Текст книги "Resentment"

Автор книги: Nicole London

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Chapter 30

MIA

Dean doesn’t show up for dinner.

He doesn’t call.

He doesn’t text.

I sit at the bar where he told me to meet him, where he told me we would finally get everything out in the open. I wait for a full hour, thinking he got caught in rush hour traffic, and then I text him to try and figure out where he is.

MIA: Hey. Are you still coming?

DEAN:  No. I changed my mind. I still need a little more time.

MIA: When were you planning to tell me that? I’ve been waiting here for an hour.

DEAN: My apologies. Maybe we can do this another day. Not today, though.

MIA: Dean...You do realize this is kind of fucked up, don’t you? What could’ve possibly happened between last night and today that made you change your mind?

No answer.

I refresh my messages several times and no response comes.

I’m not sure whether to be angry or hurt right now, but I refuse to let him ruin the rest of my night. I leave money on the table for the two drinks I bought while waiting, and decide to go to the bar that’s down the street, the one he took me to before, where the bartender knew how to make my drinks a lot lighter.

I don’t even mind that it’s storming outside as I walk down the street. I’ve become quite accustomed to the rain here, and no one who lives here ever seems to be surprised by people who enter buildings in wet clothes.

As soon as I make it to the bar, the hostess greets me with a small dry towel and asks where I would prefer to sit. The words “the bar” are on the tip of my lips, but they don’t come out because my heart is dropping to the floor.

What the fuck...

I stand still in the doorway, staring at Dean from afar. He’s sitting with someone else and she’s obviously flirting with him. I can’t tell if he’s flirting back, but he’s definitely not putting off her advances.

His gaze remains on her for several minutes and my heart breaks a bit more, with each one that passes.

Trying to remain calm, I pull out my phone and send him a text.

MIA: Where are you right now?

I watch as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, as he holds it in front of his face to read my message. Instead of typing back a response, he stares at the message, looking confused. Then he puts the phone back into his pocket and he orders another drink.

My heart drops lower than I’ve ever felt it, and I can’t force myself to walk out of the bar at all. I march past the hostess and straight over to him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say, stepping between him and whoever this woman is. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Dean?”

He tosses back a shot, unfazed.

“You had me waiting for you!” I can feel hot tears falling down my face. “I was waiting for you right down the street and this is where you were the whole time? With someone else?”

“Mia—”

“Don’t you fucking ‘Mia’ me.” My chest heaves up and down. “You told me we were going to talk today, you picked the time and place. YOU, not me, and instead of showing up to face whatever bullshit issue you ‘think’ I did to you ten years ago, you’re still acting like a goddamn coward. Just admit you’re a goddamn coward.”

“I’m not a goddamn coward.” He slams his glass down onto the bar, shattering it to pieces, and I can feel the eyes of everyone in that bar staring at us.

The two of us are glaring at each other, refusing to blink, refusing to be the first to back down.

I open my mouth to shout at him again, to berate him for pulling the exact same shit he pulled ten years ago, but he grabs my hand and pulls me outside before I can get a word out.

He tightens his grip on my hand and tugs me down past a few businesses, stopping once we’re in the doorway of an abandoned storefront. With his eyes bloodshot red and his face tightened in an undeniable expression of rage, he looks me square in the eyes.

“What the fuck is your problem, Mia?” he bellows. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Is this how you still deal with things when life doesn’t go your way? When someone tries to understand you?” I couldn’t care less how angry he is. “You just decide to move on to someone else?”

“You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. No fucking idea, you’re just jumping to your usual dumbass conclusions!”

“Who is she?” I push him away from me. “Who is she!”

He steps back and glares at me, seemingly trying to calm down.

I don’t give him the chance. “I want an answer, and I want it now.”

“Of course, you do.” He hisses. “You want everything done your way, on your time, and you still don’t give a fuck about anyone’s feelings outside of your own.” He moves closer to me again, so close that we’re chest to chest. “You still haven’t changed one fucking bit in that aspect, and that, THAT is why I didn’t want to talk to you today.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Is it?” His voice is even louder. “Is it, Mia? Or does everything you can’t control, somehow always seem to fall under that category?”

“Who is the woman in the bar, Dean?” I feel a lump rising up my throat. “Who the fuck is she?”

“She’s a friend,” he says. “One who actually knows how to let shit go.”

