In Plain Sight – Part 3
by
Caliboy1991
Waking up without an alarm was cool. Waking up without some security guard checking his room at six in the morning was even better. When Asher opened his eyes, light flooded into the bedroom from the small crack between the curtain panels. Asher wasn’t sure if he wanted to get up just yet. The summer was his to do with as he pleased, at least until the beginning of the fall term. Provided he didn’t blow through the adequate allowance Brown had given him.
He rolled onto his back and felt his penis straining against his boxers. One thing he had plenty of time for was taking care of this. He lifted his hips and pulled his underwear down, and then grabbed his painful erection. Before long, his fist was flying up and down, as he felt the growing tingling spreading along his entire five inches. This time, he kept his eyes open as he watched the clear semen splatter against his belly. With no sperm in his semen, he wondered how long before it would thicken up and turn milky white.
He stepped across the narrow hallway separating his bedroom from the bathroom and wiped the goo off his belly before stepping into a smaller room containing the bathtub and toilet. The sound of his piss hitting the water in the bowl almost drowned out the sound of a knock at the front door. He flushed the toilet and headed over to the door. Looking through the peephole, he saw the top of Tate’s head.
He glanced down at his boxers. They were modest enough, especially now that his penis had shrunk to its normal small size. Unlocking the deadbolt, Asher opened the door. The girl looked just as boyish as before in another oversized T-shirt, this one was white, emblazoned with the word Teamwork across the top of it. Below the word was a large snowball seemingly rolling forward. Below the image was another line of text. It read A few harmless snowflakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
First, the T-shirt poking fun at Vegans and now a shirt made for cynics. Asher said, “Nice shirt.”
He left the door open, and Tate came in, “Yeah, I got a stack of them from the bargain rack at Goodwill.”
Feeling the girl’s eyes on him, Asher realized he should have put on more clothes to open the door. “Give me a sec to get dressed. You always up so early?”
Tate tapped her wrist at an imaginary watch, “Early? Dude, it’s like ten o’clock.”
Back in his bedroom, Asher saw that Tate was right. He really had slept in. After pulling on the same cargo shorts from the day before, he returned to the living room, drawing on a solid blue T-shirt.
Once dressed, Asher thought he saw a flash of a frown on the girl’s face. But if he was right, it was gone before he could give it a second glance. “I hope you didn’t get in trouble for getting in late yesterday.”
Now he was sure she frowned, “No. I was already in bed by the time Mom got home. Anyway, did you want to play Battlefront again?”
Asher’s thoughts returned to the biking trails Tate had pointed when they’d been on the swings. He really wanted to go look at bicycles. Once he found one, then he’d be able to get out and go exploring.
“I’d like to, but I wanted to see about getting a bike this morning. Those biking trails sound fun.”
Tate seemed to deflate until he mentioned the biking trails, “Oh, those trails are pretty sweet. I could show them to you.”
Asher found the girl’s enthusiasm contagious. “I’d like that. What kind of bike do you have?”
She shrugged, “A Gravity. I got it from Mrs. Jenkins. Her son left it when he joined the army.”
Not knowing much about bicycles, Asher said, “Sounds cool. Maybe we can hit the trails when I get back.”
Tate’s face grew wistful, “I could help show you the bikes. I promise I wouldn’t be a pest.”
Asher was tempted to let her go with him. Still, her mom seemed like borrowing trouble. “I dunno, Tate. Your mom wouldn’t want you getting in a car with a stranger.”
Tate scoffed, “You’re not a stranger, Ash. So, can I come? Please!”
The girl’s plaintive whine sounded adorable, and Asher had to admit, at least to himself, he wouldn’t mind her company. She was the first person in a very long time that didn’t seem to want anything from him. Even the US Marshals wanted his testimony. Still, Asher worried about taking the girl with him.
“What about that Mrs. Jenkins lady? She watches you during the day, right?”
