Chapter 98: Responsibility

“Sure,” I said. “You’d be a good mom.”

Lena squirmed around to face me. When I opened my eyes, I got a closeup of hers, wide and bright, and of the smile that split her face. Then her mouth and eyes narrowed. “Are you just messing with me?”

Her tone snapped me all the way awake. I propped myself up. “Um.”

Lena’s question shouldn’t have surprised me.

I couldn’t watch her light up whenever she got the chance to make a kid happy, listen to her fret over the realization she was technically old enough to be Albie’s mother, and not think she had parenthood on the mind.

No, it shouldn’t have surprised me.

So why did it take me so long to answer?

Long enough her head started to dip toward the mattress. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t... just forget it, okay?”

“I think,” I said, “you’d give your kid a hundred percent.”

She sat up in an instant. “That’s not exactly answering my question, you know.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “You really want a serious answer?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Okay,” I said, which bought me a few seconds to try to bring my brain online. “First of all, let’s both agree about this: as a cool aunt, you’re completely OP.”

“Obvs!” Lena tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and turned her nose up.

The more she preened, the more I realized how nervous this conversation made her.

“You like kids, which puts you ahead of a lot of people,” I said. “More than that, though, you’re good with them. You get on their level somehow.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You’re saying I’m basically a huge baby.”

“Generously, you’re young at heart.” I almost enjoyed her expression too much to kiss it away. Almost. “Tbh, I have no idea how you do it.”

I felt her shrug against me. “I try to make stuff fun. And, like, just complicated enough the kid will get it, but have to think a little to get it? So it makes them feel like they’re in on a grownup secret, you know?”

“Huh.” I tilted so I could see her. “Again, completely OP.”

“As a cool aunt.” She lowered her eyes. “Not as a cool mom?”

“I’m not the person to judge that, Lena,” I said.

“Your mom is kinda cool,” Lena said.

“Not the same kind of cool.”

“Not... really, no.” She chuckled, but only for a moment.

“If you were to ask my mom, she’d say you’re in no position to even pose the question. You’ve got no steady job, you’re not with someone with a steady job, you’ve got more debts than assets, and if you’ve got any long-term plans, you haven’t shared them.” I shook my head. “Maybe that’s not fair, but it’s how she looks at things.”

Lena nodded. “It worked for you and Ben.”

“For a certain value of worked,” I said. “Regardless, I think in a lot of ways you’d be great. You’d work your ass off, you’d make your kid smile, you’d share what you love, you’d be happy to do what they loved.”

“Feeling a ‘but’ coming.”

“But what if your kid did something genuinely bad, like hurting an animal? Or something dangerous, like playing around an electrical socket? I’ll give my mom this much, she knew how to shut shit down with a glance.”

Lena fidgeted. “I’d have to learn.”

“And I’m sure you can, Lena. I mean it.” I rubbed her arm. “If you’re asking me to go on what I know of you, though? Yes, you’d have a lot to learn. It would be hard, and exhausting, and you wouldn’t be able to switch off the way you can with a niece or a nephew or your friend’s kid.”

“Well...” She bit her lip. “I’d have help, though. What about you?”

“I think,” I said, “I’d be a pretty shitty mom.”

My grin was not mirrored by her’s. She landed one of the least imposing punches of her life on my arm. “You know what I mean, Cameron.”

So much for grinning. “I’d be an infinitesimally less shitty dad.”

Lena pulled out of my arms and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Would you please quit that?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Quit what?”

“Running yourself down.” She stood and padded over to the drawn beige curtains.

“I’m not, Lena.”

“You are! I think you’d be –” She balled her fists. “Forget it.”

“Everything my mom would say about you,” I said, “applies double to me. At least if everything breaks right with Third Eye, you could be a star. Successful videos, tournament wins. I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. I’m the end of Albie’s Potion away from being a glorified NPC.”

Lena bonked her head against the glass.

I rose and joined her by the window. “If I sorted out my financials, I could support a kid. Then I could come home, smile over dinners, try to play baseball twice and find out they sucked at it, and maybe play Mario Kart on a holiday. That’s the example of dadhood I’m working with.”

“You could do better,” Lena said.

“I’ve got a million other things to worry about,” I said. “Mask. The rescue. Omar. The tournament. The channel. The reveal. Albie. Third Eye itself.”

“Things,” she said, “we’re trying to solve.”

“And when we do,” I said, “I’ll start taking this seriously. Promise.”

“That’s fair,” Lena said. “That’s smart. I’m just being stupid.”

“You’re not.” I cupped her chin.

She rubbed her cheek against my palm. “Really?”

“Well.” I managed at least a ghost of a grin. “Maybe a little.”

