Page 29 of Scoring Eden

Aspen grunts. “Speak for yourself.”

“And as for the purse you mentioned…” I arch my brow.

“I was kidding.” She considers that. “Well, actually, whether or not I was kidding is dependent on your agreement.”

Fuck it.

She can have the damn purse.

There’s nothing left for me to do here, so I leave the sisters to it. I made a promise to a brown-eyed, tousle-haired ten-year-old, and I plan to keep it before I have to go.

“Eden?” I twitch my head in the direction of Macon’s bedroom door. “Macon wanted to show me his room. Is that okay with you?”

She nods. “He’ll only challenge you to a duel if you don’t.”

“Well, I better not tarnish my honor, then.” I pretend to tip my cap to her. “I’ll leave the door open.”

Macon is wearing a pair of dark shades and a fedora when I step inside. His face lights up when he sees me, an enormous grin overtaking his little face.

His bedspread is dark blue and printed with planets, stars, and spaceships. His walls are a similar shade, adorned with an enormous Hamilton poster hung above his headboard. In one corner stands what can only be described as a fedora display case and, in another, a life-size cardboard cutout of Bruno Mars.

At the sight of me, he shoves something under his comforter.

“Cool room,” I tell him, looking around at the clashing themes that I’m assuming illustrates different facets of his personality. “I’d have loved this when I was a kid.”

He straightens. “Really? What was your room like?”

It strikes me then how Macon is the age I was when Brynn’s and my parents died. I’d been real big into superhero comics until then, and my room was a shrine to them. Where Macon’s bedspread is space-themed, mine had been covered with every character in the Marvel Universe. If you’d asked me then what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d have said Captain America.

My room was just another of the things I lost when we found ourselves on the front steps of the Poppy Fields Children’s Home. At the time, I hadn’t really thought about it at all. I had a devastated six-year-old little sister counting on me to look out for her, and I’d thrown myself into the role of her protector without question. Everything else, my room, the comics, the skateboard I used to ride up and down our street, I left behind.

And now, looking down at Macon, whose excitement is so innocent and untarnished by grief, it makes me realize how young I was to shoulder such responsibility. No kid should have to go through what I did at that age. And I don’t resent it, the role I took on, but deep down in the pit of everything I’ve suppressed over the years, there’s a flicker of something that still mourns for Little Alex and the childhood he gave up.

God, Dr. Sharma would have a field day if I admitted this to her.

Remembering that Macon just asked me a question, I shoot him a bright smile. “Nothing as cool as yours.”

He beams under the praise, lifting a gaming console from his nightstand, and pats the space next to him on the bed. “Wanna play on the Switch with me?”

I shake my head. “Don’t you have to leave for school in a minute? But we could totally do it another time.”

His face falls, and a mist of dejection has his shoulders wilting. “Oh, yeah, okay.”

“What’s with the long face, kiddo?”

He shrugs and picks at the thread of his comforter.

I cross the room toward him and kneel to bring us eye level. “You don’t believe me that we’ll play another time?”

His head twitches in something that barely resembles a nod. “When my dad says ‘another time,’ he doesn’t really mean it.”

Fucking Sebastian.

“Well, I do, okay? Wanna pinky swear?”

He grins, holding out his pinky finger for me.

“I, Alex Wolfe, hereby promise thee, Macon…” Shit, I don’t know his last name.