“You were never going to talk to me about what happened to us, were you? You were never going to—”

“It’s because you were so fucking selfish, Mia!” His skin turns a deeper shade of red. “You were so fucking selfish and you couldn’t even see it. Even now, you’re still running around playing like you’re some type of victim.”

“You hurt me, Dean...” I say, my voice cracking more than ever. “I was the victim.”

“No, but you’d get a goddamn Oscar if that ever was a category.” Hurt is in his eyes again, but his tone is all anger. “I was trying to move past your bullshit. I’ve been trying to let everything that happened go, by making up for the stuff that I did cause, but it’ll never be enough for you, will it? You’d rather hurt someone else in the process of trying to make yourself feel better, right?”

“Do you hear yourself right now? Do I need to list the ways that you hurt me? Is this your backwards attempt at trying to place all the blame with me?”

“Mia—”

“Fuck. You.” My heart aches. “Fuck you, Dean. I’m not going to stand here and let you vilify me over something I’ve been trying to understand ever since I got here. If you don’t want to tell me, fine. If you want to go the rest of your life, living in some type of world where people don’t address their issues, fine. And if you want to continue hurting the person who has loved you for the past ten years, even when I didn’t want to, that’s fine, too. But you’ll be doing that shit alone.”

“So tell me. Tell me right now...” I’m bawling and I know my words are coming out partially warbled, but I don’t care. “What’s it going to be? You can either tell me what the fuck happened between us right now, so we can try to get past it, or we can be done forever and I will never, ever come back to you, or speak to you again.”

“What’s it going to be?” I ask again, feeling the rain falling against us even harder.

He stares at me, jaw still clenched, but he slowly steps back. “It’s not going to be anything. We can be done forever, as far as I’m concerned.”

His words hurt, and my heart doesn’t want to accept them, but my mind will be playing life-director from here on out.

“I’ll never say another word to you again,” I say, and I quickly walk off, not giving him a chance to have the last word. I rush back to where I parked Eric’s car and shut myself inside, breaking down behind the steering wheel.

I now have no excuse for moving on from him, and I’m humiliated that life has had to teach me the same lesson twice. That I’ll have to call Autumn in the morning and tell her that I was dumb enough to fall for the same exact tricks, ten years later.

He’ll never change, but I will.

I’m done.

Regret ** Resentment** Redemption

REDEMPTION (n.) The act of Dean Collins finally coming clean about the past and finally atoning for the mean ass shit he put you through in high school (also: the act of Mia finally understanding why things happened the way they did, and her realizing where she went wrong, too.)

Chapter 31

DEAN

Two days later...

This is bullshit...

I run another lap around the downtown park, seething with every step. My body is drenched in a sweat, my mind is losing itself, and my heart has just been stabbed by the same girl who broke it ten years ago.

It’s been four fucking hours since I came out here to run—rain be damned, and I’m not going to let myself stop until I can’t feel anything anymore.

I can’t stop thinking about Mia and how she stormed into the bar and got right between me and my way-too-down-to-earth therapist. How she accused her of being a date of mine.

It was true that I wasn’t up to discussing the past with her that night, and that I’d gone to my favorite bar to think on it for a minute instead. It’s just that that “minute” turned into half an hour and before I knew it, I was calling my therapist and asking her to confirm that I was doing the right thing.

“Mia is the love of your life,” she’d said, patting me on the shoulder. “She’s pretty much the only constant you’ve talked about since we met years ago. Go talk to her. I’ll let you have one more drink and then you need to go talk to her. And text her back, too.”  That was the last sentence she got out before Mia stormed over and started yelling like a goddamn psycho.

I wonder if my therapist will feel the same way about Mia the next time I see her...

I run another lap around the park, thinking this might be the last one, but as I approach the line of white food trucks, all the things Mia said that night begin to play in my head on repeat.

I’d argued with her before in the past and a lot when she first came to Portland, but I’ve never seen her that angry before. Even when we broke up the first time, she never acted out like that.  Part of me was quite turned on by it, but the other part of me was wondering, “Who the hell is this girl?”

The second she started crying, I wanted to hold her and tell her it was okay, but I had to hold back. If she had any inkling as to what I felt all those years ago, she wouldn’t be walking around ten years later like she’s the damn victim.

