Chapter 11

Iended up eating with the Bucurs after all.

Somehow Dash managed to herd his entire family back upstairs. There certainly were a lot of them. I think there were a few new ones since I’d last seen them.

Mr. Bucur went into the garage and found some wood to board up the broken window while DT proved surprisingly proficient at frog wrangling. After photographing everything I could and putting the pieces of the bomb into the plastic bags one of the many children brought down for me, I joined the family upstairs. Vacuuming up the glass could wait.

I found them all gathered in the large kitchen. The room was overly warm and redolent with the scent of fresh bread and whatever Mrs. Bucur had cooking on the stove.

The space had been expanded and redecorated since I’d been there last. The largest wooden table I’d ever seen in a private home filled most of the area. Twelve people fit around it. Dash, his brother and sister, their spouses, and all but one of the kids sat on benches on either side of the trestle table, the kids were in the middle of the benches, the adults at the ends. Mr. Bucur and Dash’s mysterious godmother, Aunt Agrippina, sat at the ends.

That left four, including me. DT was perched on a counter, clutching his bowl to his chest like someone might try and take it from him. Ileana Bucur hovered near the stove, tasting things and keeping an eye on the family. Not sure where to stand, I hovered near her. Dash sat on the side of the table facing me.

The youngest of the cousins, a little girl I think was called Freddy, sat on a high stool at her grandmother’s elbow. Mama Bucur said something to Freddy and she nodded seriously, her eyebrows drawing together in concentration.

Freddy was adorable. Her thick, wavy, dark hair was pulled back into two puffballs on either side of her head. She had a pink t-shirt that sported a unicorn with rainbows for wings on it, a pair of stretchy pants on her skinny legs, and pink cowboy boots. Suddenly, she sat up and gave a yelp, eyes wide.

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, I snapped my arm out and caught the small frog before it plopped into the giant pot of stew. I held it in my cupped hand.

Freddy covered her mouth with her hands again and her big brown eyes shimmered with tears. “I’m sorry!”

Ileana said something comforting to her in Romanian and gave her a gentle hug.

“It’s okay. Look, he’s fine.” I opened my hands a tiny bit to show her the bright green frog sitting in them, unharmed. His sides puffed in and out as he breathed.

She skooched down and peered into my hands. “He’s so tiny!”

Her mom, Jennifer, wasn’t as easily appeased. “You can’t keep…manifesting frogs, m?mic?. It’s not sanitary!”

“At least it’s not snakes,” her brother pointed out.

“Or poop!” A boy who looked only a little bit older than Freddy cackled like a madman at his own comment. Elizabeta leaned back and reached around the two kids closest to her to smack the boy gently on the back of the head. “No poop jokes at the table.”

I tried to hide my smile. God, I loved this family. They were the polar opposites of my uptight, WASPish one. My mother never cooked a day in her life and would never been caught dead eating in the kitchen. My sister would probably have a stroke if her son even muttered the word poop. Not that I’d seen any of them in several years.

Since against all odds it seemed like the family didn’t hate me for hurting Dash, I took a risk and offered my help. “Jennifer and Florin, with your permission, I can help her gain some control over her power. I have several exercises I use with my students. Mostly meditation and breathing, that kind of thing.” I made a mental note to look up some resources specifically for children.

Florin nodded in agreement and Jennifer sighed in relief. “That would be amazing. In the meantime, I guess I should put this one outside with the rest.”

I took another peep at the frog. “I don’t think he’s native to San Francisco. Maybe we can keep this one?”

Freddy brightened up and turned pleading eyes on her parents. “We’ll talk,” Florian said. From the smile on his face, I had a feeling he had a hard time telling her no.

“I think this one is a sun.” The man sitting next to Elizabeta said out of nowhere, then held up a picture of a circle with wiggled lines coming out of it. I noticed that several of the pieces of paper were being passed around the table.

“Could be a flower,” a girl who looked to be about ten years old said. “Jimmy’s flowers look like that.”

“My flowers are better than that!” Jimmy turned out to be name of the kid making poop jokes.

Mrs. Bucur shoved a bowl of stew and a spoon into my hands. All of a sudden, I was starving in spite of the burgers we’d eaten earlier. Healing took a lot out of a person.

