Sasquatch to the Moon

44: And... Jan

HÅKON

There's a soft knock on my front door about four minutes after I finish up showering, so, in shorts and a shirt that's sticking to my wet chest, I wander over, brushing my hair out of my eyes, reading glasses pushed up over my forehead.

"Hello?" I pull it open. "Oh, hi Helen."

She smiles up at me. "There's my favorite Swede, anyway, I heard from Steph that you were back and I was looking for my delinquent son."

"Oh, did he not tell you?" I yawn. "He's in the Czech Republic."

Her eyes go wide. "That child-"

"Shoot, was I not supposed to tell you?" I stare blankly down at her like she's going to know the answer to that.

"How long has he been there?"

"Five days." I mumble. "...why?"

"That-" she runs her hands through her hair. "That boy, god he's like his father, too fucking headstrong, my god, it's gonna kill him, he should not be off- god and you let him go alone?"

I stare at her. "Yeah? I thought... I dunno, he's an adult."

"Håkon! You're the brains of that operation, no offense to my son, but-"

"So he's... not supposed to be in the Czech Republic?"

"No!" she smacks her head. "I was gonna- no he's gonna get his poor heart broken by all-"

"He's gonna what?" I mumble. "Because it seems like everything is going really well."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I dunno, I've been in contact, b'cuz, you know, boyfriend, but... he's... I dunno everything seems to be going great. He looks like his dad."

"He does, a spitting im- wait."

"Huh?"

"Well? It's going well?"

I'm just starting to realize the amount of trouble I'm going to be in when he finds out I was the one that accidentally told his mom. "Has... has he seriously not told you this whole thing? Uh-"

"No he has not!"

"Helen-" I start. "I think he's fine, I really think he's alright, I wouldn't still be here if he wasn't-"

"Håkon, no, that's not the problem, the problem-" She rakes her hands through her hair. "The problem is that I was going to take him at the end of the summer when you got home from Sweden!"

I gape at her. "Oh I..."

"God that fucking boy." She grumbles. "Go get your stuff you're going to be my traveling companion."

"Your huh?"

"You heard me."

I stare down at her for a few more moments. "Ah, I mean, why not undo all the jet lag I guess."

Packing all my stuff back up again is easy, I just change out the things I haven't washed yet and then throw all of it back into the suitcase still sitting on my bedroom floor. I look up at the flag hanging from my ceiling, I finally found the right pins for it so it no longer falls on me in the middle of the night and I love how it looks up there, but unfortunately, I'm leaving it again. 

In the next hour or so, I wait quietly for Helen to bounce around her little apartment and pack some things and move the date of the plane tickets around all while telling me funny little stories about Milo as a little kid.