I could have left it there. Lena seemed content to, and started to sag against me. If I just kept my mouth shut, I knew we could lay back down and get the sleep we’d been about to. She wouldn’t bring it up again any time soon.

We could bury another conversation without me telling her the truth.

Instead, I averted my eyes. “I’m terrified of responsibility.”

“Bullshit!”

I felt Lena’s fingers on my cheek and let her turn me back to face her. Her brow was furrowed, her frown as deep as I’d ever seen it.

“It’s not,” I said.

“What about the way you lead the team?”

I stared at her. “Lead?”

She glared. “If you don’t want kids, you can just say that. You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“Lena, I swear, I’m not trying to be a dick. How could I know if I want kids or not? It’s literally not something I’ve ever been in a position to consider.” I locked gazes with her. “I just have no idea what you’re talking about when you say I’m leading anybody.”

She screwed her face up. “For real?”

“For real.” I waved to my sleeping PC. “If anyone’s our leader, it’s Erin. She’s the head of the wiki team.”

“She’s the admin. The organizer, even.” Lena shrugged. “That’s not the same as being the leader.”

“Well whatever it is you think I’m doing,” I said, “it’s not the same as being a leader, either!”

Of all the directions this conversation could have gone, this wasn’t the most uncomfortable. Most surprising, though? Well, maybe.

Even if it did put some of the conversations I’d had lately in context. Like why I’d come away from what should have been perfectly normal interactions feeling like something had gone very, very wrong with the universe.

“Erin’s super smart and observant,” Lena said. “Give her, like, two hours, and she’s gonna figure out all kinds of shit you and I would never think of.”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“Give her two seconds and she freezes up.”

“Which,” I said, “is the point of the training we do every day.”

She tapped my chest. “Training that you lead.”

“No more than you do.” I brushed my hands through the warm air where her wings pressed against the curtains. “Hell. I’m not even the best fighter, you are.”

Those wings beat in irritation. “I’m too much of a loner. I can put on an act for a video, but look at what it does to me to try to put that on just to talk to a couple of nice people who think I’m cooler than I am.”

“You kept smiling until we got in here,” I said.

“I’m trying, okay? I’ve gotta.” Lena swallowed. “Erin’s basically a kid herself. Same with Michelle.”

“You know you don’t have to try to be strong for them, right? They think of you as a teammate, not a team mom. Not even –” I smiled down at her. “– a cool aunt.”

“You sure?” Lena cocked her head.

Of course I was sure. I opened my mouth, but those words refused to emerge. Instead, lamely, I said, “Zhizhi and Donica are with us, too.”

“They aren’t players,” she said. “They don’t have any power in Third Eye. However with it they are as people, we have to protect them. Same with Miguel when he tagged along.”

“I don’t like being a protector.” Didn’t like? I hated it. I’d just wanted to play a cool game with my friends. I’d take protecting people a thousand times over being in charge, though. “I will, if I have to. That doesn’t mean I’m some kind of leader.”

“Okay,” Lena said.

I didn’t think it was.

I said, “Okay.”

Her eyes tightened. Whatever expression she’d tried to force didn’t come, and she slunk back to the bed.

“Lena...”

“You really don’t get it, Cam.” She sank onto the edge of the mattress. “You think I started talking about the mom stuff because of Zealia, right?”

“And Albie, and Mason.” I spread my hands. “And, just, it’s obviously something you’ve thought about way more than me.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I mean, it’s all that. More, though, it’s the way you are with them, and even Erin and Michelle.”

“The way I am?”

“When I watch you now, I don’t just see my boyfriend who I think is really hot, or my best friend I have a great time with. I see a good man.” Lena shrunk in on herself.

Which made two of us. I don’t know why her words hit me as hard as they did. By the time I’d dragged my eyes up off the squiggly abstract pattern of the carpet, I found Bernie nestled in Lena’s lap. No idea if he’d climbed there on his own or if she’d grabbed him because she needed something to hug.

I wasn’t sure she was going to continue speaking, but I couldn’t find my voice.

Bernie’s burble seemed to energize her, just a little.

She whispered, “I see the man I love.”

The lump in my throat refused to go down. I stood by the window, heart thudding, head full. Mouth determinedly, traitorously shut.

Lena covered her face. “Oh God, fuck, sorry. We’ve only been back together like a month and I’m dumping this on you and I’m not trying to pressure you I just got excited and –”

I was there without having to think, gently prying her hands away from her blazing freckles.

“Lena,” I said, “I love you, too.”

Her smile broke through.

I bent forward to kiss it.

Then the door of our hotel room, the locked door, the door I’d double and triple checked behind me, clicked open.