She’s the one who hurt me. Not only that, but she didn’t even give me a chance to talk to her back then, and now, I try and do the right thing and let everything go and even apologize for the particular moments where I messed up and she brings up all this other shit.

I’m tempted to go home and demand that she listen to my side of everything, but there are two problems with that scenario: One, all of her things from the condo are long gone and Eric is impatiently waiting for an explanation for that shit. And two, even if I did know where she’d moved, I know it would just turn out the same as that night. I refuse to let her turn everything around again.

I’m done with her.

***

By the time my brain gives up thinking about Mia, it’s three o’clock in the morning and I still feel like I can go for a few more miles.

I’ve taken an extra-long shower, stared at the TV for hours and even attempted to clean, but I’m still unable to clear my mind. Glancing at her empty bedroom every three seconds doesn’t help either.

After I toss back a shot, I pull out my phone and see there’s a text message from my therapist.

SARAH, MD: Did you go home and talk to Mia the other night?

DEAN: No.

SARAH, MD: Why not?”

DEAN: Is there a charge for when you text me after hours?

SARAH, MD: Dean...Please call her.

DEAN: I’m serious about the charge. Is this counted in your billable hours? (I didn’t agree to pay for anything outside of the original 150/per hour thing.)

SARAH, MD: NO. Call her. Now. (And you pay me 180/per hour. I had to start charging you extra for the additional “I just want to talk about Mia today” sessions that you insisted on weeks ago :-) )

I roll my eyes and give in to her irrational request. I dial Mia’s number, still amazed that it hasn’t changed in all these years, that I never thought to actually call her as much as she crossed my mind, and then I hit the green key.

It rings once. Twice. Voicemail.

“You’ve reached Mia. I’m unable to take your call right now. Please leave a message and I promise I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!”

I’m tempted to say something, but I hang up before the beep can sound. And before I can think about calling her again, I turn off my phone and toss it across the room to prevent myself from calling again.

I lean back against the living room sofa and try to go to sleep, but it’s no use.

I know I won’t be able to get any decent sleep for a long time, and the only thing my traitorous mind wants me to focus on are the memories of us from years ago...

Chapter 32

DEAN

Ten years ago...

Small Town, USA

2004

Mia Gray is the most beautiful girl at Central High School. She’s your typical cliché “Miss Anti-Social”, the “I don’t hang out with the popular people to make a statement” type (never votes for superlatives), the sexy bookworm who’s had every guy’s attention since sophomore year, and the one girl who turns every guy down with a simple eye roll and a “Please stop talking to me” in five seconds flat.”

Her face is gorgeous, reminiscent of the models in the magazines—full and pouty pink lips, big brown eyes that see right through you, and even though she dresses like a damn librarian, she’d easily be voted “Miss Popular” if she were to ever put her name in for the chance.

Nonetheless, for some reason, she seems to avoid me like the plague. She leaves the four classes we take together early, never comes to pep rallies to cheer on the team (Even though I am the team), and the few times that I’ve approached her and genuinely tried to talk to her, she didn’t even give me her trademark, “Please stop talking to me.” She just gave me a blank stare and walked away.

No, really.

Sophomore year, when I first saw her (Not sure where the hell she was freshman year...), I was completely taken aback as to how pretty she was. I was so taken aback that I just approached her, no game plan whatsoever. Since she was sitting alone at a bench outside our cafeteria, I walked up to her and said, “Hey...What’s up?”

She wrapped up her sandwich, stood up, and walked away.

Junior year, during a football practice, I spotted her painting on the bleachers. She was wearing a short blue dress that actually showed off her curves, and since she sat through the whole practice without once looking up, I walked her way as soon as it was over. I cleared my throat this time and waited for her to look at me. And I made sure my voice was a lot more serious. The second her eyes met mine I said, “Hey...What’s up?”

She picked up her canvas and practically jumped off the bleachers.

And right before senior year, during the summer, when every guy on the team tried to tell me that Mia Gray was “untouchable” and “would never talk to any guy at our school” I tried that shit one last time. I spotted her with her friend Autumn at the movie theater where they worked one Saturday night. I left my date to walk up to her while they were in mid-conversation and looked right into her eyes. I made sure she knew I was fucking serious because I glared at her before saying, “Hey...What’s up?”

That time she called her manager.

