“Damn chair!” Tommy yells.

I cringe.

“I’ll make you boys some lunch,” Mom says, fussing with his coat.

“Ella! We’re grown ass men,” Dad grumbles.

“Yeah!” Tommy shouts. “We grown ass men.”

“You can’t say stuff like that in front of Tommy,” I tell him.

He drops his head. “Ah, shit.”

“Dad!”

Tommy laughs. “Ah, shit!”

“Dammit!” Dad mumbles.

“Dammit!” Tommy yells.

★★★

“Hey, Warden! What’s up?” Chris, the guy from the SK8F8, says from behind the counter at Deck and Check, the only dedicated skate store in town.

I slowly release Tommy from my back as I walk over to him. “You work here?”

Chris shrugs. “Something like that.”

“Like a summer job?” I ask. “Aren’t you still in high school?”

“Just graduated and nope.” He leans back a little and nods a greeting at Dad rolling in behind me. “I own the store.”

“What?” I ask, surprised. “What happened to Aiden?”

“He wanted out so I bought it.”

“So no college?”

“Nah. Not my thing.”

“And your parents are okay with that?”

“My dad’s a TV producer, Warden. All the trashy reality bullshit you see on TV… that’s his doing. He didn’t go to college, he worked hard on the AV side and slowly worked his way up in the business until he was able to meet and talk to the right people. My dad doesn’t care for college. He thinks it’s a waste of time, and for what I want to do—I agree with him.”

I nod slowly. “So that’s why you used to follow me around with a camcorder? Your dad’s influence?”

“I knew you remembered me!” he says through a laugh. “What can I help you guys with today? This your old man?” he asks, dropping his gaze to my dad.

“Yeah, that’s him.” I introduce them quickly then say, “I just need to get my kid and I some new boards.”

He eyes me for a long moment but he doesn’t speak.

“So, I’ll just take a look around I guess.”

He nods, then moves around the counter and leads Tommy and I to the back wall where dozens of boards are on display. “So the online skate world kind of blew up after SK8F8. You were the number one topic. That must’ve been cool?” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t know. I didn’t really check or anything.” I pick up a junior board for Tommy and show it to him. He says it’s poop.

Dad laughs from behind me.

I put the board back.

“Listen…” Chris leans his shoulder against the wall. “I actually wanted to call you after the comp but I didn’t really have things worked out yet…”

I stand taller. “Call me about what?”

“Just hear me out, okay?”

“You’re kind of freaking me out a little, dude.”

He laughs once, pushes off the wall and bends down to Tommy’s level. “What’s your favorite color, Tommy?” he asks.

“How do you know his name?”

“Research.”

“You mean stalking?”

Chris laughs again. “Just a little.” He focuses back on Tommy. “So, little man. Favorite color?”

“Poop,” Tommy tells him, and my dad chuckles.

“So brown?”

Tommy nods.

Chris searches the board stock on the floor and when he finds the one he’s after, he opens it and shows it to Tommy. A shit-brown Torpedo board. “You like it?” Chris asks him.

Tommy pulls out the board and inspects it, then drops it to the floor and settles one foot on the deck, rocking it back and forth. Then he looks up at Chris. “Yup.”

“Good,” Chris says, patting Tommy’s shoulder. “It’s yours.”

“Whoa. You can’t give—”

He ignores me and speaks to Tommy again. “Whatever you want in the store, Tommy, it’s yours. Take it.”

I step in front of him. “What the fire truck are you doing?”

“You too, Warden, anything you want in the store, it’s yours.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Okay, seriously, what the hell is going on?”

He sighs dramatically and crosses his arms. “This store—it’s just a stepping stone for me. It’s small and that’s cool for now but I want to open another one, and another one. Then the biggest one in the state. And then the country.”

“Why not just use your dad’s money and open another one? Also, if you want to make money then you have a lot to learn. Giving shit away is probably the first thing you’re doing wrong. They probably teach that in Business 101 in college. Maybe it’s not too late for you.”

“Joshua,” Dad chides. “Language.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, even though he said the same thing in front of Tommy no less than fifteen minutes ago. Apparently being schooled by my dad still has the same effect, even at twenty.

Chris rolls his eyes. “I don’t want my dad’s money. I want to earn it. I want to be able to look back and say that I did it. That I became successful and it was because I worked hard for it. And that’s not even the point. The point is the store is just something to keep me busy while I work on the major stuff.”