Pupils! Dammit. I pressed my lips together and hastily jerked my game face into position. “He’ll be leaving town soon.”
“But he said he runs that garage for his mom,” Shanice said. “I wasn’t kidding about my POS Pontiac. That thing is not happy about the humidity here. It’s been sputtering every time I start it. Besides, you’re here, and he didn’t look like he wanted to go anywhere.”
“His mother is going to sell the garage. And he’s… going to leave.” As the words fell from my mouth, they became real. They tugged until they pulled that pretense of I’m fine and unscathed and it’s no big deal right off. I couldn’t break my fall, and for the first time, I didn’t want to.
“That sucks,” Chase said. “He looked really into you.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Milla asked, a tiny crease between her brows.
“I don’t know,” I said.
No, I thought. No, I’m not.
chapter
Twenty-five
Boyce
On Wednesday, Sam told me she needed to leave early for an appointment with her therapist, which she swore up and down was a complete waste of time and energy. “Dad won’t even fucking listen to what I want,” she said, crossing her arms and scowling like Vega’s boys did when they were confronted with something green on their plates.
“Get any good drugs outta the deal, at least?”
More sheltered than her rough-and-tumble attitude implied, she went slack-jawed, eyes bulging. When I laughed at the utter disbelief on her face, her expression sank right back into its routine glower. “I only take drugs when I need them,” she said, hints dropping from that statement like shrapnel shells.
I’d looked up spina bifida on the Internet—she’d told Pearl her diagnosis during one of their Here’s how I change a spark plug interactions. I was more impressed with Sam’s tenacity in the face of that shit than I would ever let on, mostly because she’d probably hurl one of my own tools at my head and say she didn’t need any damn pity.
“Do you do drugs?” she snapped.
I lifted the battery she’d just detached out of the hatchback. “I did when I was your age.” I decided against telling her I wasn’t just doing them at her age, or that I smoked the occasional joint now.
“So you think I’m a * because I think drugs are medication and not for recreational dumbassery?”
Whoa, Nellie. “Nope.” I lifted a shoulder, unpacking the new battery. “I was a dumbass at sixteen. I laughed because you sorta look like an anime hamster when you’re shocked. Also, full props for recreational dumbassery.”
She smirked, so I guess the anime hamster analogy was acceptable. Christ.
I set the new battery in place. “You’ve got a few minutes before your dad gets here. Hook ’er up.”
After Mr. Adams picked Sam up, I turned the Closed sign, locked up, and went inside to shower, ignoring Mom and Riley—who had decided he didn’t have to abide by my no smoking inside rule since I didn’t “own the place.” Saying horseshit like that amused the fuck out of him, so I’d quit speaking or listening to him altogether. For five days running they’d rolled outta the bed I’d bought for Pearl around noon, stumbled out of the room I’d painted for Pearl, and parked their asses on the sofa watching daytime television, drinking my beer, and picking redneck fights with each other.
I hadn’t seen Pearl since Friday night—or Saturday morning. We’d texted a few times and talked a couple. She had let me know earlier in the week that everything was cool regarding our no-condom fuckup.
“Oh good. Phew,” I said. What I was thinking: Damn, which I sure as shit kept to my fool self because she would not have shared that reaction.
I knew she was confused when I begged off seeing her, but I blamed Riley’s appearance and the need to get a few things at the shop settled. Both were true—no way I was allowing her to cross paths with that jackass, and I had some serious shit to nail down before I saw her again.
“You won’t leave without seeing me, right?” she’d asked last night.
“No way.”
I heard her answering sigh and almost caved. I wanted to talk to her about her stepfather’s offer, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to tell her until I had something to fucking say. Until I’d removed the obstacle that stood between us. Until then, I was spinning my wheels, scrambling for enough solid ground to pull myself out, and I’d be damned before I’d drag her into the mud with me.
“Where’re you going?” Mom asked as I crossed the living room. “Ain’t the garage still open?”
“Not today.”
She said something else I ignored, then came to the door and hollered at me as I fired up the TA and cranked the stereo like I didn’t see or hear her. She hadn’t been around for my teenage years. I reckoned she had it coming to her.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Dr. Frank closed his office door behind him and reached to shake my hand. “Boyce, good to see you. Have some questions for me, or have you reached a decision?” He sat behind the desk, and I took one of the chairs facing him. The positions were familiar enough that all sorts of smartass comments were pouring into my head. But this wasn’t school and I wasn’t in hot water. I was a businessman speaking to a potential investor.
I sat straight as a rod, pressing a fist to my thigh to pin down my leg, which wanted to judder a mile a minute. “You’ve made me a real fair offer, Dr. Frank, and I’ve got no reason to turn it down. But—and I’m sure I’m going about this all wrong—I have a proposition of my own.”
He nodded and sat forward. “All right.”
“I started working for my father ten years ago. He was an asshole, pardon my language, but he knew cars and he passed that know-how down to me. If I told you I’d thought that garage would be mine since then, that would be a lie. Truth is, I didn’t have any kinda goals or plans when I was a kid. I just… did what was easiest.”
What was easiest was surviving the loss of Mom and Brent and ducking my dad’s fist, but by seventeen I could’ve shaped up. I could’ve followed Maxfield’s lead and got the hell out. I chose not to, because staying required nothing. It was so fucking easy.
I’d dug my own hole, and it was time to dig myself out.