Sky's the Limit
Copyright© 2026 by aroslav
Chapter 2: Tough Break
I WAS ALMOST THIRTEEN years old when my parents were killed. I stayed with Pat and Marge and the twins while my parents went on a fifteenth anniversary ski trip to Colorado. Icy roads and a sheer cliff drop-off had claimed them.
I was devastated. My entire world ended. I couldn’t even speak. Every time I opened my mouth, I sobbed. I discovered a nook above the staircase at the Larsons’ house and hid there, just crying.
Pearl and Ruby found me there. Pearl gave me a hug that made me incredibly aware of how our bodies were changing. Ruby slugged me in the arm hard enough to knock me back. Then she hugged my arm to her and whispered, “It will only hurt for a while.” They both cried with me.
I spent a lot of time in that nook, staring out the window at the ocean. Most of the time the girls were there with me. I gradually moved my belongings out of my home and into theirs. It was one of the huge houses that a minor movie star built as a retreat back in the forties. Pat and Marge bought it for a song in the nineties during some kind of estate dispute.
My house had been my grandparents’ home just a couple of doors up the street. Granddad died in the seventies and left Grandma to raise her son in a big house by herself. She just let Mom and Dad live there when they got married and Grandma went off to tour the world.
She came back for my parents’ funeral and to put things in order. Once she had the house cleared of personal items, she said it would one day be mine, when I was ready for it. Until then, she’d get an agent to rent the place and take care of maintenance. Grandma helped me decide where I wanted to live and signed custody over to Pat and Marge. I remember the last time I left the old house and locked the door behind me. I think that marked where I truly turned the page and started a new chapter in my life.
Pat and Marge didn’t actually adopt me. They said I’d always be my parents’ son and they weren’t going to try to replace them. They’d just take care of me to the best of their ability. I grew to love them and to love the twins.
The reading nook with Pearl and Ruby became a focal point for our lives. We were all kind of bookish and already spent every spare minute at TBR. But the reading nook was a where we started reading to each other. Pearl started it. She brought a book to the nook one night after we were all in our pajamas and just opened it and started reading aloud.
Sometimes we only read a chapter and sometimes, we read late into the night. When Pearl’s teen romance book was finished, Ruby brought an intense literary thriller to the nook and we cuddled close together as we read each night before bed. When it was finished, Pearl turned to me and said, “Tomorrow night, you bring a book to read to us.”
Me? I knew what kind of books the girls liked. Pearl had chosen a romance and Ruby a thriller. I was usually into fantasy, but I’d enjoyed the girls’ choices. I’d really enjoyed just being cuddled with them each night. I spent a long time in the store the next day and finally selected an independently published teen crossover fantasy titled Jackie the Beanstalk. Normal everyday teen girl—I figured my angels would appreciate a girl protagonist—who takes off on an adventure with her Aunt Misty and her dog Roadkill right after graduation. Somehow, they cross into a fantasy world where their old sports car never runs out of gas. They encounter monsters, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, an ogre, a giant, and about any other kind of fantasy creature you can imagine. All this while they try to find and rescue a young prince. Cool.
It all went well until I turned the page and saw Jackie’s commentary about her nickname, ‘Beanstalk.’ She looked up the definition in an urban dictionary to see if it meant anything other than a tall skinny kid. The third definition she found was ‘a clitoral erection, as in lick my beanstalk.’
The girls giggled and blushed. I was going to slam the book shut and apologize, but Ruby stuck her hand between the pages and looked at me evilly.
“Do you know what that is and means?” she whispered.
She giggled all the way through her detailed explanation. I almost passed out from hyperventilating before Pearl came to my rescue. Her face was bright red.
“Okay, we all know what’s what now, Ruby. Thank you very much! Sky, just keep reading!”
I did, and fortunately there wasn’t that much more that was too embarrassing. I even attempted different girl-voices for Jackie and Misty. That got a lot of laughs. And while I read, the girls leaned against me from either side. They were so sweet. I just had to be careful to keep my lap covered so any unintended responses weren’t obvious.
We went through a couple of dozen books, reading aloud for an hour or so each night after we were ready for bed. I slowly came out of my depression—at least most of the time—and life became almost normal living with my adopted family. I realized I’d fallen in love with my two childhood friends who had cared for me when I was at my lowest.
“Roll for potion strength,” Elixia Brewster, our game’s potion master called out.
In real life, she was Denise, the barista for TBR Bookstore’s coffee bar. Everyone agreed, she was a master at brewing. On Wednesday evenings, she was a cornerstone of our D&D game.
It wasn’t required, but if a customer chose to roll for strength, they paid a tip according to the posted numbers at the counter. There was a chance that you’d roll a one and only tip one percent. There was a chance you’d roll a twenty and tip twenty percent. Denise came up with the system and even non-gamers got into playing. She made good money.
It was part of the atmosphere of TBR Books. I’d added activities like this when I got out of college and started taking over the bookstore. I changed a lot of things as I focused on competing with Argosy Books, the ultra-modern glass and steel bookstore a few blocks east of us. But I was determined not to lose the general funky vibe that made our store unique. We were in Old Town La Alegria across the Coast Road from the boardwalk and the beach. People were as likely to stop into the store in board shorts or bikinis for a cup of Denise’s coffee as they were to buy a book. A lot of coffee customers walked out with books, too.