“Yeah, he’s gonna be tall like his dad.”

My mother. And my father. Well, the man I remembered as my father, before Charlie ruined my fucking life and announced he was actually my dad. My father’s arms are wrapped around my mother’s waist from behind, his chin resting on her shoulder, and two of them watch as a pudgy little baby holds his dimpled arms above his head and takes staggering, teetering steps down a long pathway.

“He’s got your eyes, Paul,” another voice says somewhere in the background. “So dark. He’s gonna terrorize the ladies with those eyes.” My mom turns to the camera—she knows they’re being recorded—and pokes her tongue out at the person filming. “Oh, shut up, Dee. I can’t bear to hear that. He’s never going to grow up. He’s just gonna be my little boy forever and ever.”

Dee, whoever she is, laughs. “You’re going to be the most overprotective mother, aren’t you? Your child’s not going to bring a woman home until he’s already married her for fear you’ll hate her on sight.”

In the background, the baby tumbles backward, landing on his butt. There are enterprising stalks of grass thrusting their way out of the cracked concrete where he’s sitting now, the green blades reaching for the sky. The baby focuses, wrapping a dumpy little fist around a handful, and tries to uproot them.

“No, Zeth. That’s not for eating, baby boy.” My mother frees herself from my father’s embrace and lifts the baby—me—from the ground. She then turns and presents me to the camera, as though I’m a trophy she just can’t bear to stop displaying to the world. Even then my eyes were darker than your average chocolate brown. I reach out with dirty, muddied hands and try slapping them against the lens of the camera.

“No, baby. That’s Duchess’s new camera. You can’t break that. Psycho Charlie will get mad.”

“Hey, please don’t call him that. And don’t call me Duchess, either. I hate it.”

My mother turns her huge, wide eyes on the camera, looking right down the lens.
“Charles Holsan, you’re an arrogant prick and you’ve been treating my best friend like shit. Now put a ring on her finger and a baby in her belly, or leave her the hell alone.” She laughs, her serious expression disintegrating into a broad smile that illuminates her whole face. She looks just like Lacey. Beautiful.

“He’s nowhere near as bad as everyone thinks he is. You should get to know him a little better. He really likes you two.”

“He doesn’t like me. He hates me,” my father says. “I can’t do anything right for the man.”

“He’s just never had an accountant before, Paul. Don’t worry. It’s just his dry English humor. It takes some getting used to. All right, I have to go. You,” the woman, Duchess, says to my mom, her manicured fingernails suddenly visible on screen as she points, “need to remember to show your husband some love. He’ll start to think you’re playing favorites.”

Mom smiles at Paul over her shoulder, hugging me tightly to her chest. “Awww, baby. You know I love you, right?” She breaks out into a wicked smile. “But I do love Zeth more. He came from you and me. He’s perfection. I will never love anything in the world as much as I love this little boy.”

My heart feels like it’s doing somersaults in my chest. My eyes are burning like crazy. I try to shunt myself into a more upright position, but my body is so fucking sore. I need to get up. I need to find Sloane and Michael. I grit my teeth, using a combination of what little upper body strength and momentum I have to lift myself.

A voice speaks out into the darkness, almost right on top of me. I nearly shit my pants. “That was always ’er fucking problem, y’know? She always did love you more than anything or anybody else.”

Charlie Holsan is sitting to my right, comfortably slouched in an upholstered seat. He turns and gives me a clinical once over. “Not lookin’ so hot, my boy. You got a bad ’eadache?”

“Fuck you, asshole.”

“Ha! I fuckin’ love it. You always did have a fuckin’ mouth on you.” Charlie goes back to watching the screen, as though I don’t even exist. I take a moment to look around. No bodyguards. No Sloane. No Michael. No Lacey. No one. Just him and me in an empty movie theater. It’s an old place, traditional. The kind of place with brocaded curtains that draw apart at the beginning of a feature, unveiling the new, fantastical world you’re about to immerse yourself in. No drink holders or recline features on the seats. From the elaborately scrolled cornicing on the ceiling and the grand arch over the screen, this place was definitely built back in the twenties.

I wrestle myself to my knees, and then throw myself back into a chair to my left. “Where are the others, Charlie? Where the hell is Sloane? What the fuck are you up to?”

Charlie holds up a hand, pointing one finger in the air. The video reel of my mother and me starts all over again. Her laughter. Are you ready, baby? Oh my god, Paul. Watch. Watch. Me taking my bumbling first steps down an uneven pathway.

“I loved your mother from the very moment I set eyes on her. Did you know that?” Charlie says, ignoring my question.

I want to cut out the fucker’s tongue just for talking about her. I will not engage in this with him. I will find my friends, and then I will end this miserable bastard’s life. “Where. The. Fuck. Are. They?”

Charlie looks at me again, a small, amused smile on his face. “They’re watchin’ another movie, I’m afraid. They weren’t too keen on this feature. ’Specially not your sister. She’s had a rough few days.”