This chapter is way longer than I thought it would be! I couldn't resist writing all the parts and at this point, I can't stop myself at a thousand words. If it's short, great, but these days it hasn't been, and I'm going to take that as an improvement. I'm happy with my writing, I hope you guys are too. I really love these characters, they all mean a lot to me, I hope they mean something to you.
Next up? The climax of the Khary Arc. I can't honestly call it the ending because there will be the aftermath, but this is what I've been hyping up for a while, and I'm so, so, so excited for you all to see it.
Enjoy!
Wasabi had some regrets. He felt terrible about shutting Luca down when he was so excited about something, so, like Wasabi had said he could, Luca had invited his friend Zayne over for dinner. Wasabi had gently drawn the line at a sleepover but with Zayne and Scout coming over things were getting out of hand. He was in charge of dinner, of course, not wanting to put pressure on his 17-weeks-pregnant wife who was starting to really show a baby bump. Of course, he thought that GoGo was gorgeous as always but that didn't mean she wasn't tired and a little grouchy, also not excited about the prospect of an extra dinner guest.
But Luca was so excited, so happy. He assured both his parents that Zayne wasn't actually a bad kid, an argument Luca had never had to make about kids who weren't bad kids. Luca had never had to sit his parents down and tell them that Scout or the Hunters or any of the people who had paraded through their old apartment in search of a headshot wasn't a bad kid. The fact that this argument was being made for Zayne wasn't reassuring.
"I wouldn't mind as much if this was one of your students. You keep saying that you're going to have them over for a barbecue," GoGo grumbled the morning of, getting ready to make sure her kids were eating breakfast.
"Maybe in May. Closer to finals, when everyone needs a break."
"I need a break," GoGo retorted.
"I know darling. I love you!"
"I love you too." GoGo left him dressing for Friday classes and went to check on her kids. Surprisingly enough only Reese was outside and ready, though the opposite was usually true.
"Where's your brother?" Reese shrugged and gestured towards the stairs.
"Luca!" GoGo yelled upstairs, "Hurry up, mister! You're not missing breakfast!"
"Be down in a minute!"
"Hey, mom?" Reese started.
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Can I wear makeup?" That came out of nowhere, but GoGo was prepared.
"Oh, sure. You're thirteen. I can help you get some."
"So… Could Luca wear makeup?" Leiko blinked in surprise.
"Well, he's also thirteen, so… Yeah."
"Luca! Mom said yes!" Reese yelled up the stairs. The door to his bedroom opened and GoGo's thirteen-year-old swaggered downstairs, wearing eyeliner and mascara. GoGo stared at him for a second before smiling.
"Wow, your eyes really pop, Luca."
Luca beamed, "Thanks, mom."
"So what made you want to wear makeup?" GoGo asked, making sure he was eating before grabbing some breakfast for herself.
"Well, a lot of my friends are really good with makeup, and they do it when they're here and some of them have been teaching me how to do it and it seemed really fun and artistic and also like, Uncle Khary wears makeup on and off the stage, so… And I know some people will think it's girly but that's stupid because you can be as masculine or feminine as you want and it doesn't really matter what you put on your face, right?"
"Right. I don't wear a lot of makeup and I keep my hair pretty short but I'm still a woman. You and Khary wear makeup and you're still you. Your dad and I fully support this."
"So dad's not going to freak out?"
"He didn't freak out over Khary wearing makeup, did he?"
"Thanks, mom. This is what I'm comfortable with right now but we'll see how things change. I'm excited to try new stuff."
"I'm proud of you for trying new things. It's good. And if you think you already know who you are," she glanced at her daughter with a proud, maternal smile, "that's good too."
Recently Reese had started seeing a counselor, talking through her occasionally panic-inducing introversion, not because she needed to change who she was but because she wanted to be more comfortable being herself. Not every session felt like it was helping but every session was a step towards a goal. Luca didn't know if he would pursue therapy himself any time soon, but it made him happy to see someone helping his sister, and it made him think about what he could change and improve in his own life. A little mascara was the start of a revolution.
"So Shane is coming over for dinner?" Reese asked, actually really proud of her brother's little revolution but only showing it by her willingness to bring up the makeup.
"His name is Zayne and you know it," Luca said with a laugh.
"Oh, that reminds me of a name I saw, Seamus. Seamus Elliot."
"Are we still on Elliot?" GoGo asked, smiling a little because she thought it was cute that they were still bickering over first names but had both settled on Elliot without as much as a second thought.
"Oh yeah. Brother or sister, their middle name is going to be Elliot," Luca said, very seriously.
"Sounds good. Your dad and I like it," she said with a smile.
"Good, because it's settled," Reese said with no real authority, "so, Seamus?"
"I don't know. It's not my favorite. It sounds cool, but is it?"
"Sparrow."
"Sparrow Elliot doesn't sound good."
"Okay that's fair but I really like Raven and we can't use it because of my stupid name."
"Reese Renee!" GoGo scolded, "Your name was very carefully chosen."
"Raven Elliot does sound nice though," Luca said sadly.
"What about Wren, that's another type of bird."
"Nah, we said no W names because of Wesley. Why are you hung up on birds anyway, Reese?"
