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“Not that you owe us anything, but that sounds pretty good.” I was all in for someone else’s cooking.
My ’85 F-150 was older than I was, and the bench seat was more than big enough for all three of us. Brooke sat nestled between Adam and me, her arm pressed into mine and the heat tempting me, on the ride back to her house.
We parked next to the large shed that was her sculpting and welding workshop. “Come inside, eat first, then we can do the hard work,” she said.
We followed her into the house.
“I’m home,” she called.
Brooke owned a farmhouse that looked faithfully restored from the outside, from the wood siding all the way down to the color of the trim and paint. Inside was a different story. She’d kept the original hardwood, but there wasn’t a flowered couch or doily anywhere to be found.
Her sculptures decorated the mantle, her brother’s art hung on several of the walls, and most other free spaces were filled with pictures of her kids and their various awards. The furniture was eclectic and well-worn, though the place was pretty clean.
I liked it—it always felt to me like people lived here who loved each other and living life, rather than feeling like a showroom piece.
“Is that Deacon’s truck?” Paige’s question came from upstairs. “Did you finally convince—” She came into view and froze on the top step. “Oh. Hello.”
Adam waved. “Hello.”
I smiled at the unfinished question. Paige had been trying to convince me for months to let her make somemodificationsto my truck. I needed it for work, and couldn’t afford to have it out for several days just because. “No, she didn’t. Especially considering her car is sitting dead in my parking lot.”
“What? No.” Paige joined us in the living room. “Not my fault. What’s it doing?”
Brooke described the symptoms, and Paige’s frown grew. “It was acting funny yesterday on the drive down to the shop, and thenbamno start.”
“Okay. I’ll borrow the tow truck from Mr. Brown tomorrow morning and bring the car back to the school auto shop,” Paige said.
“How long will I be without?” Brooke hung up her coat, then took ours and hung them on empty pegs by the door.
Paige was the one restoring Brooke’s Bel Air. “Based on what you described, it’s probably the timing chain, though it might be the transmission slipping. Either way, a couple of days at least.”
“Or it’s the distributor cap or wires,” Adam said.
Paige’s scowl reminded me of Brooke. “I replaced both just a few months ago. She doesn’t exactly drive it into the ground.”
“True. But parts can be bad, and it takes two minutes to check.” Adam didn’t necessarily work on cars, but he’d been an office manager at a repair shop for a while, and he had a head full of random mechanical knowledge.
She sighed. “People rarely get that lucky. Unlucky? But fine, I’ll check.”
“Hey,” Bryan shouted from the other room. “You’re supposed to be setting the table, Paige.”
“Sorry.” She looked at me. “Think about it. Tell me what I have to do to get that truck into the school’s garage.”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Not any time in the foreseeable future. Not happening.”
“Fine.” Paige huffed and headed into the kitchen.
“Set two extra spots,” Brooke called after her.
I always felt a twinge when I visited Brooke’s, or anywhere that her kids were around. An echo of a life I used to want so badly. When I was in my early twenties, I’d been engaged to the woman I swore was the love of my life. When she told me she was pregnant, I was thrilled. I was going to have a family, we were going to do everything right, and it was going to be amazing.
And when I found out she was carrying twins, I’d been over the moon.
About seven months into the pregnancy, I found out she’d been cheating on me. With my supposed best friend, for ages, and she was leaving me for him. There was no way I was letting her take my kids away from me. We’d work out custody, I’d still raise them and love them and give them the best life.
Except blood tests showed they weren’t mine.
Like that, my plans for the future had evaporated.
