Page 43 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Peachy,” Finch replied.

Brody leaned in close and studied him. “Even though you’re frowning, you look lighter.”

“Lighter?”

“Better, on the inside.”

He thought about that for a few seconds. Was he feeling better on the inside?

“I’m getting there,” Finch conceded.

“Talk about your feelings,” his therapist had said.

“How are you physically?”

“It’s a slow journey, Brody, and I’m not sure I’ll get all the way there, but I am improving. Being able to drive is huge.”

“Freedom,” Brody said with a knowing look. “We all need that sometimes.”

They both had interfering families, so freedom in the form of alone time never came easy. Taking a drive sometimes gave you that.

“Do you think you’ll be able to play anytime soon?”

Lyntacky had a couple of nonnegotiable passions: square dancing and baseball. A few other things found their way in now and again, but those two were the main ones.

“Not sure I’ll be ready for that, but we’ll see.”

“Well, you’ve got some time before the weather gets warmer, but if you’re bored, Ryder needs someone for a thing he’s running on Saturday. You can be on the coffee machine.”

“Thing?”

“Function,” Brody said, waving a hand around.

“I’ve never worked a coffee machine in my life, and I don’t plan on starting now.”

“I happen to know that’s a lie,” Brody said, looking over the heads of people in front of them to find Klaus.

“Using Klaus’s coffee machine one time does not make me an expert, and I only did it because he wouldn’t stop bugging me until I’d had a lesson.”

“And knowing the Finch I went to school with, you perfected it, right?”

“I like to learn things the right way, unlike you Dukes who don’t read instructions and take time to learn.”

“One assignment, Bud, in third grade,” Brody said. “You need to move on.”

“Your part of that assignment was to build the base and stand for the rocket launcher, and you failed because the rocket fell sideways and broke into little pieces.”

“I remember that,” Ryder said joining the conversation. “You cried, Finch.”

“Out of frustration only,” he added.

“Wept like a baby,” Caleb Stanway said, overhearing the conversation.

They took a walk down memory lane, then, reliving moments from when life had been simple and their greatest worry was what their moms had packed for lunch.

Finch looked for Nina and couldn’t see her. He moved away from the group to get a better look but still couldn’t find her.

“Looking for someone?”