Chapter Text
Wilbur thought the strumming of his guitar paired rather nicely with the crashing of the ocean waves.
He sat in the doorway of his bus, guitar balanced on his lap as he plucked a few chords, humming the tune in his mind to himself before he tried to replicate it in a way that sounded just right on the strings.
Taking a deep breath, he noticed the air was heavy with salt and the faint scent of flowers, coming from the dry chaparral blossoms that decorated the cliffs surrounding the shore. It was familiar to Wilbur at this point, but even today seemed like a particularly salty day.
Letting the breath out of his nose, he attempted the tune again. Something didn’t sound right, and it was frustrating him. Did he need not tune it right? That could be it.
Furrowing his brows, he started to fiddle with the tuning pegs again. He plucked a few test strings and- oh, that sounded a lot better.
Readjusting his hands, he tried to strum the tune in his mind again, and nodded to himself when it sounded far more like what he was going for. Closing his eyes, he resumed his playing, and thought of the chorus he had scribbled into his notebook last night.
“Maybe one day I’ll live in La Jolla,” he sang softly. “Drinking cocktails out over the water.”
Technically, Wilbur could live in La Jolla if he wanted to. It was only a twenty minute drive from where his bus was currently parked, but the cops were absolute assholes over there. Having a college campus dead in the center of one of the most expensive towns in Southern California created quite a housing crisis, and in order to ‘protect’ the rich families that lived there, the cops kept a very close eye to make sure some poor college student wasn’t trying to sleep in their car. Because god knows that was certainly the biggest threat to the community.
To be fair, it wasn’t much better in Cherry Beach, where Wilbur had been staying for the past few months. Cops were still assholes about van-lifers parking for the night, but there weren’t as many rich people here, so they’d let you off sometimes if they were feeling nice.
But he’d learned the tricks of the locals, and knew where to park and on what days to avoid getting a knock at his window at 3 am telling him to move. Still was annoying though nonetheless.
Playing the chords again, Wilbur tried to remember the other lyrics he’d written for the song.
”I could go away,” he sang, his voice growing a little louder without him realizing it. ”I could pack my things and be gone before you wake.”
And that was all he had lyrics-wise so far for the song. Stopping his playing, he let his guitar rest on his lap as he reached for his notebook behind him so he could try to come up with something to follow that last line.
Suddenly, a voice made his head whip back around.
“Goddamn, that’s a bit depressing, innit?”
There was a kid sitting in the empty parking spot next to his bus. Had he just been sitting there the whole time? How had Wilbur not noticed him earlier?
“I mean, it’s not exactly a happy song,” Wilbur replied, having to remind himself that he didn’t care about some random teenager judging his songs. “Not all songs have to be happy to be good.”
The boy huffed. “Well, I never said it wasn’t a good song.”
Wilbur blinked, wondering if the kid was messing with him. “You like it?”
“Uh, yeah? It was all nice and soft and shit. Calming, y’know?” The kid shrugged, leaning back on his hands.
Despite his better efforts, Wilbur couldn’t help the proud smile that started to creep on his face at the compliment. “Thanks. It’s not finished yet, still figuring out lyrics and all.”
The boy’s eyes widened, and Wilbur noticed how they seemed to match the color of the ocean crashing behind his head. “Wait, that’s your song?” Wilbur nodded, and the boy gasped. “Holy shit! That’s sick! I thought that was like, some depressing indie shit hipsters like that I just hadn’t heard before.”
“I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment,” Wilbur said, frowning at him.
The boy shrugged. “I mean, you look like you’re into that kind of stuff, and it sounds like it’s a you problem if you take that as an insult.”
Wilbur let out a surprised laugh at that. This kid certainly had a mouth on him.
“Don’t you have better things to do than sit and watch a random man practice his music?” Wilbur asked, raising an eyebrow.
Huffing, the kid gestured around them at the half-empty parking lot. “Take a wild fucking guess.”
“Are you waiting for someone? Friends maybe?”
“Nah, not waiting for anyone. I just tend to go to the beach when I got nothing else to do,” the kid explained. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Wilbur frowned.
“Yeah. I don’t think you’re a surfer, because usually the surfers have their boards on top of their cars, which you don’t have. Plus, you’re not wearing a wetsuit either. So it seems like you’re just sitting in your tiny ass bus next to a beach at ten in the morning because you got nowhere else to go either,” the kid said, smirking at him.
Wilbur gave the kid a flat stare. “I live here.”
The kid frowned. “In the parking lot?”
He fought the urge to face palm. “No, on the bus. I parked here last night to sleep.”
