Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

He was fine with it. He had his blanket. And a book. He sat against the wall near the door, opened it, and began to read.

I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

It was a game.

I would win.

I lasted an hour.

“What day is it?”

He marked his place in his book before closing it and looking up at me. “Wednesday.”

“The date.”

“May twentieth.”

The bridge incident was after the full moon. It’d been over a week. Everyone in Caswell had to know I was gone. I wondered if they were looking for me. They had to know where I was.

I said, “Don’t you have a job or something?”

“I do.” That was it. That was all he said. He was waiting to see if I would ask more.

I wasn’t going to fall for it.

It took two minutes before I couldn’t stand it any longer. “What?”

He arched an eyebrow at me.

I hated him. “What do you do?” Then, as if I couldn’t help myself, “What did I do?”

“You worked at the garage with Gordo and Ox. Chris and Tanner and Rico.”

I was dubious. It made sense, seeing as how much I’d been on the wall, but I couldn’t believe it. “Me.”

“Yeah.”

“But I don’t know anything about cars.”

He smiled. It was quiet and soft, and I forced myself to look away. “Yeah, no. You absolutely don’t. You once caused an engine to catch on fire.”

I scowled at him. “There’s a lot of parts inside—”

“You were supposed to be rotating the tires.”

Well, fuck. “Oh.”

“It was impressive. Rico and Chris put it out before it caused too much damage, but Gordo decided then and there you could never touch a car again. He put you at the front desk answering phones and handling customers. It worked for you. People… they liked you.” I looked up when his voice took an odd tone. “Some of them really liked you. High school girls especially. This one guy kept bringing in his daughter’s car. She swore there was a rattling sound every time she drove it.”

“There was nothing wrong with the car.”

“No. She just liked to put her underage boobs on the counter for you to look at.”

I was scandalized. “I would never—”

He laughed. “I know, but she didn’t. She tried, though. Got to give her some credit.”

“I… liked it? Working there,” I added quickly. “Not the underage… whatever.” I looked down at my hands.