixed by the mountain of wedding paraphernalia on the table.

“It’s your marriage licence,” she said. “You need to sign it.”

“At a registrar office, Mom, not here.”

“Is practice,” she said, like it made sense. “I downloaded it.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Kira mumbled, loud enough for even me to hear it.

“It’s okay,” I said, taking the piece of paper. “I’ll sign it.” I mean, it was a worthless document without being officiated anyway. I kissed Kira on the cheek and picked up a pen from Yumi’s things on the table. Without hesitating, I signed the licence.

When I was done, I glanced at Kira. He looked, well, he looked shocked. “It’s just practice, right?” I asked. “Even if it wasn’t, even if this was real, right here, right now, I’d still sign it.”

Yumi gushed. “Oh, you boys will make me cry,” she said, fanning her face.

Kira smiled, almost shyly, and I handed him the pen. “Your turn.”

He took the pen, looked me squarely in the eye as he slowly leaned right across me and signed his name. Then he kissed me softly. “Piece of cake.”

I laughed and pecked his lips, and Sal cleared his throat from the door. He pointed at the table and signed, “Are you cleaning up the mess?”

“Oh, shush,” Yumi said, giving Sal the stink eye. “Oh, shoot,” she cried, darting back to the kitchen. “Dinner.”

Sal nodded towards Yumi’s piles of papers and magazines and signed, “I haven’t been able to eat at the dining table for weeks.”

“We eat dinner tonight in the kitchen,” Yumi called out.

“Okay,” Kira called out. Then signed so his dad would know, “Mom said we’re eating in the kitchen.”

“See?” he said. “You two get married soon. Please. Tomorrow? Please? Put me out of my misery.”

Kira laughed and clapped his dad on the shoulder. “Nice, Dad.”

“Boys!” Yumi called out. “Dinner!”

I loved Yumi’s cooking. It didn’t matter what it was. Tonight’s dinner was a Spanish chorizo stew type dish, with rice and beans and it was so good. Yumi told us about her day at the park with Claude and Oscar. I told them about the phone calls I took about sponsorship. I deliberately omitted the details about Ruby, not wanting them to worry, and after a night of great food, laughs and good conversation, we took Oscar and made our way home.

Kira was driving, and after we’d driven a few blocks, I said, “Your parents are awesome.”

“They are,” he said quietly. And then he said…nothing.

“Kira? What’s up?”

He looked a little stuck for words, then after a moment, he blurted, “I think tonight I might like to have sex.”

I snorted out a laugh. “O-kay.”

“I mean, I think I want to have…sex…without a condom…tonight. With you. Of course. I mean, you know what I mean.”

I stared at the side of his face for a long while. When he looked at me, he was clearly nervous.

“Uh, Kira? I’m very okay with that.”

He smiled. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. And our test results are all good, and I want to spend my life with you, and I don’t know what I was scared of. But seeing you tonight, signing that marriage licence without an ounce of doubt, it made me realise I don’t want to wait.”

“I don’t want to wait either,” I told him. The mere thought of it and I had to palm my cock, making Kira laugh.

Then, ruining the moment, my cell phone rang. The phone number of the FC scrolled across my screen. “Hello?”

“Matt? It’s Jamaal.”

“Hey, man. Wassup?”

“Uh, Claude’s here. She said that you said if she ever needed you, she should come here and get one of us to call you. Is that okay?”

“Yes, of course. Is she still there? Is she okay?”

“Think she’s all right. I asked her where Ruby was, she just said she wanted me to call you.”

Goddammit. “We’re on our way.”

* * * *

Claude was upset. She was obviously relieved when we got there, but a little embarrassed I think that she’d had to ask for us to come get her. She was quiet and didn’t say much even when we asked her questions—just that Ruby had had to go somewhere and she’d got scared.

Even when we got home, she kind of clung to Oscar, always touching his neck, his ears, his collar. She ate less than half a sandwich for dinner and just wanted to go to bed. I tucked her in, and Oscar laid himself down on the floor at the side of her bed.

I stood, leaning against the doorway for ten minutes and watched her toss and turn. Yes, I was mad at Ruby, but I was heartbroken for this little girl. Kira eventually took my hand and led me to the kitchen. He didn’t say a word, just leaned me against the kitchen cupboards and wrapped his arms around me. 

After the longest, most needed hug, he pulled away only to cup my face in his hands and kiss my forehead, the tip of my nose and my lips. “She’ll be okay,” he said softly. “She’s safe here.” 

I nodded and sighed deeply. “I think I’m going to have to report her to child services,” I whispered, the words sounded strained and horrible. “I probably should have in the very beginning. I
know
I should have. But I wanted to trust them. But now this…” I shook my head. “Kira, she can’t survive out there on her own. What if some sicko found her? I mean, Jesus. You don’t want to know what I’ve seen happen to kids on the streets, Kira. There is shit that haunts me still.” 