The kid’s eyes widened in understanding as he seemed to notice the furniture behind Wilbur’s open door for the first time. “Oh, so you’re homeless!” He exclaimed as if he had just solved some great puzzle.
“Wh- No! I’m not homeless!” Wilbur sputtered. “I have a home and it’s the bus!”
“But doesn’t living out of a car technically mean you’re homeless?” The kid asked, cocking his head to the side.
“I mean- Okay, yes, by legal definition maybe a vehicle doesn’t count as a home,” Wilbur conceded. “But it functions perfectly fine as a home. I have a kitchen, a bed, anything you could need.”
“Do you have a shitter?”
Wilbur bit back a sigh. “No, I don’t have a bathroom, but I can just use the beach bathrooms over there-”
“Then it’s not really a home, is it?” The kid cut him off. “Every home needs a shitter, y’know? A man needs to be able to shit in his own home comfortably!”
Never mind. Despite the compliments to his music, Wilbur wasn’t sure if he wanted to argue with this kid if a toilet was required for a living space to be considered a home. Especially not when he was refusing to call it anything but a shitter.
“Are you just going to harass me about my living situation, or are you going to let me get back to my songwriting?” Wilbur asked, pushing his glasses further up on his nose.
The kid held his hands up in mock surrender. “You can go back to your singing, man. Just pretend I’m not here.”
Wilbur shot another flat stare at the kid. “I’m not exactly in the mood for an audience.”
“What, are you one of those artists who needs total privacy and, like, a bunch of incense burning or whatever to get ‘inspired’?” He asked, putting air quotes around ‘inspired.’
“What? No, I don’t need incense, I just need some peace and quiet,” Wilbur explained, shaking his head. “Go, like, hunt for shells on the beach or something.”
To Wilbur’s surprise, the kid actually looked disappointed at Wilbur’s dismissal. But before he could feel too guilty about it, the kid was shaking himself off and scowling at Wilbur. “If I find a crab I’m putting it in your bus.”
“You say that like I haven’t had crabs crawl into my bus before,” Wilbur snorted.
The boy seemed upset at Wilbur’s lackluster response to his threat. “Fine. If I find a tarantula I’m putting it in your bus.”
Okay, fuck that. Crabs he could handle. Tarantulas? No fucking way.
“If you put a tarantula in here I will find you,” Wilbur shot back, narrowing his eyes.
The kid grinned at the threat. “And do what? Gonna kick some random teenager’s ass? I’m a minor, and you’re, like, thirty. I’m sure the courts will love to hear that.”
“I’m not thirty!” Wilbur argued. “I’m twenty-five!”
“Close enough. Still an old bitch either way,” the kid teased.
Before Wilbur could argue that twenty-five was not old thank you very much—the kid was running off down to the shoreline, kicking off his flip flops as he ran so he could sprint straight into the waves.
...only to screech when his feet hit the water. Wilbur watched for a moment to make sure the kid hadn’t gotten stung by a jellyfish or something, and then laughed when he realized the kid had been startled by the cold water.
He watched the kid for a few more moments before he turned back to his notebook. Strange blonde teenagers aside, he had a song to write.
☾
Wilbur didn’t think much about the kid after that first day. Bit of an odd, albeit entertaining conversation for sure. But there was nothing that notable about it. Wilbur probably would’ve forgotten all about the obnoxious teenager if he didn’t end up running into him again a few days later.
Because Wilbur apparently had the worst luck in the word, this run in happened while he was at work. Where he had to be polite to customers. Goddammit.
Admittedly, working at Niki’s bakery wasn’t a bad gig whatsoever. It was one of the reasons he decided to settle in Cherry Beach once he’d run out of money from his past few years of life on the road. Niki was a childhood friend of his who moved to Cherry Beach after they all graduated high school. Since then, she’d managed to secure herself a job at a local bakery, with the actual owner being so absent it was as if Niki owned the place herself. Which meant that when Wilbur rolled into Cherry Beach, she offered him a job right off the bat.
Niki was a kind boss. Doubly so to Wilbur, since he had the old friend bonus. But even she wouldn’t tolerate him cussing out a customer, no matter how frustrating customers could be sometimes.
Which was why when the blonde boy from before walked through the door to the bakery, Wilbur had to bite back a groan.
Rather predictably, the boy’s eyes lit up when he noticed Wilbur standing behind the counter. He rushed over to the register, a wide grin already spread across his face.
“It’s you! The homeless guitar dude!” The boy announced, pointing at him.
Wilbur ignored the strange stares the other customers gave him at that, and instead focused on the boy who was already testing his very thin patience. “I told you, I’m not homeless.”
“Legally though you are,” the boy pointed out. “Do you work here? I didn’t think you’d have a job, since you live in a bus and all.”