"I don't know, I like birds. Birds are cool. And we're trying to find a cool people name for baby."
"Baby Elliot. Just Baby. That'll be their name."
"No," GoGo interjected, "anyways, you two need to hurry up we have to get to school."
"Alright, sorry mom. We'll think more about this later. Mallory?"
"Mallory is pretty. Mallory Elliot…" Reese sang. She'd been singing more, snippets of musicals that Khary had played for them, random phrases, potential baby names. Luca joined in on her joyous symphony occasionally, always happy to see Reese happy.
"Uriah," Luca pitched in as they got in the car.
"No, we vetoed Vowel names. It's not the trend in this family." GoGo stifled a laugh from the front seat. The fact that this discussion had been going on for almost 12 weeks now always brightened her day. It warmed her heart that they both cared so much about their future sibling.
"Ah well, we'll figure it out later," Luca said flippantly, "we have a while before the baby gets here. And we'll be able to narrow it down after the gender reveal."
"Right… The gender reveal. It's not too late to not have a party!" GoGo said, trying to encourage a different outcome.
"We're totally having a party," Luca assured.
"That's what I was afraid of. Have a good day at school, kiddos!" Leiko couldn't exactly say how proud she was of those two. But they had her entire heart.
Most of Luca's table was incredibly supportive of his new explorative look. Most of his table revered him as the king of middle school. Most of his table wasn't Zayne Diaz.
"It's kind of girly, man," Zayne said critically as the rest of the table set to talking about a new urban legend about a guy with wings stalking the city.
"That's not really an insult," Luca pointed out, "one of my favorite people in the entire world is a girl, after all."
"Reese doesn't count," Zayne said, brushing the comment off.
"Excuse me? What?" Luca asked in surprise.
"I mean Reese is butch. She's probably a lesbian-"
"To the extent of my knowledge, Reese is not a lesbian. Not that it's any of your business, or any of mine to out her if I knew she was one. This isn't really an appropriate conversation. And it's not really appropriate to say that my sister doesn't count as a girl because she dresses in a way that you don't consider traditionally feminine and might not share the same sexual orientation as you." Luca didn't shy away from defending his sister. Ever.
"Dang, Luca, I didn't mean it like that-"
"It doesn't really matter what you meant, Zayne. You're allowed to think whatever you want about me and my sister but try to have some tact when voicing your opinion. There are THINK posters around the school for a reason. If it's not true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, or kind I don't really want it to be spread around my table or, tonight, in front of my parents."
"Dang, Luca…"
"You're still my friend, Zayne. As I said, I can't stop you from thinking certain things and I'd never want to stop you from being who you are but if the things you say are hurting someone that I care about I'm going to ask you to keep them to yourself."
"O-okay."
"I'm really looking forward to you meeting my mom and dad tonight."
"Yeah…" Zayne was a little surprised that he was still invited.
"Scout will be there, hope you don't mind. He's kind of become part of the family lately."
"Oh, okay."
"You can just ride the trolley with us after school, we'll head straight there. I'm hyped to show you my new room. You know I've been doing a bunch of different art pieces for the walls, really makes it pop. Your expertise would be a big help." Zayne had settled comfortably back into the conversation now that his head wasn't getting bitten off.
"I'd be happy to help."
"You can tell me what colors you think would be good for an abstract piece when you see what me and Scout have already done. Scout's got more of a cool cartoon style, and I like to draw landscapes, so we have some of those separately, and some of those combined. But your art is amazing, dude, and I'd be so excited to see what you could do with a challenge, I'm so excited to work with you on something." Zayne didn't mean to, but he was blushing from the compliments, more excited about this afternoon than he'd expected to be.
Because there was going to be a strange boy in her house, and because she was understandably achy and tired from pregnancy, GoGo took a half-day and did some of her work from home, there to meet the twins, Scout, and Zayne when they got back from school that afternoon.
"Hey, mom this is Zayne Diaz! Zayne, this is my mom!" Zayne stared at her for a second, his eyes boggling.
"Nice to meet you, ma'am," he managed weakly after a minute.
"We're going upstairs to maybe do some art stuff! Reese, you're welcome to join us."
Reese snorted, "As if. I'll be outside." Reese headed out to shoot some baskets and Luca and his posse ran upstairs.
"Dude," Luca said when they were in the privacy of his room, "why were you staring at my mom?"
"I didn't know she was pregnant! And I didn't know she was like, white!"
"She's not white, she's Korean," Luca said with a shrug, "and yeah, Reese and I are about to have another little brother or sister. In a few weeks, we'll find out the gender and I'm super excited because we get to name them and it's gonna be so much easier if we know the gender. But we already have a gender-neutral middle name picked out, it's gonna be Elliot. Mom and dad like it."
"Luca, I THINK that this is necessary and definitely true," Zayne said, goofing a little bit, "but you talk a lot." Luca laughed.
"Yeah, I know. What do you think of the room so far?" Zayne spun around in a circle, looking at the carefully painted cityscapes, lots of neat, identical buildings, one closely in the style of City Rising. Some of the street shots included cutesy comic characters drawn over it, chibi dragons, not-so-monstrous monsters, etc.