With senior year starting in a few weeks, I’m not taking any chances this time. I will get her to talk to me. Even if we don’t end up working out, fine, but I have to see what could possibly happen.  I’ve never had a crush on a girl for this long and I’ve never had to work so hard just to get someone to say a basic hello.

After the team’s first weight training practice in the school’s gym, I stay behind and pretend like I have muscle cramps that I need to walk off for a while. When I’m sure no one is following me out to the hallway, I find Mia’s locker: 345. She’s literally the only girl at school I know that makes use of Central High’s year-round locker perk.

I take out the list of digital locker codes I got from the school’s secretary (She has an unfortunate crush on me, despite the fact that me and her son are the same age), and find Mia’s code: 34-87-45.

The door pops open and I find myself faced with one of the most organized interiors of a locker I’ve ever seen. She has hooks on the door that she uses for extra pens and pencils, her paintbrushes are organized by height and color, and a lot of her personal reading books are similar to mine.

I pick up her copy of Macbeth and wonder if she actually enjoyed it or if she only read it because it was a requirement last year. I notice that her schedule for the upcoming semester has been slightly altered—as if she’s purposely gotten out of the classes I signed up for, so I take a picture of it so I can get placed back into her new ones.

Amateur...

I flip through her notebooks and notice there’s one that says, “Physics Summer Studies 2004”

She completed all of the summer assignments already?

I tuck the notebook under my arm, just in case I actually have to keep it, and then I flip through the few CDs she has, hoping we have something in common.

We do not.

We definitely do not.

I haven’t heard of any of these bands, and just from the way their album covers look I doubt any of them are something I’d listen to at all. Nonetheless, I pull out my phone and type in the name of the first band into Myspace and give them a try.

I get fifteen seconds in before I have to stop.

Fuck no...

I try the next few and end with the same results. Feeling slightly defeated, I take pictures of the albums and decide to give them another chance later. Maybe her terrible taste in music will grow on me.

I glean her locker for a few last bits of information, noticing that she has a red pin that reads, “President of Central High’s Art Club” hanging proudly from a hook.

Since when do we have an art club?

Before closing her locker, I take the pin and stuff it into my bag; I’ll bring it back later.

***

During the first week of school, everything seems to be going just like the years before. The school spirit is at an all-time high because our team is ranked number one in the state before the season even begins. The freshmen and sophomore girls are treating me like some type of god (Not that I mind that at all) and Mia Gray is sitting right across from me in Physics class and acting like I don’t exist.

“Mia?” I clear my throat. “Mia?”

She turns to face me with her eyebrow raised, and I lose track of what I was going to say. The way she looks today is catching me completely off-guard.

Jesus, she’s gorgeous...

“Yes, Mr. Collins?” she asks, pursing her pouty pink lips.

“Hey...” I honestly can’t think of shit else to say. “What’s up?”

“Unbelievable.” She stands up, and I think she’s about to switch seats, but the teacher is actually asking her to make some type of announcement.

“Um, hey everyone,” she says softly.

“Everyone, quiet!” The teacher says louder and the room goes silent. “One of the people who’s actually going to do something with her life after graduation is trying to speak to you right now.”

Mia’s cheeks turn pink. “I think I left my black notebook in here earlier this week so if anyone has seen it, I’d greatly appreciate it if you return it to me before we take our first test over the summer assignments in a few weeks.” She blushes again. “Thank you.”

She returns to her seat next to me and I smile at her.

She scowls at me and turns around.

Just for that, I’m keeping this shit for another two weeks...

I try to give her the notebook one last time when class ends—granted, my words still aren’t as smooth as they usually are, but at least she manages to finally give me the “Please stop talking to me.” And then I realize getting a chance with Mia Gray is going to be a lot harder than I originally thought...

Chapter 33

DEAN

Ten years ago...

Small Town, USA

2004

I spend all night listening to all of the terrible indie bands Mia likes, rolling my eyes at every song, but around midnight, I have to admit that I start to enjoy them. So much so that I burn a CD and put it in my car to listen to later.

I’ve already decided how I will approach her again. It’ll have to be whenever she’s alone and can’t slip away into a crowd, but I need to figure out a way to get her to keep talking to me since I don’t think a one-time conversation with her will get me anywhere; she seems completely resistant to me for some reason.

The perfect solution doesn’t hit me until the next day in English class, my best subject.