“No, I’m just wearing this uniform and standing behind the register for shits and giggles,” Wilbur deadpanned without thinking. His eyes immediately widened and he whipped his head around to see if Niki was nearby, but breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t spot her. She was probably in the kitchen kneading more dough. “Look, are you gonna order something?”
The kid blinked, as if he’d forgotten the reason he’d come into the bakery in the first place. He glanced at Wilbur’s apron, eyes falling on his name tag. “Sure thing, Wilbur,” he said, smirking as if there was something funny about Wilbur’s name. “I want a blueberry muffin. Also, uh, what’s the coffee that’s got the chocolate in it?”
“A mocha?” Wilbur suggested.
He nodded. “Yup, that one! I’ll have a mocha too.”
Huh. That was a surprise. Although they had coffee options on the menu, it wasn’t very often that people actually ordered the coffee here. It wasn’t that it was bad, but the bakery had the terrible luck of a Better Buzz having been opened up right next door, so it was more common to see customers walking into the bakery with Better Buzz coffees already in hand.
“Sure thing,” Wilbur said, ringing up the order and moving over to the pastry display case to take out a blueberry muffin. He dropped it in a small bag and handed it to the kid, before picking up a cup and writing the word ‘mocha’ on the side of it. “Can I get a name for the coffee?”
“Name’s Tommy, but you can write down Big Man,” the kid grinned.
“Yeah, no, I’m not doing that,” Wilbur said, writing down ‘Tommy’ on the side of the cup. “I’ll get that out for you in a minute.”
Tommy frowned at Wilbur’s refusal to call him Big Man, but thankfully didn’t harass him further. After handing Wilbur a pile of change and singles to pay for his order, he beelined to a small table in the far corner of the bakery, settling down with bright eyes as he bit into his muffin.
Wilbur went through the familiar motions of making the mocha, pulling the espresso shot and grabbing the chocolate syrup from under the counter. It only took a few minutes, and soon he was calling out Tommy’s name and waving him over.
Tommy hopped out of his seat with his muffin bag in hand and ran to the pickup counter, a bit of muffin crumb stuck on his cheek. “Thanks man!” He said, taking a sip of the coffee and nodding in approval. “I’ll be seeing you around, yeah?”
Wilbur pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sure you will.”
Tommy cheered as he scurried out of the bakery, and Wilbur shook his head as he grabbed a rag to wipe down the counter. He had a feeling that he was going to be seeing a lot of Tommy in the near future, and started debating making a list of reasons why he wasn’t homeless. Just so he could have it ready.
☾
Wilbur saw Tommy a few more times over the next week, although they didn’t speak. He’d just be laying on the bed in his bus, guitar resting on his stomach and some random TV show playing on his laptop, when he’d see a flash of blonde hair outside his window.
Tommy liked to go to the beach a lot. Sometimes he’d take his shoes off and stick his feet in the water, other times he’d just wander along the shoreline. Wilbur wondered if he ever got cold in the sea breeze, although he almost never saw the boy without a painfully bright red sweatshirt on. Must’ve been thick enough to keep him warm.
On a particularly foggy morning, Wilbur watched from the window next to his bed as Tommy slowly shuffled his way across the sand. The ocean waves were steel grey, icy and foreboding under the rolling sea of white that was making everything hazy. He could just barely see Tommy out in the fog, but again, the red sweatshirt made him stick out like a glow stick.
It was summer technically, which explained why Tommy wasn’t in school. But didn’t he have parents? Why was he always out wandering by himself? Tommy couldn’t be older than seventeen, shouldn’t he be hanging out with friends?
Wilbur wasn’t sure why he cared so much. Tommy was just some random teenager that had teased him for being homeless a few times. It’s not like they were friends. But the kid was always on his own, and it piqued Wilbur’s curiosity.
About a week after Tommy came to the bakery, he and Wilbur finally came face to face again.
It was mid-afternoon, and Wilbur was busking for some extra cash. It was how he’d made most of his money while on the road, and while it wasn’t enough for him to fully support himself, it was a fun way to earn a few bucks here and there.
He was sitting on the edge of one of the fire pits next to shore, his guitar in his lap as he strummed the tune of an upbeat 80s song. Technically, the original song had been synth pop and certainly not made for the acoustic guitar, but Wilbur found classics like that tended to get him more tips when he was busking, plus it was always fun to figure out how to turn such a high energy electronic beat acoustic.
The ocean waves crashed behind him. On either side of the flat lot where the fire pits were located and his bus was parked, sandstone cliffs edged the shoreline. Bright purple bursts of sea lavender clusters swayed in the breeze along the edges of the cliffs, a stark contrast to the soft beige of the stone. The sky was a bright shade of azure, with only a few puffy white clouds dotting the expanse. Overall, it was the perfect day to get some sun and play some music.
