“Lucas? Lucas honey where are you??” I could hear the frantic calls from his mother Alice as she searched around outside. She finally spotted him over in front of my window and relief flooder her face. “Baby what you are doing? That’s someone’s house.”

“Kain!” He called and that’s all he said before turning back to me. He once again tried to pull himself into my house and I quickly grabbed him by the armpits to place him out on the grass again.

Soon enough his mom crossed over and came to grab him. She noticed me when she was close enough and started in surprise. “Oh hello.” She took one of Lucas’s hands so he didn’t try anything. “Are you the son of our renters? What’s your name?”

“Kain.” I said again but all I wanted to do was go back to reading now that the boy was being taken back.

“Well hello, Kain! Are your parents’ home?” her smile was bright and blinding and for some reason I didn’t feel annoyed by her like I did by her son.

“No, they are at work.” I figured I could tell her my baby sitter was in the other room but I didn’t think that was what she wanted to hear about.

“Oh, I see.” Her eyes trailed to the side before she spotted the baby sitters car and sighed in relief when she figured I wasn’t completely alone. “Then I guess we will head back over once they are home.”

I shifted nervously, why would she do that? Most renters didn’t bother interacting with us. Was she going to tell them that I pushed her sons head? But I didn’t even do it that hard! I was fidgeting in place, really not wanting to get in trouble when she ruffled my hair.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. We are just hoping to talk to your parents to make a deal with them.”

I felt relief flush through my small body. “What kind of deal?”

She looked over at the rental house and smiled. “We really like the house, and we really love the beach. We have been here for a few summers in a row now but we want to come back every summer for sure. We are willing to pay a lot of money to keep it reserved for us.”

I felt my eyes bug out of my head. At the words ‘a lot of money’ I knew my parents would agree in a heartbeat. I turned slowly to look at the little boy and felt dread fill my heart. If they stayed every summer that meant I would have to deal with little annoying thing every summer.

“Oh…” is all I could muster before I just turned and walked back into the house. I could feel the two of them looking at me strangely before she called out again.

“See you later tonight then!” and I heard them walk off.

I tried not to think about it anymore. I couldn’t honestly say why I did not want that boy to be around there every summer, but when my parents came home and the three of them showed up I knew I was doomed. There was laughing and smiles and the shaking of hands and it was all over.

From then on our families got close. My parents loved the idea of having someone at the next house over that could look after me when they were at work and didn’t constantly have to find baby sitters that could come every day. Every day either Lucas came over to my house when I did have a baby sitter or it was the weekend, or I was forced to go over to the rental.

It wasn’t all horrible. I liked his moms a lot. Alice made me foods I’d never tried before and I got to learn more about Japanese culture my parents had never bothered to teach me. Jamie taught me how to dance and sway to the music and taught me about sports, shooting video games, and the importance of looking good for special events. On days she was feeling really good she would put makeup on me and Lucas and we would all dress up and have a fashion show for Alice who was the judge because she knew so much about fashion.

Lucas, on the other hand, was intolerable. He was always clinging to me and following me around. He loved to snuggle too and was always trying to cling onto me.

Throughout our grade school years we played all the time. I did it begrudgingly, knowing he would bug me until I agreed to play his games, but usually ended up having a little bit of fun.

We would play in the yard as pirates, super heroes, and police. I usually ended up being the bad guy which involved running away as he chased me. Sometimes I got mean and went back into the house and let him look for me for a while before I came back out. I didn’t do it often though because the look when he thought I was lost was so sad. I may not have liked him much but I didn’t hate him.

We also played house a lot. I was the big daddy and he was the little daddy and we had to make mud pies to feed our children which usually was whatever small animal that he could spot. It was safe to say we had a lot of bird children.

When Jamie and Alice were free we would usually pack a lunch and go to the beach. We would play in the sand making sand castles and burying each other. Though it was usually me burying Lucas and leaving him in the sand. When we were in our swimsuits we would swim and try to jump over the waves. Lucas slipped a lot and I always had to pull him back up. Surprisingly, he never cried when he fell.

When middle school hit most of those things stopped. Instead, we would go out and ride bikes just the two of us. I would try to ride faster than Lucas so I left him behind but he always wined and I slowed down so he could catch up again. We played video games a lot too when Alice would let us. She never liked video games much because she claimed ‘why waste your time on something like that when there is a whole world around you to explore’. She got a little more lenient when we got her to play Super Smash Bros Brawl and she found an addiction to kicking our butts.

We also started baking a lot more in middle school. Lucas usually messed up the recipe but him moms’ claimed that if you didn’t make a mess then there was no reason to bake at all. They always seemed to celebrate happy accidents.

Despite all the changes we still went to the beach together. A lot of times without Alice and Jamie because they were doing other things and Lucas always wanted to go. I had grown used to the sand and the sea but he never did no matter how many months he came. We would walk to the beach looking for shells and stepping on the seaweed bubbles. Usually he would run into the water and get his clothes wet which made me roll my eyes.