"Cool…" Zayne said, staring at one of Luca's paintings with particular admiration, "Ms. Denver definitely didn't teach you that."
"Eh, I use a lot of reference photos. I'll take a picture and then try to draw or paint it later."
"Everyone uses reference photos," Scout said with a shrug, "you don't just wake up one-morning drawing chibi dragons. Well, Zayne might not use reference photos for abstract…"
"Just reference feelings…" Zayne said with a shrug.
"Can I… Can I make you something?" Zayne asked, "Like, for your room?"
"I'd love that!"
"I'd need to do it here, and I need to borrow paint… Mine got taken away."
"Oh, I'm sorry man, that sucks. Why'd it get taken away?"
"Before we moved here," Zayne mumbled, "I uh… I did some graffiti… Not much! Nothing really horrible. But my dad freaking snapped at me, you know? So now I just have to do pen and pencil stuff. He'd be livid if he knew I was painting again outside of art class but I think it would be different if I had a real canvas…"
"For sure! You're a talented artist. I'm happy to provide whatever you need for a project. For as many projects as you want or need to make. You can paint here any time, as long as I'm around to watch and collaborate."
"Thanks, man. I bet it'll feel good to create again."
"We can start now if you'd like."
"I'd like to, but I'm not ready to start painting right now. If you have some spare sketch paper I'd be happy to start laying out a possible design… A lot of what I do is random but I like to have a bit of a road map to work off of…"
"Sure. It could be fun to just draw together." Luca distributed a couple of sheets of sketch paper to each of them, "We'd have more room to draw if we went downstairs and sat at the counter." Scout gathered pencils into his arms, ready to make the move.
"That won't be awkward?" Zayne asked.
"Why would it be awkward?" Luca wondered.
"You know, hanging out around your mom? Wouldn't that be weird?"
"No… I like spending time with my mom. Do you not spend time with your mom?"
"My mom's not really in the picture. She kinda… Left. My dad and I don't exactly hang out."
"I'm sorry, Zayne, I didn't know."
"No one knows. It's fine. It's whatever."
"You remind me of JD," Luca said thoughtfully.
"Jay, what? What are you talking about?"
"There's this kid in this musical-"
"Ugh, musicals," Zayne muttered.
"This really crazy musical Heathers. Not that I'm trying to undermine your experiences, you just remind me of this guy in the musical. Not completely though because he went crazy and ended up killing people…" Zayne laughed out loud.
"You think I'm gonna kill people, Luca?"
"No! Of course not! Because you have an outlet. You have art."
"Not if my dad had any say in the matter."
"Well… He doesn't. You obviously shouldn't be vandalizing property but you also shouldn't be kept from creating. Like I've been saying, you have real talent. No one should stop you from expressing that."
"Thanks, Luca." They left his room, heading downstairs. Luca briefly explained what was going on to his mother, who promised not to intrude. After a while Reese came in and began to work on her homework alongside the artists, the four of them continually discussing baby names and rejecting the names Serenity, Maria, Garfield, and Kurt. A little while later Wasabi came home with dinner, take-out from one of their favorite hole-in-the-wall Asian places, and they all settled in to eat.
"So, Zayne, it's pretty clear from the drawings on the counter that you're an artist. Is there anything else we should know about you?" Wasabi asked.
Zayne shifted a little in the spotlight, chewing and swallowing the bite he'd been taking and struggling to think up the right words to say. The things he'd just confided in Scout and Luca certainly weren't it. He didn't want to open up about his broken family, having no way of knowing that Luca's parents came from broken families of their own.
"Oh, well, uh… I moved here from Nevada, Vegas to be specific… Um… That's it. I'm not really that interesting."
"Do you play any sports or instruments?"
"My dad plays the piano so I've learned a bit. He used to work for a hotel as an entertainer but he had to leave, 'cause of reasons, so he does plumbing and odd jobs now. But no. I never learned much about music, just a song or two. I've played tennis, but not competitively. I'm rubbish at all of it anyway."
"That's interesting," Wasabi encouraged, trying to make the boy feel at home. Luca's little lecture about THINKing before you talked greatly influenced how nice of a boy the Tomagos saw him as. The hospitality was new and strange to Zayne and he really didn't want to mess it up.
"Thanks. Uh… What should I know about you guys?"
"Oh, uh, I'll start," Wasabi offered, "I'm a professor at SFIT. I teach Applied Physics and a few other classes."
"That's cool," Zayne said with a nod, then he looked towards GoGo, not staring this time.
"I'm also a teacher, except I teach Elementary science," GoGo said with a shrug.
"Nice, nice," Zayne didn't say it but he wondered how two extremely average students could come from a family of teachers.
There was silence at the table for a minute before GoGo spoke up, "Do you have any siblings, Zayne?"
"None that I know of," Zayne said with a shrug, giving them just enough of a glimpse into his home life.
"Same," GoGo said, which was kind of comforting to him.
"Thanks for having me over," Zayne said quietly, "this is nice."
"We're happy to have you. We always like to meet Luca's friends. You're welcome whenever."
"Thank you so much. I'll be sure to take you up on that."