I leaned against the counter. “So, what do we think is up with the drawings?” I asked the room at large. This situation was already so far out of my hands there was no point trying to contain the information.

“Well, whoever did it was no artist.” Florian showed us his contribution. “What do we think? Vase? Soda bottle?”

“It’s poison.”

We all turned to look at the teenaged boy who had spoken. “And you are?”

“Nicky. I’m theirs.” He pointed to Elizabeta and the man with the maybe-sun, who I kind of recognized.

“What makes you think it’s poison?” Dash asked.

“Skull and crossbones.” He pointed with his spoon and spoke around a mouthful of stew.

“Huh.” Florian took off his glasses and peered more closely at the drawing. “I thought that was a bug.” He showed it to his wife, who also looked closely at it. “I think Nicky’s right.”

DT leaned forward to see. “Threats, maybe?”

“It would fit in with the whole trying to murder you thing.” Dash motioned for someone to pass the bread.

Yeah, it fit. In that it was fucking stupid. I was beginning to think I was being stalked by an idiot or a child. What kind of criminal threw glitter and pictures through a person’s window?

“Maybe this is a knife, then?” Nicolae said.

Dash held up a piece of bread at me. I nodded, and he tossed it over everyone’s heads to me.

“I thought it was a snake,” one of the several boys said.

“Or possibly an electric eel?” Dash’s eyebrows raised to his hairline.

“Possibly. Jesus. Can I see it?”

“An eel?” Florian said. “Specifically?”

“I’ll explain later.” Dash took the paper from his father. It got passed around until it stopped at the kid closest to me, who appeared to be the oldest girl.

I reached for it, but she pulled it away from me with a glare. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“No. I’m sorry. It’s been a long time.”

“I’m Camelia. Last time you saw me, I was six. We went to the zoo. We got ice cream and sunburn and you and Uncle Dash held my hands and swung me between you.” Her eyes were hard.

“Oh, I remember that. That was a good day.” Dash smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

Camelia looked between us, then turned fully in her chair to confront me. “I thought you were going to become my uncle. What happened?”

Fuck me.

“Camelia!” Jennifer was horrified at her daughter’s behavior, but I only had eyes for Dash. I’d wanted to have this discussion in private, but much like the case, this whole situation had gotten away from me. Besides, you couldn’t really separate Dash from his family. They were a unit. My envy for his life had only grown since I’d first met them.

Dash tilted his head and gave me a tiny, sad smile and a shrug. My call then.

“Life happened.”

She looked unsatisfied with that answer, as she should. It was a bullshit answer but it was all I had. She pressed on. “Are you trying to get him back?”

I couldn’t look away from Dash. “Yes.”

There was a collective gasp, and someone whispered, “I knew it.”

Camelia turned to Dash and then back to me. “Does he know that?”

Didn’t he?

“News to me,” Dash said.

Everyone at the table kept turning their heads from Dash to me and back again like they were watching the Masters Tournament at Wimbledon.

I put the bowl down on the counter behind me. DT held out his wine glass, and I took it gratefully. “There hasn’t really been time to mention it to him. We were just about to talk about it, I swear, when we were glitter-bombed with badly drawn death threats.”

“Well, then.” Silence fell as Aunt Agrippina spoke from her spot at the head of the table. Though she looked to be about a hundred years old, the same as she’d looked ten years ago, her voice was strong. “I suggest you have that talk sooner rather than later. I think you both have things you need to say to each other.”

We certainly did.

“What the heck is this?”

I looked up, expecting to see another random drawing, but Dash was looking at the back of the paper. Everyone who had a paper turned theirs over to look.

I’d dismissed the back of the pictures as unimportant. Looking closer, I realized the papers were actually flyers advertising, in low-res black and white, commemorative plates featuring paintings of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in his various roles. It looked like it was called the “Rocks of Ages” collection. Weird, but I couldn’t see how it mattered.

“That’s art. I must have the whole set immediately.” DT’s cheeks were pink and his eyes were a little glassy. It was a good look on him.

“Could it be important?” I asked, looking at DT and Dash.

“Ask, Dashiell.” Aunt Agrippina made a motion like she was shaking the 8-Ball.

“That thing again?” Florian laughed. “Yeah, bring it out.”

