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A bunch of empty cans were tossed onto the coffee table and a pizza box sat wide open with three flies buzzing around the two pieces that were left.
His stomach panged.
He wasn’t allowed to have any since she said it was only for adults.
He forced himself to look back at her. “I got it all done. I swear.”
She grunted. “Like your lying words mean a thing.”
The man who’d stayed for the last three nights lifted his can of beer and drained it. “Let him go. Don’t need him hanging around while you crawl up here on my lap.”
The man grabbed himself, and Trevan wanted to vomit. He didn’t stick around to see what happened next.
He threw open the door and started to run down the rickety porch steps.
Only he jerked to a stop when he saw the activity across the street.
A minivan that wasn’t normally there was parked in the driveway, and the hatch was up with a bunch of boxes stuffed in the back.
He squinted against the bright summer sun when he noticed a little girl sitting on the top porch step.
She had brown hair that was braided into pigtails, and she hugged a doll to her chest.
Rocking it like maybe she thought it was crying.
He hesitated for a second, something in his stomach twisting like a spun-up rubber band, a weird feeling stirring a new thunder in his heart as he stared across at her.
She must have been one of Ms. Stoughton’s grandkids she told him about.
The little girl looked upset, he thought, and he didn’t like that.
Because she looked the kind of upset he felt whenever his mom was mean to him.
He looked both ways before he jogged across the street and up the sidewalk that cut through the middle of Ms. Stoughton’s yard.
The old lady who was really nice. She sneaked him food a lot when his mom wasn’t paying attention, keeping it secret since his mom said they weren’t charity cases.
When the little girl saw him coming, her eyes widened.
“Hi,” he said, waving his ball in the air. “I live right across the street. I’m Trevan. Trevan Niles.”
Still hugging her doll, she gave him a timid smile. “Y-you want to be my friend?”
A chuckle rolled out of him since she was so much younger than him. “Sure. If you want me to be.”
His gaze narrowed as he studied her.
“Is Ms. Stoughton your grandma?” he asked as he tossed the ball into the air and caught it.
Her nose scrunched up in confusion. “Ms. S-stoughton?”
She had a little stutter, and it was pretty cute.
“The lady who lives here.”
“You m-mean my meems?”
“Meems?” It was his turn to be confused.