After Wilbur finished his rendition of Blue Monday, he announced to the small crowd gathered that he was going to take a break because he needed to rest his voice. A few people clapped as a couple more dollars got tossed into his guitar case, and he thanked the group as he set his guitar down to collect the money.
“Why aren’t you playing your own songs?” A familiar voice asked above him.
Sighing, Wilbur glanced up to see Tommy staring down at him, the sun glowing against his golden hair and giving him a sort of makeshift halo.
“Because people are more likely to stop and listen to songs they already know,” Wilbur answered, shoving the wad of bills in his pocket.
“But your songs are so good!” Tommy argued and, well, Wilbur had a hard time being annoyed at the kid when he was so genuine in his praise for Wilbur’s music.
“Thanks, but you’re kind of my only fan right now, so I think you’d be the only one excited to hear my stuff,” Wilbur joked, leaning back against the fire pit. “Not to mention, you’ve only heard one of my songs, and it’s not even finished yet.”
“Well, it was still super fucking good,” Tommy said, folding his arms over his chest. “One of these days you’re gonna be some famous musician living in a bougie ass mansion and I’m gonna be like, ‘I knew that guy when he was homeless and didn’t have a shitter’ and everyone’s gonna think I’m so fucking cool.”
Wilbur laughed. “I appreciate it, but I think that’s pretty far-fetched.”
“C’mon man! Have some faith in yourself!” Tommy told him, sitting down next to him on the concrete. “I know you’re all sad and shit right now because you live in a short bus, but you gotta go for your dreams!”
“I’m not sad! I like living in my bus!” Wilbur argued. “I could live in a house if I wanted to, but I choose to stay on the road.”
“I just don’t see why anyone would choose to live in a place without a bathroom,” Tommy shrugged. “But I guess you’re just weird.”
“I’m not weird! There are a lot of people who like living on the road,” Wilbur told him, furrowing his brows.
Tommy snorted. “Keep telling yourself that, bud. But I know you miss your shitter.”
Wilbur once again sighed. “Is this just what all our conversations are gonna be about? You harassing me over the fact that I don’t have a toilet?”
Suddenly, Tommy brightened up, as if he’d just remembered something. “As fun as that is, I actually have something to ask you.”
“What is it?” Wilbur asked, narrowing his eyes.
A hopeful smile spread across Tommy’s face. “Can you teach me how to play guitar?”
...huh?
Admittedly, although Wilbur wasn’t sure what he thought Tommy was going to ask, he hadn’t been expecting that. So far, while Tommy had praised his songs, he hadn’t seemed all that interested in the specific music aspects of it, though Wilbur figured that could just be because he didn’t know anything about music in the first place.
It was kind of sweet that this random kid had heard him play all of twice and wanted Wilbur to be his teacher. But at the same time, Wilbur knew he wasn’t exactly the most skilled player either, having been entirely self-taught.
“Sorry, but I don’t really give lessons,” Wilbur said, settling further back against the fire pit.
Tommy deflated, his shoulders sagging with disappointment so potent, it actually made a pang of regret flash through Wilbur. “If it’s about money I can pay you! Maybe not a lot, but I really wanna learn.”
“Trust me, kid, if you can pay you should get yourself a proper teacher. I’m really not that good at playing myself,” Wilbur told him, absently running his finger over the side of his guitar.
“But you sound really good to me!” Tommy argued, frowning at him.
“Yeah, but you don’t know anything about proper guitar playing. Plus, I’m self-taught, so some of my methods aren’t really considered the ‘right’ way to do things. I’d be a shit teacher,” Wilbur insisted. While Wilbur wasn’t exactly against the idea of teaching Tommy how to play guitar, he also wasn’t going to be a dick and take the kid’s money when he could get proper lessons. If Tommy was as passionate about playing as he seemed to be, he deserved to learn things the right way so it didn’t cause problems for him later on.
Tommy’s frown deepened. “I don’t fucking care if it’s the right way or not. I wanna learn from you.”
Wilbur blinked. “Why?”
“Because… I dunno, you’re just cool?” Tommy shrugged, looking away as his cheeks flushed. “Like, yeah, you’re a homeless weirdo living in a bus, but you play cool music and you live at the beach and you seem like you’ve traveled a lot and I dunno, I just think you’re interesting.”
Oh.
