When Blink got home that Monday after school, the phone was ringing. Snitch, per usual, plopped on the couch in his wet Doc Martins and made himself at home.

Blink rolled his eye and picked up the phone. The phone was old and rotary, a memento from his grandmother who had occupied the house before his mother and him.

"Hello?" he said into the cracked avocado plastic.

"That's how you greet your father, kiddo?" a jocular voice laughed.

Blink paused. "Dad? Why are you calling?"

"What? I need an excuse to call my own son?"

"Apparently not," he stated. "Since you didn't need one to leave."

There was a long pause. Blink shifted his weight so he leaned on the counter as to not pull on his muscles and cause them to ache from the horrible phone.

"Come on, Blink, don't be like that. I was being smothered," he said. "Your mother…she…was sucking me dry."

He sighed. They had had this conversation—or some variation of it—numerous times. His father refused to take responsibility for ditching them in his wife's hour of need. He had managed to last four years but, when Blink was twelve, got the hell out of dodge. He wanted to tell him that for the past five years, it was sucking him dry and smothering him when she refused to take her meds or didn't take the right ones and hated him for being healthy and young. He wanted to tell him all of that but he didn't.

"Sure, dad," he said tiredly. "Whatever."

"Aw, Kid, don't take that tone with me."

"What tone?"

"That pissed off tone."

There were no nuances in his tone to betray him as being pissed off. He mentioned this to his father.

"I can tell, Kid," he said. "Hey, listen… I've got a free weekend coming up and I was thinking maybe we could go fishing."

"It's December. There's no such thing as fishing in December."

"We could go ice fishing." He sounded desperate.

"I don't like fish, anyway, Dad."

"Well, will you still come out and spend the weekend with me?"

"Why?"

His father sighed. "Because you're my son and I want to spend some time with you."

"What, once every six months?"

"Kid, don't do this. Please."

"Fine." Blink bit down on his lip, resisting the urge to say something he might or might not have regretted later. "I'll think about it."

"Okay. Let me know. And... tell your mom hi for me."

"Will do," he lied. "Bye."

He put the phone back in the cradle, not bothering to listen to his father's next reply.

"Wow," Snitch remarked. "That was so warm; I think I need my gloves again."

"Get your shoes off of the couch," Blink commanded.

He slumped next to Snitch on the threadbare couch, feeling exhausted like he always did after he spoke to the dad.

"Blinky?" his mother mewled from her room. "Who was on the phone?"

"Grandma, Mama," he called. "She wants us over to dinner Sunday."

There was a small sob followed by, "I don't wanna!"

"That's what I said," he continued the lie.

He let his head fall onto Snitch's stretched-out legs, feeling spent.

--

"Look, Mush," David said, setting a tray of cranberry-orange muffins on the counter, "I know you're mad at Spot, but you can't keep this up forever."

Mush sighed, leaning an elbow on the kitchen table where he sat and propping his head up on his hand. "It's not like he's done anything to make me forgive him."

David put a muffin on a plate and set it in front of Mush with a glass of juice. "He apologized to you, Mush. When does Spot Conlon ever apologize to anyone?"

"Exactly. Which makes it hard for me to believe him." He tore off a piece of the muffin, chewing it.

"Or maybe it should be a reason for you to believe him." David sat down next to him at the table, sighing. "You two not talking is making everything around here really awkward."

Mush, impressed with the muffin, continued eating it. "Yeah, but--" he swallowed, then took a drink of orange juice and stopped. "These are really good, Dave."

"Thanks."

"You make 'em from scratch?"

David grinned. "Like there's any other way to bake.

Mush nodded and continued. "Anyway, what I was going to say was, I think Spot needs to think about what he's doing with his life and how it affects the people around him."

"I think he does. Or at least he did Friday night."

"I doubt it." Mush pouted and finished off his muffin, and David promptly brought him another one.

"No, really," David said as Mush peeled the paper off of the muffin. "You should've seen the way he looked when you went back to your room. He looked all lost and hurt and sad."

"Impossible. Spot Conlon has no feelings. He is incapable of human emotion."

"Everyone has feelings, Mush," David said.

Mush sighed. "Dave, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"How come you're always so level-headed? How do you do it?"

David smiled and stood up, turning the oven off. "Probably the same way you're always so nice to everybody." He leaned down and kissed the top of Mush's head just as the front door swung open.

Spot walked in, tailed by a tall boy with shaggy, dark hair. He was quiet as he walked into the kitchen and started to head up the hallway.

"Hey, Spot," David said, smiling. "Do you guys want some muffins?" He picked the tray up off the counter and held it out to the pair of boys.

Spot rolled his eyes and took a muffin off the tray. His companion followed suit and they finished the muffins quickly, to David's pleasure.

"These are really good," Spot's companion said, smiling. "What kind of mix do you use?"

David stared, wide-eyed and red-cheeked, for a moment, before plopping the tray down on the counter and walking quickly out of the kitchen.

--

Lunch on Tuesday was noisy and crowded as usual, and Blink and Snitch decided to forgo the cafeteria and plop down with their lunches in the hallway instead. Snitch went about his business of bugging Blink to spill the details of his disappearance from the club Friday night, and when Blink refused, he shook his head in frustration.

"Whatever, Blink. I don't even want to know, anyway." Snitch sighed, standing up. "I'm going to get a soda. You want one?"

"Nope." Blink bit into his sandwich, leaning his head back against the wall as Snitch wandered off. No sooner had he swallowed the mouthful of ham and cheese than a body planted itself at his left.

"Hey," the person said.

Blink sighed, irritated that he had to turn himself almost entirely around just to be able to see this person. As he did, he was further irked to find Adrian.

"Oh. Hey." Blink swallowed hard, trying to find anywhere to look than at this boy's face.

"Look, um... I just wanted to apologize for my roommate, Spot. You know, the one from Friday, who... yeah, you know. See, he's... he's kind of got this problem." Adrian scratched his head.

"What, does he have to handle some guy's junk once a week or he goes into a manic-depressive low?"

Adrian smirked. "No, his problem is that he's a whore."

"Ah. Well. At least someone realizes that." Blink smiled.

"Yeah," Adrian said, laughing a little bit. "But I figured I'd apologize for him, since he'll never do it, as he'll never see anything he does as wrong. And I wanted to let you know that... well, not everyone who lives there is like that. Just Spot, really. Jack and Dave are really nice and they're together and they're not whores. And Race, he's just, you know... he's a little on the lovesick side but there's no one on the receiving end of it." He smiled. "And me... well, I'm just me, and I'd like to think that I'm nice. So basically, no one else is going to try to molest you."

"Uh... huh..." Blink nodded.

"So, um. We... we could be friends, if you wanted." He actually blushed beneath his dark, oatmeal-colored complexion.

"Oh." Blink smiled, shrugging. "Yeah. Okay."