“Maybe later. I don’t have it on me.” To me, Dash seemed reluctant to consult the Magic 8-Ball in front of his family.

Nicolae, who had been mostly silent during dinner, spoke out. “Go get it, Dash. I think this is important.”

When Nicolae Bucur spoke, his family listened. It was out of respect, not fear. He was a strong, quiet man who, against all my expectations, not only welcomed his youngest son’s angry, defensive boyfriend, but did his best to make me feel like part of the family. He made it clear back then that I could come to him with anything. Back then, I hadn’t been in the space to hear that, and to say that I had trust issues around fathers would be putting it mildly. Now, I could only hope he would make that offer again.

I could use some fatherly advice.

“Okay. May I be excused?” Dash’s father nodded, and Dash slid off the bench and left the room. Several of the kids also asked to be excused and were released from the table. They carried their bowls and silverware to the dishwasher, and kissed their grandmother, thanking her for the meal, before leaving. Freddy and Camelia stayed behind.

Nicolae waved me over to the table. “It is good to see you again, Harlan.”

“It’s very good to be back, Mr. Bucur.”

“Call me Nicolae, please. We are all adults here now. You’ve grown up very well.” He reached a long arm to the sideboard near the table and grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass.

“Thank you.” I was probably not going to do that, but I appreciated the offer.

DT hopped off the counter and joined us at the table. “Can I call you Nicolae?”

Nicolae sniffed and poured me a glass of wine. He held the bottle out to DT and raised one bushy eyebrow. DT nodded, so Nicolae refilled DT’s cup and then his own, emptying the bottle. “You call me Tati. Maybe one day, this one will, too.”

I would call him dad if I was lucky. One day, after I convinced Dash to marry me.

Dash came back with the 8-Ball. Despite all the space at the table, he sat down next to me, so close that our thighs touched. I was going to take that as a good sign. When he took my wineglass and drank from it, Aunt Agrippina caught my eye and winked.

I was starting to think there was more to her than met the eye. What would SPAM make of her?

DT studied his Rocks of Ages flyer. “The more I look at these, the worse they get. Or do I mean better? They’ve got everything. Did you see this one?” He pointed to a blurry picture halfway down the page.

I squinted, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. “Are those wings?”

DT nodded vigorously. “From his epic role as the Tooth Fairy.”

Dash ripped the paper out of his hands. “No.” After taking a long swallow of wine, he held the 8-Ball in both hands and shook it hard. “Oh Magic 8-Ball, do these stupid Rocks of Ages plates have anything to do with the assassination attempts on Harlan?”

I looked at him. “Assassination?”

“What else do you call it when someone is trying to kill you?”

He had a point. Huh. Well, fuck. I took my wineglass back.

“What does it say, Dashiell?” Aunt Agrippina asked.

“It says ‘All signs point to yes.’ Well, what do you know. A clue!”

Elizabeta planted both elbows on the table and leaned in my direction. “Why would someone want to assassinate you? Are you somebody special?”

“Not even a little,” Harlan assured her.

“I guess we have some research to do. God, I hope we don’t have to watch all the movies.” Dash shook the ball again. “Are the movies on the plates important?” He looked in the window. “No. Thank god.”

“I thought you liked The Rock.”

“No, you like The Rock. And I…” He trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say. I liked the Rock and he’d liked me.

I sat my wineglass down and sat up straight in the universal language of leaving. “I’m a little tired, and we still have glass to clean up downstairs.”

Camelia gave a pointed cough and shot a look at me from the corner of her eyes. I gave her a nod in return. Message received.

“And Dash and I need to talk. Would it be okay if we left? After we help clean up, of course.”

Aunt Agrippa answered first. “Of course. And don’t worry about cleanup. The boy will help.” We all looked around to see who she was talking about.

DT pointed at himself. “Me?” She nodded, and he broke out in a big smile. “I’m a boy! Awesome.”

The smile she gave him should be in the dictionary under enigmatic. “To me you are.”

Dash drained the wineglass and shoved my leg. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. DT, tomorrow let’s chase down everything we can find about these priceless collectibles.”

DT saluted. “Will do, boss. See you in the office.”

We stood up and Dash hugged his parents goodnight while I chickened out and went for the head nod.

Dash tugged me after him. “Come on. I cannot wait to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

Oh, god. This could go so badly.