Wilbur couldn’t remember the last time someone had called him cool. Or interesting. Sure, he’d gotten called that before with his ‘mysterious traveling musician’ persona he’d put on when he’d been driving around the country, but it was only from people who’d had less than a single conversation with him. Usually once someone spoke to him more than once, they realized he was just your average twenty-five year old who had no idea what to do with his life, and the aura of intrigue disappeared.
Not to mention, the way Tommy complimented him… well, it reminded him of himself when he was Tommy’s age. Always looking up to different musicians and the ‘cool’ kids at school, trying to search for himself in others' eyes. Wilbur definitely wasn’t the right person to be any type of role model or figure to admire, but Tommy seemed to think otherwise.
And maybe… Wilbur wanted that attention. Wanted someone to look up to him. To think he was cool. He’d been on his own for several years now, and sure, he had Niki at the bakery, but she was the only friend he’d had since he left home. Of course, his brother and father were only a phone call away, but it wasn’t the same with them. Not to mention, the entire reason Wilbur used up all his high school savings to buy a short bus off Craigslist and travel the country in it was to get away from his family. To escape the house that was doomed to suffocate him if he didn’t get out as soon as he could.
So yeah, maybe Wilbur wanted attention. Maybe he was lonely. And maybe it was pathetic to look for the answers to these issues in the form of a random teenager whose last name he didn’t even know, but he was looking at Wilbur with such hope in his eyes that he found himself speaking before he’d even made the decision in his mind.
“Fine. I’ll give you lessons,” Wilbur relented.
“Fuck yeah!” Tommy cheered, beaming as he fist pumped the air. “Holy shit, I’m so excited! This is awesome!”
Wilbur couldn’t help but smile at Tommy’s enthusiasm. “How about we have our first lesson tomorrow?”
“Sounds good to me, Big Man,” Tommy nodded. “You gonna play any more today, or are you heading back to your bus?”
Wilbur shrugged. “I guess I could play a few more songs.”
“Then can you play the one you were playing the other day? The La Jolla one?” Tommy asked, his eyes glittering with excitement.
“That one’s not finished yet, so no,” Wilbur huffed, shaking his head fondly. “But I guess I can play another one of mine for my number one fan.”
Instead of rebuking the title like Wilbur thought he would, Tommy just grinned wider and nodded. “Fuck yeah, that’s me, biggest fan of Wilbur… uh…”
“Wilbur Soot,” Wilbur finished for him.
“Wilbur Soot,” Tommy repeated, still smiling. “Tommy Innit, biggest fan of Wilbur Soot’s music right here!”
Smiling at his guitar, Wilbur turned his attention away from the bright-eyed teenager next to him, and started to strum another familiar tune.
”I lost the passion that comes with living, since I started university.”
To Wilbur’s surprise, another crowd (albeit much smaller than the first) gathered around as he played his next song, but the only thing he really found himself caring about was the way Tommy wouldn’t stop humming along to the entire song.
Yeah, maybe agreeing to give him lessons wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
☾
The next morning, Wilbur woke up watching dust swirl in the beams of sunlight that filtered through his window, before a loud pounding on his door startled him out of bed.
Tommy showed up bright and early for his lessons and, well, that was kind of Wilbur’s fault for not specifying a time, so he couldn’t really blame the kid. Still, he ended up making Tommy wait outside while he blearily changed out of his pajamas and made himself some coffee so he could give himself a few minutes to wake up.
That was another sunny day. The coastal sagebrush was a soft green against the sandstone cliffs that surrounded the beach, intermingled with the sea lavender and the faint pinks Wilbur could barely make out of the lemonade berry bushes. Once again, the air was heavy with the smell of salt, and the calming rhythm of the waves created a surprisingly good tempo to set the guitar to.
Another surprising thing was how patient Tommy became once the lesson actually began. He didn’t try to interrupt Wilbur, instead listening intently to the point of hanging off of every word he said. After explaining a few basic things to him, Wilbur showed him how to hold the guitar, and Tommy was so gentle with the instrument that Wilbur actually had to tell him to press his fingers against the strings harder.
Of course, Tommy still teased Wilbur throughout the lesson, calling him homeless and old among other things, but all in all he was a really good student. He was eager to learn, and his smile was so bright when he managed to recreate a simple chord of Wilbur’s that Wilbur thought he was going to be blinded.
At the end of the lesson, Tommy shoved a wad of singles in Wilbur’s hands, even though really didn’t want to ask for money for his shitty lessons. But Tommy insisted, even though the five dollars was really not anywhere near the standard of what an actual guitar lesson would be.
Another week passed, with Tommy stopping by every few days for guitar lessons. With each new session, Wilbur found himself teasing Tommy more and more, and Tommy would laugh just a bit louder at his jokes. Sometimes, Tommy would come in during Wilbur’s shifts at the bakery, always asking for a different pastry and a different kind of coffee. Eventually, he stopped ordering at all, and just let Wilbur choose for him.
