Page 39 of On the Edge

Content with this vow, Caleb brings us inside and leads us to the dining room table. It’s littered with markers and crayons; an entire stack of finished coloring pages next to a sloppier pile of blank ones. Caleb crawls back up into his chair, adjusts his glasses, and waits for us to sit down. He turns to Max, whom he seems to like best.

“What do you want to color?”

“How about you choose something for us?” Max gestures to me, and Caleb’s eyes light up as he reaches for the stack of papers.

He pokes his tongue out as he shuffles through. Eventually, he finds what he’s looking for. Max is given what appears to be a dragon, while I am handed a cranky-looking owl holding a coffee mug in its talons. Max huffs a soft laugh and holds his coloring sheet out for me to see. It is in fact a dragon—a dragon holding a baseball bat and wearing an ill-fitting uniform top.

“Fitting,” Max notes.

“You can give it to Luke!” I tell him happily.

Caleb carefully rolls all the markers and crayons into the center of the table, within easy reach of everyone. I wait for him to choose a color before I pluck up one of my own. We work in silence for a bit, nothing but the scratch of markers over paper and the occasional sigh from Caleb. I focus on my owl, carefully remaining inside the lines. When I start coloring the face, I smile to myself. The expression reminds me of Atlas.

“You’re doing a good job,” Caleb tells me, leaning over the table and peering at my paper.

“Thank you. You are as well. Are you making that for yourself?”

“No, this is for Uncle Win. He likes it when I make him pictures. I can write his name now, without help,” he tells me proudly. “If you show me what order to do your letters in, I bet I could do your name, too.”

“Oh, certainly.” I carefully write my name in big, block letters, before adding Max’s below that. “Here is mine, and here is Max.”

“Cool,” Caleb says, grabbing the paper, but getting distracted by the opening of the back door. His eyes widen behind his glasses and he scrambles off his chair to waylay Nate. “Don’t make a mess!” he shouts desperately.

“Nate, Caleb would like everyone entering the house to know that it must remain clean and you are not to make a mess,” I explain, biting back a laugh at the look on Nate’s face. I leave out the part about Coach Mackenzie hurting himself if a mess is made. I’ll have to think on that one later.

“Sure thing, little man,” Nate says easily, ruffling his hair. “I’m just here to use the bathroom.”

“Okay. It’s over there.” Caleb points down the hallway and climbs back up into his seat. “But don’t make a mess.”

Max bites his lip to keep from laughing and bends his head over his baseball-playing dragon. Nate strolls off down the hallway, apparently taking in stride the fact that we are sitting inside coloring with a kid instead of engaging in the party. When the back door opens again, Caleb’s head snaps up so fast it’s a miracle he doesn’t hurt his neck. He practically levitates off of his chair and runs for the door.

“Uncle Nico!”

Max and I turn to find Coach Mackenzie regarding us through squinted eyes, mouth pulled up in a small smile. Caleb throws his arms around Coach’s leg, peering up at him as Coach rests a gentle hand atop his curls.

“How are things going in here, Caleb?” he asks.

“Good. Nobody is making a mess, I promise. I told them.”

Coach Mackenzie sighs and addresses Max and me.

“Anthony might have been a little too exuberant in explaining why things have to be put back in their place.”

“No worries,” Max replies, smiling softly. I don’t say anything, because I haven’t quite puzzled out what they’retalking about. Caleb pulls Coach’s attention back down to him, tripping over his words as he excitedly talks. Coach Mackenzie threads his fingers through the boy’s hair, listening intently as he speaks and smiling tenderly as Caleb tells him all about Max coloring with him.

When Caleb’s talked himself out, he makes his way back over to the table, trailed by Coach Mackenzie. He peeks over my shoulder.

“Solid work, Vas,” he compliments me, nodding down at my owl and making Max laugh. “Are you two okay in here? You don’t have to feel obligated to babysit.”

“I’m pretty big,” Caleb puts in, head bent over his paper once more. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Oh, we are okay, sir.” I glance over at Max to verify this is true. “It is not every day we get to color with our good friend Caleb.”

“All right. Caleb here is staying with us for a few weeks. He’s Anthony’s nephew.”

“I figured,” Max says, pointing to Caleb’s curly hair, which is a near perfect replica of Anthony Lawson’s. As though summoned, the back door opens once more and Lawson steps through. Caleb shouts gleefully and Lawson returns it, lifting him up and tossing him into the air.

“Anthony, your shoulder,” Coach Mackenzie says in exasperation. “Are youtryingto reinjure yourself?”

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