Page 11 of The Best Parts of Him
Dabbs opened his mouth to ask how Ryland had found this fox den when Ryland murmured, “When I was a kid, I wanted a pet so bad.”
The information, offered freely, had Dabbs clacking his mouth shut.
“But after my parents divorced . . . well, my mom didn’t want a pet, not even something as innocuous as a goldfish. And my dad . . . he had the farm, plus three kids undertow five days a week.”
“You never had a farm dog?”
“Right? It’s unnatural not to have a dog on a farm. I used to leave food out on the back porch and pretend the foxes were my pets. Jason caught me one night, and man . . . you should’ve heard the lecture I got about why I shouldn’t feed the wildlife. He was such a know-it-all about it,” Ryland said fondly.
Dabbs could picture it—a miniature Ryland Zervudachi, pushing hair out of his eyes as he put out the evening’s leftovers, desperate for a quick glimpse of the local wildlife.
Was there anything left of that little boy in this version of Ryland?
Dabbs wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there was.
“Do you have any pets now?” he asked.
“Nah.” Ryland shifted, and the twigs cracked under him. “You know what the season is like—I’m on the road too much to have a pet. Yet somehow, you’ve managed two. Who watches your dogs while you’re traveling with the team?”
“I’ve got a roster of dog sitters I can call on.”
“Have any of them ever not been available?” Ryland asked. He stood, gesturing for Dabbs to do so as well, and began to lead the way back to the house.
“No,” Dabbs replied. “But there’ve been last-minute cancelations. There’s no accounting for life getting in the way, you know? I’m lucky that there’s usually someone in my organization who can watch them if I have a cancelation. What kind of pet would you have?”
“A dog,” Ryland said instantly over the sound of their feet crunching the underbrush. “A border collie or an Australian shepherd or a Samoyed. A medium-sized dog I’ll easily be able to find when it inevitably gets lost on the farm.”
As they walked out of the forest, Dabbs took in the two-story farmhouse, the farm shop several yards away, a well-maintained shed, a barn he was guessing held equipment, and a lawn mower a person could sit in. “I can’t picture you as a farm boy.”
“Probably because I was never a farm boy.”
As if by mutual agreement, they headed around the side of the house and sat on the front porch steps, where they wouldn’t wake anyone with their conversation. The porch lights were bright, and around them, crickets chirped incessantly.
“That’s not true. I guess I am a farm boy in the technical sense. I grew up here.” Ryland extended his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “But Jason was the real farm boy. Me? I was either playing hockey or out with my friends. Or playing hockey with my friends. Running the farm never interested me.”
Dabbs leaned his elbows on the step above him, giving him a perfect view of the beauty mark on the back of Ryland’s neck. “How old were you when you learned to skate?”
“Five, maybe six. It was a few months after my parents divorced. I think they put me in skating—and then hockey—just to get rid of me for a few hours a week. According to them, I acted out a lot right after the divorce.” Ryland let out a short laugh, the sound hollow and brittle. “I don’t remember that part. I just remember things feeling chaotic. Like life had flipped upside down while I wasn’t looking, and nobody noticed that I couldn’t figure out how to turn it right side up again.”
An ache settled behind Dabbs’ ribs. Had Ryland acted out in a desperate attempt to get his parents to pay attention to him?
Had leaving food out for the wildlife been his way of trying to feel less alone during a tumultuous time?
Dabbs wanted to ask, but the set of Ryland’s shoulders cautioned him against it. “Where’s your mom now?”
“In France. She remarried when I was fifteen. A Frenchman she met while on vacation a couple of years after my parents divorced. She’s been in Lyon ever since.”
“It must be tough to have her so far away.”
Ryland shrugged one shoulder casually. Dabbs didn’t buy it.
“We text all the time and video chat when we can. Are your parents still together?”
Dabbs should’ve expected the question given the conversation, yet it nevertheless took him by surprise. He was tempted to change the subject or claim fatigue and head back to bed, but that wouldn’t be fair after Ryland had exposed part of his own soul.
“No.” Dabbs rubbed a palm over his jaw. “My mom took my sisters and me away from our dad when I was ten. He was . . . ”
Christ. How to explain? He pictured his dad ripping his seventeen-out-of-twenty math quiz in half right in front of him and clenched his teeth.