Wilbur quickly got a sense for the kid’s tastes. He liked sweet things more than savory things. Chocolate was his favorite, but he was fond of just about any kind of icing or glaze. He didn’t actually like the taste of coffee, yet he still seemed determined to drink the stuff, so Wilbur made sure to make him drinks that were extra sweet so he wouldn’t be able to taste the bitterness.
“I didn’t think you’d have a favorite customer, Wil,” Niki teased him one day after Tommy had left the bakery, caramel macchiato in one hand and a vanilla scone in the other.
Sugar dust floated through the air as Niki coated a fresh batch of lemon bars with powdered sugar, intermingling with the smell of rising dough from the back kitchen in a way that made Wilbur’s mouth water. He’d never had much of a sweet tooth before, but working at Niki’s bakery was slowly changing that.
“He’s, uh, kind of a friend of mine,” Wilbur explained as he wiped down the espresso machine. “I’m giving him guitar lessons.”
Niki raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t give lessons?”
Wilbur shrugged. “The kid wore me down,” he said, keeping his eyes on the counter.
Even though he wasn’t looking at her, Wilbur could feel Niki’s knowing smile.
“He seems sweet,” she commented as she carefully began to arrange the lemon bars in the display case. “I’m glad you finally seem to have another friend besides me here in Cherry Beach.”
“I promise I’m fine, Niki. You don’t need to worry about me being lonely,” Wilbur said with a frown.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. Techno just keeps asking me how you are.”
Rolling his eyes, Wilbur huffed. “If he’s so worried he can call me himself.”
“Or you could call him,” Niki pointed out. “Or maybe try calling your dad. He also texts me to ask how you’re doing.”
“Again, there’s nothing wrong with his phone. Phil can call me himself if he wants to talk so damn badly,” Wilbur scoffed. “Anyway, just tell them I’m fine. I have friends, I have money, it’s all fucking dandy.”
He heard Niki sigh behind him, and Wilbur immediately felt bad for snapping at her when he knew she was just trying to help.
“Sorry,” he muttered after a few moments of silence. “You know I just don’t like to talk about-”
“Yeah, I know,” Niki told him, resting a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, Wil. I get it.”
Of course she got it. Because Niki was one of his oldest friends, and she understood Wilbur in a way very few other people did. Not a day went by where he wasn’t grateful for his friendship with her, along with her seemingly endless well of patience and understanding.
“Thanks Niki,” he said in a quieter voice, reaching up to squeeze the hand she had on his arm before he turned back to what he was doing.
More days passed. About a week after Wilbur started giving Tommy guitar lessons, he realized something that hadn’t crossed his mind before.
Tommy seemed to have relative free reign over what he did and where he went. Wilbur never noticed him taking calls from parents or texting anyone, even though he knew he had a phone because he’d seen him scrolling through Twitter before. Even in a small beach neighborhood like Cherry Beach, Wilbur figured most parents would probably be checking a little more than Tommy’s did.
It wasn’t really his business, but he was curious all the same. So one day at the end of their lessons, Wilbur decided to ask about it.
“So, out of curiosity, how do your parents feel about the fact that you’re getting guitar lessons from a guy who lives in a bus?” Wilbur asked as he settled the guitar back in his case.
Tommy raised an eyebrow. “My parents?”
Wilbur snorted. “Yeah. You’re here every day paying for lessons from rando you met, like, two weeks ago. They’ve gotta have an opinion on that.”
Instead of laughing or cracking a joke like Wilbur expected him to, Tommy instead glanced away, folding his hands in his lap. “Uh, well, I don’t technically have parents, Big Man.”
Freezing, Wilbur blinked at Tommy, wondering if he’d heard him right.
“You-”
“I’m in the foster system,” Tommy explained, gaze dropping to his lap. “My foster mom knows about you, but she’s not really my ‘parent’ y’know? She’s really cool though. She pretty much lets me have free reign since she knows I like to explore, which is something none of my other foster parents have ever really let me do. Something about not trusting me and shit.”
Oh. Fuck. Wilbur was an asshole.
“Shit, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up a bad topic,” Wilbur apologized, wringing his hands in his lap.
“Nah, you’re fine. I don’t mind talking about it. Just don’t want you to get all weird now that you know I’m a foster kid,” Tommy explained, shrugging his shoulders.
Wilbur frowned. “No, of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “I was, uh, actually in the system too, but I got adopted when I was pretty young, so I wasn’t there for long.”
Tommy’s eyes widened at that. “Wait, you were a foster kid too?”