Instead of writing the hell out of the essay assignment that’s due that week, I purposely half-ass each one. That’s all the time is takes for the teacher to notice because on Friday, she pulls me to the side at the end of class.

“Mr. Collins,” she says, “As entertaining as your recent ramblings on ‘Why Is This Girl So Difficult With Me’ are, they have nothing to do with Beowulf.”

“They don’t?” I smile.

“No, they don’t.” She shakes her head at me. “Do you not care about getting your first slew of C’s in your high school career?”

“Cs?” I cross my arms. “I need at least a D to make this thing convincing. How do I get one of those?”

“Keep turning in the crap you’ve been writing lately.” She pats my shoulder. “I’m not sure what the hell you’re doing, but you do plan on bringing it back up to an A and keeping my hope in your generation alive, correct?”

“Definitely.” I walk past her and head straight to “art club” so I can finally give Mia her notebook back.

I head down the hallway on the east side of the school and peer into all of the empty classrooms. She never seems to pick the same room twice for some reason.

When I get to the end of the hall, I finally see her.

Dressed simply today in jeans and a black T-shirt, she’s deep into whatever she’s painting, and when I walk inside the room she doesn’t even look up.

As a matter of fact, it takes her fifteen minutes to notice me.

“Yes?” She looks up from her canvas and stares at me from across the classroom. “May I help you with something, Dean? You’re not in the art club.”

“I’m aware.” I smirk, looking around the empty classroom. “But it doesn’t look like anyone is in art club...”

She rolls her eyes and sets down her paintbrush. “We’re currently accepting applications for membership,” she says. “What can I help you with?”

“You know, I did come here for something.” I shut door. “But, now that you claim that you’re accepting applications for your club, can I fill one out?”

“We don’t accept douchebags. Your application wouldn’t make it past round one.”

“Douchebag?” And is she blushing right now?

“Yes, douchebag. Would you like me to give you the definition?”

“I’m well versed on the definition, Mia Gray.” I stare at her for a while, still trying to figure out if the red in her cheeks is blushing or anger.

She’s definitely blushing...

She clears her throats and looks away from me. “You said you came here for something? Can you hurry up and tell me what that ‘something’ is so I can get back to addressing my art club? Today is a very important day for us.”

“I can see that...” I decide to get the inevitable over with. I take her notebook out of my backpack and hand it to her. I almost tell her the truth about it, that I took it just to get her attention, but decide to take another approach, to see if she’s as easily affected by me as I am by her. If finding her alone is just what I needed to see her with her guard let down.

“I found your notebook this morning,” I say. “I wanted to find you and give it back. I tried to give it to you after Physics class but I couldn’t get your attention.”

“Where exactly did you find it?”

“It was in the ‘Lost and Found.’ I saw it on top of everything in there when I got here for practice earlier.”

“You know, that’s funny.” She narrows her eyes at me and crosses her arms. “Because I’ve been checking’ Lost and Found’ every single day and in between every single class for weeks and it was never there.”

“Maybe you just didn’t look hard enough.”

“I even checked it this morning, and it wasn’t there. It. Was. Not. There.”

Okay. She’s easily affected.

I smile and flip through her notebook’s pages. “You have a very pretty handwriting. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Where did you really find it, Dean?”

“You take pretty detailed notes, too.” I can’t stop looking at her.

“Did you steal my fucking notebook?”

Yes. I fucking did.  “Maybe. Depends on how you define stealing.”

“WHAT?” She somehow looks even sexier when she’s angry. “I had to rewrite the entire thing in one night! The night before our midterm!”

I walk over and set the notebook on the window sill, catching a glimpse of what she’s been painting. It looks like the skyline of Seattle, or maybe Portland.

“Well,” I say, “Good thing you somehow managed to still get an A, right? If it wasn’t for me, you probably wouldn’t have known that you were capable of rewriting a whole notebook in a night. I helped you push your boundaries, so I think I deserve a thank you.”

She glares at me for a long time, and I can feel something between us. Half of it is her wanting to bash my head in with the closest blunt object, but the other half is something just as strong, something I can’t quite figure out.

Before I can tell her that I really am sorry and explain what happened, she rushes past me uttering curse after curse.

