“We’re on a road trip,” Roddy explained. He had a full head of wavy ginger hair, and he was taller than me (most people were) but shorter than his friend.
Where Roddy was of medium-height but a burly build, Jim was tall and built like a swimmer. He had tan skin, dark hair, and thickly lashed, dark brown eyes.
And he was staring at me intensely the entire time his friend explained where they’d visited so far. I flushed under Jim’s perusal, having never been the entire focus of anyone’s attention like this before, let alone a cute Scottish guy.
“Actually,” Jim cut off his friend when he said they were leaving here tomorrow, “I was thinking we should stay a little longer.” He said the words to me, giving me a cute-boy smirk as he did so.
He was flirting with me?
Roddy snorted. “Oh, aye? After a five-minute meetin’?”
“Aye.”
Completely caught up in the idea of a foreigner delaying his departure from Donovan to see me again when we’d barely said a few words made me grin. It was silly and adventurous, and it appealed to my secretly romantic nature. It was so outside my humdrum life. I guess that’s why I threw caution to the wind. “Have you been to the lake yet?”
Jim’s whole face lit up. “No. Are ye offering to take me?”
“Both of you.” I laughed, reminding him he had a friend. “Do you like to fish?”
“I do.” Roddy suddenly looked much happier about the idea of staying.
“I don’t. But if you’re there, nothing else matters.”
Charmed, I flushed and he took a step toward me, startling me. It seemed to surprise him too, as if he hadn’t been in control of the movement.
“Fuck, if I’m gonnae feel like a third wheel the entire fuckin’ time, then naw.” Roddy turned mulish.
Jim’s expression clouded but before he could say something that might cause an argument, I intervened. “You knocked me on my ass,” I reminded Roddy. “You owe me.”
He sighed but the corner of his mouth tilted up. “Fine.”
“I need to get home,” I said, taking a reluctant step back.
Jim tracked my movements, and I felt a little like a deer caught in his line of sight. He really did stare at me so determinedly. All of a sudden, I didn’t know whether I should feel thrilled or wary.
“Where will we meet?”
My shift didn’t start until the afternoon the next day. I’d have to lie to my parents and tell them I’d had no choice but to take on overtime. “Here. At nine a.m.”
“Nine a.m.? I dinnae—”
Jim clamped a hand over his friend’s mouth and grinned at me. “Nine is great. See ye then, Nora O’Brien.”
I nodded and turned on my heel. My neck prickled, feeling his eyes on me the entire time I walked south down Main Street, which ran through the center of Donovan, about four miles long, split into north and south. Most businesses in Donovan were located on the north end, from Foster’s Veterinary Surgery at the very tip beyond the elementary and high schools. We had lots of small businesses in Donovan—Wilson’s Market, Montgomery & Sons Attorneys at Law, the pizza place—and then there were the recognizable chains like the gas station, the little red and white building I worked in, and so on. South Main Street was mostly residential.
I walked down North Main and then turned right onto West Sullivan where I lived in a small one-story, two-bedroom house that I tried to keep looking as nice as possible. It took me fifteen minutes to walk there from the fast-food restaurant, and I sighed on approach because the grass was getting a little long on our small lawn. Ours was one of the smallest properties in the neighborhood, most being two-story houses with pretty porches. We didn’t have a porch. The house was a light gray, rectangular box with a darker gray overhanging roof. It had pretty white shutters at the small windows, though, and I painted them every year.
Despite Donovan being the kind of town where every building was spaced out so there was room to breathe and lots of light, our house hardly got any out front because of the big-ass tree planted in our lawn. It blocked nearly all the light trying to shine in through my bedroom window.
“You’re late.” My mom sighed heavily, brushing by me as I stepped into the house. I watched as she grabbed her coat from the hook on the wall, and yanked it so hard the hook came with it. She sighed again and cut me a look. “I thought you were going to fix that.”
“I’ll do it tonight.” I kicked off my shoes.
“He’s eaten, and he’s watching the game.” Mom shrugged into her coat, and her voice lowered. “He’s in a shitty mood.”
When was he ever not in a shitty mood? “Right.”
“There’s some leftovers in the fridge for you.”
“I’ve got overtime tomorrow,” I said before she could leave.
Her expression tightened. “I thought you weren’t going to take on overtime? We need you here.”
“And we need this job. If I don’t do overtime, they said they’ll get someone who can,” I lied, for the first time ever. An ugly ache pressed on my chest at the deception. But the excitement of being away from here with a boy who looked at me as if I was something special was too big a feeling for that ugly ache to contend with.
“Christ,” Mom snapped. “I’m working two fucking jobs as it is, Nora. You know I ain’t got time to be here.”
I bit my lip, my cheeks flushing. I felt awful.
But selfishly, not awful enough.
“Fine. We’ll need to ask Dawn to check in on him from time to time.” Dawn was our neighbor—a stay-at-home mom who was kind to us. “You’ll be finished by six?”
I nodded.
“I don’t have overtime yet this week so I’ll be done by two tomorrow.”
“What about tonight?” Mom was a bartender at Al’s five nights out of the week, and a part-time waitress at Geena’s five days a week.
“I’ll be home by one-thirty.”
Dad usually fussed when she got home, which meant she probably wouldn’t get to sleep until around three in the morning, and then she was back up again at seven for her shift at the diner at eight.
It didn’t have to be that way. I could’ve worked full-time during the day while she did nightshift or vice versa, and we would’ve made it work. But she didn’t want to be here anymore than I did. She’d worked constantly my whole life.
I watched her leave, remembering how much it used to hurt.
It didn’t hurt so much now. In fact, I worried I was beginning to feel numb about it.
“That you, kid?” my dad yelled.
I found him in our living room, his wheelchair set up in front of the television. His eyes were glued to the screen, and he didn’t look up once, even when he snapped, “You’re late.”
“I know. Sorry. Need anything?”
His lip curled at the television. “Do I need anything? God decided long ago that I needed less than every-fucking-body else.”
Inwardly I sighed, having heard him say the same thing over and over since I was eleven years old. My eyes dropped to his left leg. Or what was left of it. Seven years ago, it had been amputated at the knee.
“Drink?”
“Got one.” He flicked me an irritated look. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
In other words, get lost.
With pleasure.
I found the leftover pasta Mom had stuck in the fridge and dumped it on a plate. I’d eat it cold. I stared at the kitchen door, left open in case he hollered.
Before everything went to hell, I could barely remember a time when my dad yelled at me. Now he was always yelling about something.
Surprisingly, he didn’t call for anything, and I was able to eat my cold pasta in peace. After doing the dishes Mom had left for me, I got out my tools and screwed the coat hook into another part of the hallway wall. I filled the previous hole with Spackle.
After showering, I got Dad another beer. “Last one for today,” I reminded him. The doctor said he shouldn’t have more than two in any twenty-four-hour period.
His eyes snapped up at me in outrage. “If I want another beer, I’ll have another fucking beer. I got nothing. I just sit here rotting away, looking at your lifeless fucking face, watching your mom’s ass walk out the door more often than walk in, and you want to take away the only pleasures in life I have. I’ll have a fuckin—don’t you walk away, girl!”