Sasquatch to the Moon

34: Three Flags

ROCKET

"So, why exactly did we get three?" Jilly is leaning over my shoulder as I set the box on my counter.

"I need to give someone the third, you'll get to know soon enough." I slip a kitchen knife in the folds of the cardboard and cut cleanly through the tape.

Her jaw drops at me, arms crossed. "Hoooold on."

"Uh huh?" I play stupid, opening up the top of the box. Inside there's three smaller packages and a couple of stickers.

"Did you get a boyfriend? Is that what I'm hearing?"

I pinch two fingers. "Almost. We're almost there."

"Holy shit, okay, clearly I haven't been hanging out with you as much as I should be." She laughs. "So, am I allowed to know anything?"

"Not yet." I toss her the tissue paper covered flag, one where I can clearly see purple and blue. "Happy fifteenth, yeah?"

She grins. "Yeah."

I root through the bottom of the box. "Aw, sick, color coordinated push pins."

"Huh?" She leans over and I hand her one of the boxes.

"Blue and pink pins so you can hang it up without messing with the full color." I shrug. "I've got red and purple ones, two sets."

"They really think of everything, huh." She laughs, looking down at the pins. "So, boyfriend?"

"Can't tell you right now."

"C'mon, Rocks, it's my birthday."

I shake my head. "Can't yet, but what I can do, considering you get to start learning to drive soon, is tell you that I'm not letting you off as easy as your brother. I will be taking you out of city limits and letting you learn how to drive a stick shift the fun way."

She unfolds the flag and in one swoop, wraps it around her shoulders like a cape. "Fine, fine, but when I start driving like you, be prepared to hear it from Steph."

"Oh, I've always known you were going to end up driving like me." I grin, unwrapping my own full-sized completely rainbow pride flag. "We should get Steph one of those black and white flags for being hetero and boring."

"I feel like that's a little too shady," she says. "Maybe it could say 'ally' really big."

"Or we could just put the pride stickers all over his stuff, I'm sure the media wouldn't have a field day with that at all."

"I love you two dearly, but for fucks sake, don't do that to me." Steph is standing in the door. "Nice flags."

"We could've gotten you a flag too, but you decided to be boring." Jilly sticks out her tongue at her brother.

"I didn't decide a single thing. Alright, Jilly, you've got friends coming over and you've got to get home, Rocket, you can drop by later for extra cake."

"And drop by I will." I grin. "Cake garbage disposal, right here."

We talk for another minute or so, then the second they're out the door I jog upstairs to where I push-pin the flag I got for myself onto my wall. Proud of myself in a couple of ways.

But my work here is far from done.

From there, I grab the second one and book it across town. Håkon stayed after at the rink for a captains meeting and I've got a little time before he comes back.

He keeps a spare key in the light outside his house. With that, I break in.

I creep through the kitchen and up the thin staircase, finding his room quickly.