Page 8 of Steal My Breath Away

Ace became a permanent fixture in our house, and it wasn’t long before Paige and I got his story. He had come to live with his grandmother after social services had taken him away from his parents. Paige had heard her mother whisper “drugs” on the phone and something about Ace’s parents leaving him alone in their apartment for days at a time. Once she even heard the word “jail.”

I’d never known anyone whose family had been in trouble with the law, and it just added to the mystery that surrounded Matt’s new best friend who fit in with our family like he’d been there from the start. Dad offered to have Ace come over after school when his grandmother was working, and Matt was happy to have someone other than his irritating little sister to play with when Rafael wasn’t around. When Dad found out Ace hadn’t had much of a childhood, he took it upon himself to teach Ace how to fish, ride a bike, and catch a ball. He even paid Ace to help us with our chores so he could earn some extra money. When Matt was at baseball practice or hanging out with Rafael, Dad would give Ace and me cooking lessons and he and I would serenade Ace with Dad’s favorite songs from the ’50s and ’60s.

“You could sing this one for the talent competition,” Dad said to me one afternoon as we chopped onions to Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” “It’s easy enough on the guitar. I could show you the chords.”

Ace and I didn’t usually talk much, and I’d figured he thought I was just an irritating kid, but he turned to me with interest. “I didn’t know you were going to compete.”

“Of course she is. She plays guitar and she sings like an angel,” Dad said. “She has a natural gift for music. I caught her messing around with my old Stratocaster when she was five years old, so I bought her a guitar of her own and taught her how to play. We did a daddy-daughter duet for the Christmas pageant last year. We sang ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’”

A smile spread across my face at the memory. Dad had really hammed it up on stage. He loved an audience almost as much as me.

“Let’s give Ace a private performance of our act,” Dad suggested. “Sing nice and loud. I’m going downstairs for potatoes, and I want to be able to hear you.”

I never turned down an offer to sing, so I sang my part while Dad shouted his lines from the cellar.

“You’re really good,” Ace said, and my face instantly heated for no discernible reason. Matt never said anything nice about my singing. When I told him I was going to become a singer/songwriter when I grew up, he just laughed and told me Mom would never allow it. She expected us to go to college and Dad agreed. He’d learned his cooking skills from working in kitchens in Europe, LA, and New York before finally settling down in Riverstone to open his own restaurant, but he’d told us more than once that he wished he had a college degree.

“You’ve heard me singing before,” I said with an embarrassed shrug.

“I know, but usually Matt is around, and I didn’t want to say anything in case he teased you.”

I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face or thewarmth that filled my chest. “I think he’s jealous. Whenever he sings, he’s out of tune. Dad says Matt got his genes.”

“My grandmother used to be a singer in a jazz club before she became a nurse,” Ace said, “but I’ve never heard her sing.”

Ace never talked about his life, and I didn’t know whether to keep quiet or ask questions. But I was a talker and sometimes my mouth moved before my brain could catch up. “Do you have other grandparents?”

Ace diced his onion in silence and for a moment I was afraid I’d been too nosy. “I didn’t know I had family until I moved here,” he said, his gaze fixed on the cutting board. “My grandmother didn’t even know I existed, so if I do have other grandparents, they probably don’t know about me either. My parents were eighteen when I was born. They both ran away from home when they found out my mother was pregnant. They didn’t want me at first and planned to put me up for adoption, but when they found out that the government would give them money every month for having a kid, they decided to keep me around.”

I didn’t really understand about the money, but I felt sad for Ace that his parents had kept him away from the rest of the family. “Where did you live?”

“Different cities.” He shrugged, his hands frozen mid-slice. “We had to move a lot. Sometimes it was because my parents didn’t let me go to school, or they would leave me alone for weeks at a time and social services would get involved. My parents said they didn’t want anyone to take me away, so we’d pack up in the middle of the night and a few days later I’d be in a different school, sometimes even a different state. Other times, we’d have to leave because people were after them…”

“It must have been hard to leave your friends.” I couldn’t even imagine the world he described, and his words made my heart ache in my chest. I’d lived in the same house all my life with a family who loved me. I knew my parents would be there when I woke up in the morning and when I went to bed at night. I knew everyone in town, and most of the kids in school had been withme since kindergarten. My world was small, but it had always been safe and secure.

“I didn’t have friends,” he said. “I always knew we were going to leave so there was no point. When I came to Riverstone, my grandmother promised that I wouldn’t have to move again, but I don’t know…”

He trailed off with a shrug, and I scrambled to think of something to cheer him up again. “How did you become friends with Matt?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Ace’s lips. “He wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept asking me to come over after school. He chose me as his partner in gym class. He sat with me at lunch…”

“Matt’s like that,” I said, laughing. “Once he sets his mind on something, he won’t let it go. I guess he decided he liked you and he wanted you as a friend. You had no chance.”

Ace laughed, too. He didn’t laugh often, and it made my heart happy that I was the one who had given him that moment of joy. “Your dad said that, too. You say a lot of things like him. You’re like the same person except you’re a girl.”

The way he looked at me when he said “girl” did funny things to my stomach. I’d only just started having crushes on boys, and I felt being a girl in that moment in the context of him being a boy.

I heard the crinkle of a plastic bag and caught Dad listening at the top of the stairs. “Ace…” He came over to the counter, his usual warm expression replaced with a seriousness I’d never seen before. “You are very wanted here. Your grandmother was thrilled when she found out she had a grandchild. She called in forty years’ worth of favors to have the house updated before you arrived. I even heard she smiled when she was at the school giving kids their shots.”

Ace blanched. “I’m sorry, sir… Dave… sir. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.”

“I don’t think you are ungrateful,” Dad said. “I think you’re one of the most solid, grounded, respectful kids I’ve ever met,and that’s a credit to you because your grandmother told me what it was like for you before you came here. You’ve been a big help around our house, a good example to my kids, and I’ve seen how you look out for Haley when Matt’s not around. It puts my mind at ease to know there’s always someone there for her.”

“I’m not a kid.” I looked up, annoyed. “I don’t need anyone to look out for me.”

“Of course not, bug.” Dad kissed my head. “I just mean you’re a free spirit like me, and sometimes we need someone to make sure our feet stay on the ground. That’s what your mom does for me. She makes sure I don’t get involved in crazy schemes, paint the house purple, dye my hair orange, or go too wild with the restaurant menus. I won’t always be around, so I like to know that someone is checking in on my baby girl.”

I loved when Dad called me his baby girl. It made me feel warm inside. I hoped when I grew up and had kids of my own, I’d still be my daddy’s baby girl.

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