Page 439 of His Hungry Wolf

He looked confused. “Why are you doing that?”

I was about to go into my story about it being a school project and then stopped myself.

“How close are you and Titus?”

“We talk,” Cali said casually.

“Did he tell you that he has a brother?”

Cali looked at me blankly.

“Maybe.”

I couldn’t tell if Cali was being coy or hiding the fact that Titus hadn’t told him. I was also too in my head right now to figure it out.

“Anyway, he does and I had the idea to offer free DNA tests to figure out who it is.”

“Cool,” he said casually.

When he didn’t immediately run off I felt a glimmer of hope.

“Did you want to take a test? It’s free.”

“What would I have to do?”

“You just spit in one of these tubes,” I said picking up one and showing it to him.

“That’s it.”

“Yeah. And then you fill out a form. They’ll send you the results in a few weeks.”

“That’s cool.”

“So, you want to?”

“Sure.”

I walked Cali through everything trying to hide my excitement. I figured that him taking the test wouldn’t help me find Titus’s brother, but his willingness gave me hope that others might want to as well.

Packing away his sample, I returned to things with a little more enthusiasm. I had a few more participants after him but not many. The only other one who was even close to our age was Claude who came over as promised. Claude was another guy who had no shot at being Titus’s brother, but at least today wasn’t going to be a complete waste.

Although Titus looked over a few times as he worked the room, he didn’t come back to me. I understood. I had told him to go… for the second time. Why would he return?

When the time came for the meeting to begin, the room was full. A fair-skinned, fifty-something woman with a slight Jamaican accent gathered people’s attention.

“Hello. Your attention please,” she said quieting everyone. “Thank you for coming. As you know, we are here to discuss something important for the future of our town. One of our impressive young community members has proposed that we open ourselves up to the outside world, and we are here to listen to both sides of the debate. I was thinking that I would have each of them make their argument and then if you have any questions for them, you can find them later as they circle about. Sound good?”

The crowd mumbled and the woman continued.

“Presenting the argument for why we shouldn’t will be Dr. Tom. You all know him. Most of you have removed your pants for him so he needs no introduction. Dr. Tom,” she said calling him forward.

Everyone clapped.

As the round-bellied, bearded Latino man talked about magical threats, I watched Titus. He wasn’t paying attention. He looked like he was going over notes in his head. He looked nervous and all I wanted was to wrap my arms around him letting him know everything would be alright.

When it came time for him to speak, he stepped in front of the crowd and glanced over at me. I wish I had time to give him a thumbs-up, but he looked away too quickly. Mine was just the first eyes he looked into.

As he stood there not saying a word, he scanned the room. It was only when heads began to bend towards each other to whisper that he spoke.