Tate doubled over in laughter, “Oh, yeah. Right. As long as I pop in a couple of times a day, she couldn’t care less. Sometimes even less than that. She couldn’t do anything the last time Ron and Dwayne picked on me.”
Ron and Dwayne? Those must have been Acne Face and Fatso.
“Tell you what, you tell her where you’ll be, and I guess I’ll let you come, okay?”
Before he could reconsider the offer, Tate was out the door at a run. By the time Asher collected his keys and wallet, she was back, out of breath, but wearing a huge smile, “All set.”
As he headed toward the Taurus, Asher said, “What exactly did you tell her?”
Skipping along beside him, Tate said, “I don’t know that she paid me any mind, but I told her I was hanging out with you.”
Asher pushed the key into the ignition, “And I’m sure you mentioned that I’m eighteen. And taking you out bike shopping?”
Tate grinned, “I didn’t want to bother her with too many details. She is awfully old.”
Shaking his head, Asher said, “Hmm, well, buckle up, and we’ll get going.”
There was a Sporting Goods store a few miles away. Between his inexperience behind the wheel and the lunchtime rush hour, it took twenty minutes to go four miles. Asher was a basket of nerves by the time he pulled into a parking space.
Tate glanced over at him, “You don’t like driving, do you?”
Asher pulled the keys from the ignition, “Dunno. Only got my license like a month ago.”
He hadn’t enjoyed the driver’s education course he had to take the last month before his birthday. But even the US Marshals weren’t willing to give him a driver’s license or a car without it. Maybe with more time behind the wheel, he’d learn to enjoy it.
The selection of bicycles ran along one side of the store. There were more than a hundred different models—kids’ bikes, ten-speeds, fat-wheeled bikes masquerading as mountain bikes, and then the real deal. Of the dozen mountain bike models, Asher kept coming back to a Schwinn model. While he was no expert, the bike’s specs seemed better than the other mountain bikes.
After going back and forth between several choices, Asher finally growled, “Hell if I know which to get.”
“I like the Schwinn. It’s about the same size as mine,” Tate said, her shoulder rubbing against my elbow. It was three hundred dollars and some change.
About that time, a sales associate came over, “Can I help you boys?”
Boys? Asher bit back a response. It really wasn’t the sales associate’s fault. There was a good reason Tate once thought he was only thirteen or fourteen. And an equally good reason he’d first thought she was a boy.
He felt something brush against his hand, and before Asher knew it, Tate’s smaller hand was in his larger one as she said, “Yeah, my brother likes this bike. Can we see it?”
While the sales associate pulled a keychain from his pocket and unlocked the bike rack, Asher stared down at the girl, holding his hand. Tate simply grinned back up at him until the sales associate pulled the bike down and said, “Here you go. Not the top of the line, but the best mountain bike we carry in the store.”
Asher took the bike from the young man and straddled the seat. He closed his eyes and for a moment and was eight years old again. That bike was much smaller, made for his small body. He was riding on the street in front of his childhood home, the wind blowing through his short-cropped hair. Then he blinked, and he was back in the store, Tate looking up at him.
“Whatcha think?” she asked.
Asher liked the feel of the bike as he moved it backward and forward in the aisle. When he put one of his feet on the pedal, it just felt right. “I like it. Just need to see if we can get a better seat.”
Thirty minutes later, with the sales associate’s help, Asher had the bike crammed into the back seat of the car. They’d taken the front tire off, but the bike came with an Allen wrench, so putting it back on would be easy. Or so he hoped.
There was a McDonald’s on the other side of the busy intersection. Asher nodded toward it, “You hungry?”
Tate fidgeted in the seat, “We can go on home. Mom’s got food for me there.”
The girl’s words and her body language were wholly at odds. Curious, Asher said, “When was the last time you ate at McDonald’s?”
Tate looked away, out the side of the car, “Dunno. A while ago, I guess.”
“Your mom ever bring home takeout?” Asher asked. One of the treats at the government facility was weekly pizza parties and burgers from a nearby fast-food joint. One thing Asher had learned since the FBI raid was that regular people ate fast food more often than they ought to.
