Page 20 of Heart of a Hero

“This sucks,” he whined.

Mom smiled. “I take it you really like him.”

“I do. But Lizzie seeing him could get Forrest in trouble, and I don’t want to do that. Things between us are going well, and he’s nice and makes me happy. But we agreed that Lizzie is the most important thing, so we’re keeping her mostly in the dark. I feel a little like I’m sneaking around, and I don’t like it. But I’d rather be careful and see him than have to break things off.”

“Hey. Lizzie is only in his class for a year, and then she moves on, and the two of you can date if you want. Heck, it’s only nine months, and one of them is nearly over. In the terms of relationships, that’s not very long.” She patted his hand and got up to pour them each a mug of coffee before returning to the table. “And I can help. If you want to go out, I can take Lizzie a few nights. She and I have a lot of fun. There’s an art class downtown in the evenings that we can take together. It’s every Thursday, and that means that the two of you can have a date night. If that works for both of you.”

Conrad smiled and kissed his mom’s cheek. “You’re the best.”

“I know,” she retorted cheekily, and Conrad texted the idea to Forrest.

THURSDAY AFTER work, Conrad hurried home. Forrest had said that he’d bring dinner, so he unlocked the basement door and hurried down the stairs. He got a ladder and climbed up to release the bolt that held their previous model in place. Then he slowly raised the cable before securing it in place once more. Now it was a foot from the ceiling and well out of the way. Once he put the ladder away, he heard a knock and let Forrest inside.

“I picked up Italian—I hope that’s okay. I got spaghetti with meat sauce and penne with vodka sauce. I figured we could share.”

“Good idea.” Conrad kissed Forrest quickly and then took the containers. He got out plates and dished up the pasta before putting the salads, bread, and ice water on the table, and they sat down to eat. “Any ideas on what you want to build?”

“Me?”

“Sure. It helps to think of a basic theme. From there you can nail it down. Like, if you want to do a castle, then we can come up with one. But those have been done. I like animals and creatures, things that come from your imagination. If I want to build a replica of something real, then I buy a set, but otherwise, I let my imagination run wild.” He took a bite of the penne and groaned. It was so good. “I love this stuff.”

“Me too,” Forrest agreed and grinned.

“What?”

“How about a dancing cheetah?” Forrest offered. “Or a cheetah dancing with a lion. We would need to create characters that would be doing unnatural movements, but we’d have to make them look like they were supposed to do that.”

Conrad nodded. “Cool. We could try that.”

“You don’t like the idea.”

“It’s a good idea. I guess I was thinking something along the line of a fire motorcycle. Or a car that flies. But I like what you have. It’s fanciful, and we could make it funny. Like, they could be dancing, and cubs are trying to catch their tails or something. We could even make them move as the whole scene revolved.” He was grinning now.

“I take it you love gears tech things?” Forrest asked.

“It gives the model energy and adds complexity. Making a static model is cool, but one where pieces move and turn just helps bring it to life. You can also go huge. For a competition, a partner and I once did a retro rocket nine feet tall, and we got it to stand on the fins. It was hollow, with reinforcements spanning the space every two layers. He made the shell, and I did the spacers to give it strength and keep it from getting too heavy. It was stunning and impressive. We even had a window with astronauts inside. That piece is one I wish I had here, but it was too big to bring back and there was no way it would travel.”

“So you didn’t do any effects with it?”

Conrad cackled like a cartoon villain. “Wrong. I had three smoke machines in it, so it made a heck of a show at blastoff. There were also lights, so the smoke really looked like it had fire under it. The piece was amazing, and it won me one of the championship trophies.” He was so proud of that piece. It was too bad they’d had to dismantle it.

They finished eating and went downstairs, where Forrest started on the cheetah, getting the basic body crafted. “You’re going to have to watch the stud placement, because we’re going to need to add spots. And we want them to be irregular, so look for black pieces you can combine.”

“Cool.”

Conrad got started on the base and decided to make a record player. That way he could hide the gears and things to make the dancers spin and turn. What he really wanted was a way to alter the movement so it appeared random instead of completely repetitive, and he devised that by using multiple gears and a transmission to shift between them. They worked for a few hours and got partway done before Conrad set down his bricks.

“Is it about that time?” Forrest asked.

“Yeah. Time seems to fly so quickly.” He organized what he’d been doing and then set everything aside. “I’ve worked with a number of partners over the years, but I’ve never worked with someone as easily as you. I mean, I always had to direct everything, but you just know what to do from what we go over, and you go with it.”

“I’m still getting the cheetah down right.”

“Yeah, but it’s the right size, and you have some really interesting shapes. The rest we can work with.” He bumped Forrest’s shoulder as footsteps sounded above them. “Let’s go.”

They left the basement and closed the door. “Mr. Scoville!” Lizzie cried happily, hurrying to him for a hug. “Are you teaching Daddy?”

“Your father and I are working on some projects together. Is that okay?” Forrest asked. “It’s not for school, though.”