Page 11 of Frog

He didn’t say anything, just squeezed me back.

HEWASquiet on the ride to Potrero Hill, where he lived. I loved his house and his sleepy neighborhood, which was far enough out to be away from the hustle and bustle of downtown San Francisco but still close to the hospital where he worked. I always enjoyed my visits to him, sporadic though they were, over the past three years.

As we sat in silence, the rain hitting the windshield the only noise there was, I reached for his hand.

“Don’t you wanna talk to me none?” I asked him, lacing my fingers into his as I rested our clasped hands on my thigh.

“No, Web,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I want to drug you and keep you locked in my bedroom for the rest of your life, that’s what I want.”

I chuckled. “You’d get sick of me right quick if I was here all the time.”

He shook his head. “That’s the part you don’t get—I could never tire of you.”

I scoffed at him as he turned onto his street. “You don’t know from— Who’s that in your driveway?”

“What?”

“Look.”

As he turned in, hitting the electric garage door opener, we both saw the light go on in the monster SUV as a woman got out of the driver’s side and the two back doors were thrown open. I saw the three kids get out, like steps from biggest to smallest, and all dash into the garage to get out of the rain as the door slowly rose. Cy pulled in and parked, and we both got out as the woman came toward him.

“Cy,” she gasped, and I could tell two things just from glancing at her. First, that she’d been crying, and second, that she was Cyrus’s sister.

She looked like her brother—same delicate, fragile, sharply cut features; thick, wavy chestnut brown hair; bottomless gold-brown eyes fringed in long curling lashes; and golden skin. Because she looked like him, I felt that immediate kinship.

“Oh.” She sucked in her breath when she saw me. “I didn’t know you had comp—”

“Are you a cowboy,” the smallest boy asked me, head tilted all the way back as he looked up at me.

I knelt down on one knee in front of him, tipping my own hat back, taking in the red felt one he was wearing, the boots he had on along with his flannel pajamas, and the rope he was carrying. “I am. And I see you are as well.”

He nodded, lifting his boot for me. “I don’t have spurs, though.”

“You don’t need none,” I assured him seriously. “Real cowboys can guide their horses with just the pressure from their legs and thighs. Cowboys only wear spurs in the movies.”

His eyes lit up as he walked forward, hand on my thigh as he looked into my face. “Really?”

“Oh, yessir.”

“You ever go to a rodeo?” The oldest asked, moving closer as the middle one, who was just staring at me, edged in.

“Yessir,” I told him. “I’m a bull rider. You?”

“Me?” he said like I was stupid. “I’m not old enough to be in a rodeo.”

I nodded. “How old are you?”

The middle one reached out and touched the brim of my hat as the oldest ran his eyes all over me before answering.

“I’m eight.”

“Oh,” I shrugged. “Yeah you’re right, I didn’t do no barrel racin’ until I was ten.”

“I’ve seen the barrel racing on TV. You did that when you were ten?”

“Yep. My brother had a beautiful quarter horse named Dave, and he let me ride him.”

“Dave’s a weird name for a horse.”