The girl shrugged, “Sure. For herself. Mom says that she buys me food from the grocery store, so why should she buy more food for me when she stops to get something for herself.”
Asher knew he didn’t know much about healthy family dynamics. How the hell could he? His life had been pretty fucked up. But if what the girl said was true, then Tate’s mom was a self-serving bitch.
When the road had cleared, Asher punched the accelerator, and the car zoomed across six lanes of traffic into the McDonald’s parking lot, “Well, I don’t care if you’ve got something back at your place to eat. I’m hungry right now, so let’s go see what they have.”
As Tate started to say something, he was out of the car, walking toward the restaurant. A few heartbeats later, the passenger side door swung open, and the girl ran over to him with a toothy smile. “Thanks, Ash. You’re awesome.”
A bit later, Asher sat across from Tate, biting into his Big Mac. The girl had smeared ketchup around her mouth when she’d tried taking a big bite from her own burger. He’d never seen the girl with a happier look on her face, which was more than worth the few dollars he’d paid for her meal. After all, Asher still had nearly all the cash Brown had given him a couple of days before.
When he swallowed a bite, Asher said, “You want to show me those trails when we get back?”
He hadn’t meant to, but he asked the question just as the girl took a bite. Instead of talking through her food, Tate just nodded. Once she took a sip of soda, she followed it up with, “One time, I went so far down one of the bike trails, I got onto the city’s official bike trail. And I went all the way downtown.”
“How long did that take?”
Tate flushed, “I was so late getting back. Mom grounded me for a week, and that was after giving me a spanking.”
Asher shifted around in his seat at the notion of getting a spanking. A couple of the guys in the Syndicate hadn’t hesitated to lash out if he made a mistake or stepped out of line. His ass had been tanned more than a few times. The more he learned about Tate’s mom, the less he liked her.
“She grounded you and spanked you?”
The girl nodded as she munched on a fry.
Asher shook his head at what he’d learned, “What time’s your mom get home? We’ll make sure we’re back by then.”
Tate frowned, “That’s the hard thing, Ash. She’s supposed to be home by six. But sometimes she doesn’t get home unit seven or even eight. And if it’s on a Friday, who knows?”
There wasn’t much he could do about it. “We’ll just make sure we get you home before Maleficent normally gets home.”
The government facility warehoused kids like him, and Disney movies were an everyday staple in the common rooms. In the two years he’d stayed there, Asher was pretty sure he’d seen just about every Disney Cartoon a half dozen times, no matter how much they bored him. But the name struck home, and Tate nearly fell from her chair, giggling. “Ohh, s-she’d k-kill me if I ever called her that!”
When he was through, Asher wadded up the wrapping paper his hamburger came in and tossed it in the empty French fry box. “I’m dying to try my new bike on the trails. Just give me a couple of minutes. Gotta go.”
Tate put their trash on the tray, “Yeah, the way you drive, it might be a couple of hours before we get home. Me, too.”
Asher was taken aback when Tate followed him into the men’s restroom. Thankfully, it appeared empty when he turned around and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Tate shrugged, as though her presence was enough of an answer. Then her eyes were drawn to the wall mirror over the sinks. “Wow, Ash. We really do look like brothers.”
Their reflections staring back, Asher saw how the girl might think so. His hair was just a shade darker brown than hers. Even their eyes were the same chocolate color. Beyond that, though, even their chins and cheeks were similarly shaped. But without Tate saying something, he likely would never have noticed.
Then he felt it again. Tate’s small fingers snaked through his, and she gripped his hand for only a few seconds before she headed for the lone enclosed stall. Uncertain what just happened, Asher peed into one of the urinals.
Tate was wrong. The drive back to the apartment complex took less than twenty minutes. Before long, Asher had reassembled the front wheel, and they were ready to hit the trails.
Continued in Part 3
Copyright 2020 – Caliboy1991
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