Friday, December 18, 2015
"Hello."
"Kenton?"
Olivia blinked as she saw a young man that she last saw four months and three thousand miles ago.
"Hello, strange guy who is in this otherwise apparently empty house with my girlfriend." Kenton said as he looked over the rim of his new glasses at the very confused (and now slightly scared) Orson.
"Hello… Do you know this person, Olivia?"
"Yes. Orson, this is Kenton. Kenton, this is Orson." Olivia replied, still in a bit of shock over what was going on.
"Nice to meet you… I've heard so much about you… like how you're from Oregon… which means you've come a long way." Orson said as he cautiously extended his hand. Dropping what little of an intimidating façade, Kenton smiled as he shook the other teen's hand.
"Nice to meet you, too. I've heard a lot of about you."
"Why don't you come inside? It's cold out here." Olivia said with a warm smile. Kenton nodded and turned to his side.
"I think you came come out, now."
Both Olivia and Orson tilted their heads in confusion as an older lady appeared from the left. As soon as Olivia recognized her, she wasted no time in wrapping her arms around her.
"Mrs. Hayes! I should have known that you were here, too!"
"Of course, I am. I promised Mia that I would get your reaction." Charmaine replied as she held up the smartphone that she was carrying.
"I'm… I'm actually going to be taking off now, I'm sure you two have a lot of catching up to do." Orson said as he tried to get himself out of this awkward situation.
"Are you sure? You don't have to…"
"No, it's fine. If I don't see you before then, have a safe trip!"
"Thanks! See you around!" Olivia said as Orson put on his coat and left without saying another word.
"So, what in the world are you two doing here?" Olivia asked as the three sat down in the living room.
"Mom's going to New York City to talk to someone about possibly buying into his restaurant."
"Wow, really? So, you're moving to the East coast?"
"Not exactly. Business has been well lately, and I want to, well, spread out and see how well a restaurant in our style could do in a bigger city." Charmaine explained.
"That seems… really strange for you." Olivia noted.
"Oh, I know. I've already heard about it." Charmaine said as she looked towards Kenton.
"She mentioned the idea of expanding to Portland to a customer and he knew someone who knew someone who liked her food and wanted to see about teaming up." Kenton explained with a slightly disapproving sigh.
"Ah, I see. So, you two deviated from your trip just to see me?" Olivia asked, trying to figure out why the two were still hundreds of miles away from their destination.
"Yes… we flew into Bangor and took a bus here. We're staying at a local hotel before taking a bus down to New York City. It’s like a mini-vacation." Charmaine said to finish her explanation.
"You could've stayed with us, I'm sure." Olivia pointed out, hating to think about her boyfriend and his mother staying in a hotel.
"No, it's fine. We got a good deal on a room." Kenton quickly said, remembering several chats that he had with Harlow.
"Speaking of which, that bus station you have is really nice. Really clean." Charmaine said, trying to make conversation.
"Funny you should say that…" Olivia said, getting ready to talk about the incident that happened two months prior.
Meanwhile, Orson walked into the front door of his house to see a rare sight: Calvin sitting on the recliner and both of his parents sitting on the couch.
"And you'll be leaving to come back on the 24th." Mr. Frasier said as Calvin's eyes were full of light and energy that Orson hadn't seen in a long time.
"Thank you, Mom! Thank you, Dad! You are the best!" Calvin said as he wrapped his arms around his mother.
"What's going on?" Orson asked as he took off his coat and put it on the hook. Both parents looked at each other and then back at Orson.
"Calvin, can you leave us alone for a second?" Mrs. Frasier asked with a semi-serious tone. Calvin happily nodded and went into his room. Orson gulped a bit before sitting down on the just-vacated recliner.
"What's up?" Orson cautiously asked.
"Well, we've noticed that Calvin has been pretty down in the dumps for the past month or so, and we figured that it had something to do with Toby moving away." Mr. Frasier answered. Orson nodded in acknowledgement.
"I know, Dad. I've been working on getting him to move on and find some new friends."
"We know, and that's what we want to talk to you about." Mrs. Frasier added. Orson wasn't quite sure why he was being lectured about this. He only has his brother's best interests at heart.
"Okay…"
"It's wrong to try to keep friends apart. I know that they're hundreds of miles apart, but there are plenty of ways for them to stay connected. You've been pushing Calvin to forget about Toby. We know it, and more importantly, Calvin knows it."
Orson didn't respond with words, instead opting to look down.
"We want you to ease up on him. We know that Toby's made some unwise decisions, but we trust Calvin and you need to, too."
"Okay."
"We've been keeping in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel, and they said that Toby isn't getting along well in school and it's causing him grief."
Orson nodded. He knew through Olivia that the only reason Toby's mother approved the move to Boston was strictly due to the incident with Butch and Lucas. As far as Orson was concerned, Toby did it to himself.
"We and they have decided that it would be good to let the boys get together for the holidays." Mr. Frasier said.
"How is he getting there?" Orson asked with a sigh as the pieces of the puzzle started to come together in his head.
"He's taking the bus. The minimum age to ride unattended is twelve, which makes Calvin barely old enough."
"…What?" Orson asked in disbelief that his parents were suggesting that he ride a charter bus to a big city far away by himself.
"Well, unattended isn't the correct phrase I want to use. But technically, a twelve-year old and a fifteen-almost-sixteen-year-old riding would be considered unattended."
"Oh, I see." Orson replied, trying not to roll his eyes at his mother's clever way of slipping the news into her sentence.
"The two of you leave on the 20th and come back on the 24th. It's going to be a bit of mad rush on Christmas eve, but you'll survive." Mr. Frasier said.
"Thanks for the faith, Dad." Orson replied, semi-sarcastically.
"I know we're asking a lot of you, but I think that if the two of them get together one more time and having a chance to say goodbye, it will help them both move on." Mrs. Frasier concluded. Orson thought for a second and nodded with a smile.
At a nearby hotel, Kenton and Charmaine walked into the room where Kenton sat down in a chair with a sigh after hearing about what happened.
"Did you know that Elias's father escaped?" Charmaine said as she was swiping around on her phone trying to find a news story from two months back. Kenton nodded.
"Mia told me that Olivia seen it on the news. But what are the odds that he would come here? It's so weird that he almost kidnapped Olivia's cousin. It feels like it's too much to be a coincidence."
"I can't believe that his father has another son. Do you think that they knew about one another?"
Kenton shook his head and replied "I doubt it. Then again, I didn't know that his parents were making bathtub smack, either."
"Ah, here it is. I think I know how to work this thing." Charmaine said as she tapped on the phone's screen a few times before a video popped up on the television in the hotel room.
"Tonight, residents in a small Maine town are in shock as an escaped prisoner was found living among them." Said a news anchor in the video.
"Escaped criminal Kevin 'Butch' Conner was discovered living in the small town of…" continued the anchor before the words were lost to a stutter in the video stream.
"…and Connor is believed to be heading back to the Oregon area with his son. Federal Agent Sequoia Anson advises residents of Western Oregon to notify authorities if they see either of these two people."
"Oh, my God, he even looks like him." Kenton said as he could've sworn that a long-haired version of his late best friend was pictured on the screen.
"I… I think… I think…" Kenton went on the mumble as he got out his phone and opened the contacts application. He hesitated with his thumb over "Cameron" before sighing and putting the phone back on the table in front of him.
"I don't think I can tell him about this. Not right now." Kenton said with a sigh.