“Yeah, but I got adopted when I was eight,” Wilbur explained.
“And you like your family?” Tommy asked, noticing the pinched expression Wilbur was wearing.
“I mean, of course I love them, they’re my family. Things are just, uh, tense right now,” Wilbur explained.
More accurately, he should say that things had always been somewhat tense with his father and brother. Kristin died less than a year after Wilbur had been adopted, and in truth he really didn’t remember much from that time. But her death had hit both Phil and Techno hard, Phil for obvious reasons, and Techno because he had gotten adopted a few years before Wilbur did.
Wilbur didn’t remember much from when Kristin was alive, but he knew Phil had been different. He had been brighter, quicker to laugh and less reserved. He had never holed himself away in his office, unlike later in Wilbur’s life when he’d go entire days without seeing his father despite the fact that they were in the same house. Of course, Phil wasn’t a bad parent, not by any means. But Kristin’s death was a cloud that had never seemed to fully dissipate over the house, one that he’d only escaped from in the form of his bus.
But Tommy didn’t need to know all about Wilbur’s family issues. So instead, he just kept quiet, and repeated his own words. “I love them though.”
“But things are weird between you all,” Tommy said, repeating the other part of Wilbur’s statement. “Is that why you live in a bus?”
“You could say that,” Wilbur said, really not wanting to dig into it further. “But you like your foster mom?”
At the subject change, Tommy brightened up again. “Yeah, I do! I’ve had some really shitty foster families in the past, but Puffy is great. I’ve only been with her for about a year and a half, but she’s probably the nicest foster mom I’ve ever had, even if she’s more like an aunt than a mom to me.”
Feeling better about the lighter subject, Wilbur nodded. “And she’s just fine with you wandering around harassing a homeless musician for guitar lessons?”
“Thought you said you weren’t homeless,” Tommy shot back, narrowing his eyes at Wilbur.
“When it’s convenient for me I am,” Wilbur grinned.
Tommy snorted. “Well, like I said, Puffy trusts me to do my own stuff and not harass me over it. It’s probably just because she feels bad for me, but y’know, I’ll take what I can get.”
Wilbur furrowed his brows. “Feel bad for you? For being a foster kid?” He asked. While he figured a foster parent would be used to that, maybe Puffy was newer to it, hence why Tommy said she gave him more leniency.
Suddenly, Tommy stiffened, and looked away as he nodded. “Uh, yeah. You could say that.”
At this, Wilbur narrowed his eyes. He felt like there was something Tommy was leaving out, but he didn’t want to push in case it was something Tommy didn’t want to talk about. If he had to guess, he’d say Tommy’s previous foster home likely hadn’t been a great place, but he wasn’t going to pry Tommy for that information.
Either way, Tommy’s constant wandering made a lot more sense to him now. If Wilbur hadn’t been trusted by anyone to go explore things on his own as a kid and then suddenly got the opportunity to, he would be out all the time. Not to mention, it didn’t seem like Tommy had a lot of friends of his own—at least if the fact that he spent so much of his time around Wilbur was anything to go by.
A breeze passed through the parking lot, ruffling the ends of Wilbur’s jacket and carrying the mouthwatering scent of food with it. Wilbur looked up the road away from the beach, spotting a nearby pizzeria that he’d been to with Niki a few times before after his shifts at the bakery.
As if on cue, Wilbur then heard a loud growling come from beside him, and Tommy’s face flushed red.
“Are you hungry?” Wilbur asked, smirking at Tommy.
“Shut up, bitch,” Tommy muttered, wincing when his stomach growled again.
Wilbur chuckled. “Do you wanna go get something to eat? It’ll be my treat.”
“I mean, I can pay for myself. Puffy gives me an allowance,” Tommy protested.
“I may live in a bus but I can afford to buy you a slice of pizza,” Wilbur teased. “Plus, you’re already paying me for the lessons. We can just say that’s you paying for your food.”
Tommy rolled his eyes. “Ugh, fine. But next time we go out I’m going to pay.”
While Wilbur had no plans to let a teenager pay for his food, he nodded anyway. The two of them pushed to their feet, Wilbur placed his guitar back in the bus before locking the doors, and then they headed towards the main street.
The smell of roasting meat and fresh garlic wafted through the air as they got closer to the pizzeria, the two deciding to forgo waiting for the light and just sprinting across the street as fast as they could. As they stumbled into the restaurant, Wilbur noticed Tommy was panting hard, and smirked.
“When was the last time you had to run somewhere, child?” Wilbur teased as the hostess led them to their table—one on the outside patio under the shade of a crimson umbrella.