I follow her out to parking lot and catch up with her, trying to apologize yet again, to make it up to her with a ride, but she refuses. She rushes away from me and heads to the bus stop, apparently not knowing that the last bus has left for the day.

I take my time walking to the parking lot and slip into my Camaro, the only thing I can honestly be thankful to my father for over the past few years.

Driving straight over to Mia, I tell her that she’s wasting her time waiting for a bus that’ll never come and that I’d like to make up for stealing her notebook by giving her a ride home.

She starts walking. In the rain.

I’m not sure why I chase her, but I do. I trail her every step with my car, make U-turns when she goes down a one-way street, and I speed up whenever she does.

When she finally gets stopped by a pedestrian light, I roll down my window and stop.

“Look, Mia,” I say. “Let me take you home.”

“Not interested.”

“Well, at least let me take you to the next bus stop.” I look up at the sky. The rain is only about to get worse,

“A four block ride? No thanks.”

“So, you’re really going to walk all the way home in the rain?”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I guess I really am going to walk all the way home in the rain. Thank you for your concern. Goodbye.”

Okay, that’s it.

I park my car and get out, walking over to her. Done arguing about this, I put my arm around her shoulder and lead her to my car, opening the passenger door.

“Get in, Mia.”

She hesitates for a moment, looking over at the streetlight, but then she quickly slips inside and I shut the door behind her.

I return to my place behind the wheel and drive through the light.

“Where do you live?” I ask, knowing the answer to this question already, but I’ll play like I don’t.

“The corner of Seventh and Broadway.”

“Okay.” I hold back a laugh and turn on the radio, not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing that her indie band CD is blasting through my speakers or not. But then that familiar blush crosses her cheeks again, and either she’s been really good at keeping her expressions in check for along time or she’s having a severe allergic reaction today.

We don’t speak as I take the long way to her house, and I can feel tension building between us with every mile. And every so often, I catch her looking back at me as I look at her; her blush is now permanent.

As we approach Seventh and Broadway, I have to slow down to prevent myself form driving directly to her front door. “Mia, you do not live here. This is just the entrance to your subdivision.”

“So? Did you really think I would give you my real address? I’ll walk the rest of the way. The rain isn’t that bad now.”

Smiling, I speed up and drive down the street to an abandoned lot. It’s time for me to play my last hand, for me to give this one last try.

“What are you doing?” she asks. “Go back. Go back right now.”

“I need your help with AP English.”

“I need your help with learning directions. My neighborhood is back there.”

I ignore her and try to focus on making my lie as believable as possible. “AP English is the only class I don’t have an A in.”

“What? You make A’s?”

“Yes.” I don’t tell her that we’re practically tied for valedictorian. “I make A’s, except for English. I have a C plus and I need at least an A minus if I’m going to look appealing to colleges.”

“Wait a minute, what?” She looks confused. “You’re the star quarterback. You don’t need to make good grades to get an athletic scholarship. You just need to keep playing football. Isn’t that what you want?”

Her question catches me off guard and I almost slip. “I need you to help me with the literature components and help me strengthen some of my essays.”

“But why do you want me to help you?”

Because I fucking like you...

“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask.  “You have the best grade in the class and I’m pretty sure that being a smart ass, which you clearly are, requires quite a few brain cells, so I figure there’s no one better to ask.”

“Maybe, but I’m not interested.”

JESUS! “I’ll pay you.”

She stares at me for a while, as if she’s trying to gage if I’m being real or not. “Is that how you normally get what you want?”

“No, that’s not my normal method, but I figured you wouldn’t go for that, so I’m not going to go down that road with you.” I can’t help but smile.

“My services don’t come cheap,” she says. “They’re very expensive.”

“Honestly, I’d be disappointed if they weren’t.”

“Then in that case, I’m sure you can’t afford me.”

“Try me.” I’ve prepared for this. No number she says can be too high. I crank the engine and drive, heading toward her neighborhood again.

“Twenty dollars an hour.” She finally gives a figure.

“Deal.” I’d predicted she’d ask for fifty.

“Deal? Just like that?”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s a lot of money.”

“I’m sure you’ll be worth every penny.”

“Fine. We’ll start in a couple weeks.”

I drive straight into her subdivision and look over at her, still playing dumb like her house isn’t 5632. “I’m not letting you out of the car until you tell me which of these houses is yours. I need to make sure you get home safely.”