Kira frowned. “No, I don’t want to know.” 

“I know I have to call them, but she’ll never forgive me for handing her in to the authorities.” 

Kira held my hands between us, twisting our fingers together. “Talk to Ruby tomorrow. Don’t make any decisions tonight.” He sighed. “I love you, Matt. I really do,” Kira said seriously.

“I love you, too,” I said. “And thank you.” I played with his fingers. It had been pretty shit day, but something else had been bothering me. “Kira, babe, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why do you tell me you love me, like that? Like you think I wake up every day and have forgotten? Because I won’t ever—forget that is. I mean, I love that you tell me, and I tell you every day too, but you say it so… I don’t know…seriously? I don’t think that’s the right word…”

Kira sighed. He looked to the floor between us, and for a long moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Because I can’t remember if I told you enough, before… Before you went undercover. I mean, I know I did, but maybe it wasn’t enough…”

I took his face in his hands. “Look at me,” I said. “Everything you did was perfect. Everything. It was me that fucked it up, not you. You did everything right. It was me,
me
, who took it all for granted, who couldn’t deal with the guilt and what you went through. So don’t think you did anything wrong, okay?”

He nodded, and I pulled him against me. He tightened his arms around me. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I whispered.

Kira sighed and stood up straight. “Come on, bed time. This day just needs to end,” he said. He walked to the door and turned off the kitchen light, held out his hand and waited for me to take it. 

When we climbed into bed, Kira wrapped his arm around me until his breathing evened out and he settled in to sleep. There was no attempt at sex, no mention of our earlier conversation about ditching condoms. My heart and head just weren’t up for it.

Sleep didn’t come easily. I stayed awake listening for sounds from Claude, and because my hearing was only half what it used to be, I got up a few times just to check on her.

* * * *

I was up first. I let Oscar out to go pee and Claude came out not long after. “New PJs look good, Claude,” I said, trying to be cheerful, when the truth was I was tired as hell and felt like crap.

I sat Claude at the table with a bowl of cereal then went in and climbed over Kira’s still-sleeping body. I kissed his shoulder and rubbed his ass. “Time to get up, sleepyhead. And put some pants on. Claude’s here, remember?”

He chuckled into the pillow, and I swatted his ass as I walked back out.

Kira went for a run while I watched Claude play with Oscar, then later, on his way to work,
Kira dropped me and Claude off at the FC. Ruby wasn’t there waiting for her, and as the morning went on—as his class with Arizona came and went—he never showed.

She watched the door and even though we tried to keep her busy, she was distracted and miserable.

Then half way through my lesson with the kids in the afternoon, he came in. He was wearing his UFC shorts we’d given him, his hideous fluorescent green hightop sneakers and a sleeveless T-shirt I hadn’t seen him wear before. New or stolen, I didn’t know. His clothes didn’t matter, because something else stood out to me more than anything else.

His eyes were glazed over.

He had a stupid, shit-eating smirk on his face.

And my anger went from zero to really fucking high in one heartbeat. “Cody,” I called out. “Take my class for me?” I didn’t wait to see if he came over, I walked towards my office door. I pointed at Ruby. “My office. Now.”

I waited for him to walk in, he took his sweet time and I got fucking angrier with every chemically-slow step he took. I followed him in and shut the door behind us. My open door policy didn’t apply here.

I bit back my anger as best I could. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Ruby took a step back and his heavy-lidded eyes widened. All his reactions were slow.

“Fuck, Ruby, what did you take?”

Ruby shrugged and frowned. “Dunno.”

“What did it look like?”

He shrugged again, but didn’t speak.

“Who gave it to you? You know what? Never mind, I already know. I told you to stay away from them, Rueben. They will do nothing but see you dead. So you do them some favours and they give you some cash, some pills, some powder. I know you think the easy cash is the way to go, but fuck, Ruby. You’ve got a real start here!”

Ruby shrugged again, like he couldn’t care less. “Cash is cash, man. Need it to buy food and stuff for Claude. Can’t be stayin’ at that shit hole you took us to. Claude hated it.” His head lolled back a little and his dilated eyes took a second to focus on me. “Just tryin’ to look after her.”

“Look after her?” I pointed my finger at him. “You’re not fit to look after her.” I was so pissed off. “Do you know she came here last night and asked Jamaal to call me because she was alone and scared? She has spent last night and today miserable and worried sick about you!”

The kid paled and I took a moment to calm down. Don’t get me wrong, I was still angry. Jesus, I wanted to grab this kid by the scruff of the neck and show him what he was throwing away. But that’s all he was. A kid. A kid trying to do the best he could. I thought I’d taught him, shown him, there was a better life for him. He just had to work for it. “I get that you need money. I understand that. I get that you want a better life, and you think the promise of quick cash is the answer, but I’m telling you, it’s not.”