Tommy flipped him off, his cheeks still bright red from the exertion. “Like you’re so fucking fit. When was the last time you went to a gym?”
“Yesterday,” Wilbur shot back, settling himself on one side of their table.
Tommy’s eyes widened, clearly not having expected such a quick answer. After a few beats, Wilbur chuckled.
“Okay, to clarify, I didn’t actually work out. I just have a gym membership so I have easy access to a shower anywhere I go,” Wilbur explained, leaning back against the creaky black metal of the patio chair.
Hearing this, Tommy scoffed. “You’re such a liar, Wil. Bet you’re way less fit than I am. I’m such a Big Strong Man, I bet you could barely lift a goddamn rock!”
Wilbur snorted. “I could probably lift you without breaking a sweat.”
“Oh fuck off! No you couldn’t,” Tommy shot back.
There was a pause. Wilbur glanced around the restaurant, noting how it was mostly empty at this time of day. A few of the tables inside had other patrons chatting amicably with one another, but the patio itself was empty.
“Bet,” Wilbur challenged.
Tommy raised his eyebrows, and Wilbur gestured for him to get up. He realized what Wilbur was doing and frowned, but got out of his seat anyway.
“This is fucking stu- HEY!” Tommy squawked as Wilbur scooped him up in his arms, the boy kicking in protest while Wilbur laughed.
”When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s amore!” Wilbur sang in a poor imitation of an italian accent, swinging Tommy around dramatically. Inside the actual restaurant, Wilbur noticed a few other customers give them odd looks, but he decided to ignore them.
“What the fuck, Wilbur! Why are you singing about pizza?!” Tommy yelped, grabbing onto Wilbur’s sweater as he swung the boy from side to side.
“Well, we’re in a pizza restaurant, so I thought it was fitting,” Wilbur grinned. “Anyway, look, do you see me struggling to hold you?”
“Fuck off, bitch. You made your point,” Tommy scoffed, rolling his eyes (although Wilbur could see he was struggling to hold back a smile.)
Wilbur huffed and was about to make some joke about how he was really the Big Man out of the two of them, but paused when he realized that it really wasn’t difficult to carry Tommy. He was far far lighter than Wilbur had been expecting.
“Are you just gonna stare off into space, or are you gonna put me down now?” Tommy asked, scowling at Wilbur.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Wilbur muttered, letting Tommy down and settling back in his own seat. “Sorry, it’s just you weigh a lot less than I was expecting.”
“Ah yes, you’re such a Big Strong Man and I’m sure you get all the ladies, Wilbur.” Tommy sounded like he was teasing, but he immediately looked away from Wilbur, and turned his face towards the laminated menu in front of him.
Wilbur frowned. This definitely wasn’t his business but… he was worried. Asking couldn’t do much harm, right?
“Are you sure you’re eating enough?” Wilbur asked after a few beats.
Tommy whipped his head back towards Wilbur, matching Wilbur’s frown with his own. “Yeah, I eat plenty. I just have a fast metabolism.”
Well… he supposed that made sense. But he’d heard horror stories about the foster system, and while he trusted that Tommy was telling the truth about how Puffy was good to him, there was still that nagging thought in the back of his mind that there might be more to it.
Before Wilbur could consider pushing the issue, the waitress came over, asking if they were ready to order. Although Wilbur hadn’t gotten a chance to look at the menu, Tommy seemed to have decided what he wanted, and pointed to one of the pizzas asking for a personal size.
“Actually, make that a full size,” Wilbur said. “I wanted to get that too, so we can split it.” In truth, he hadn’t even read what was on the pizza. But if they had a full size pizza, Wilbur could shove more slices at Tommy.
Damn, he was turning into some kind of mother hen with this kid, wasn’t he?
Maybe he was. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing either.
In the end, his plan worked, because Tommy managed to finish more than half the pizza by himself. Wilbur only had a few slices himself, and when they still had about two slices left over, he insisted Tommy take it home with him because his fridge was already on the small side, he didn’t need leftovers crowding it too (even if in actuality the only thing he had in his fridge at the moment was a takeout box of chow mein from three nights before.)
Before he left, Tommy told Wilbur that he wasn’t going to be able to come for lessons the next day, because he had somewhere to be with Puffy. And strangely, Wilbur found that he was disappointed, even though Tommy reassured him he’d be back the day after next.
As he watched Tommy walk the opposite way of his bus, his bright red sweatshirt nearly glowing in the sunset as he held his styrofoam takeout container in one hand, Wilbur found himself smiling. For some reason, hanging out with Tommy made him laugh more than he had in a long time.
Guitar lessons or not, Wilbur couldn’t help but hope the kid kept coming around.