Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
I jab a forkful into my mouth and chew, staring at Wyatt over the table, our ears filling with crunchy noises. He glares back at me for a second, then shakes his head and eats, too.
He insists on doing the dishes himself, so I’m left to just walk around the house. The guy leaves so much of himself out in the open, it’s impossible not to see things. Stack of mail by the door he hasn’t dealt with. Church bulletin stuck under a lion paperweight. Photos on the walls, one with him and who I assume to be his parents. He looks more like his dad.
I glance at the door leading into the garage again, thinking of his father’s collections of vintage car parts Wyatt hasn’t wanted to touch in ages. I wonder if there’s something else going on between him and his parents he hasn’t really talked about, same as how I’ve not really spilled about my own. For as much of an opened book as Wyatt is, I keep sensing the one or two chapters he intentionally leaves shut.
Not that he needs to open them or anything. He’s entitled to his privacy, and I’m not the prying type.
“Still no word from Henry-with-an-etta?” asks Wyatt.
I check my phone, then peek out the kitchen window. “Nope.”
“Maybe the buyers are late,” he suggests.
“Maybe she’s performing a séance in my living room. Incident in ’98?” I turn to Wyatt. “That was the realtor, right? My tía and tío aren’t being robbed blind right now, are they?”
“Didn’t you say your Aunt Lottie texted you a heads-up?”
Fifteen minutes late. I shake my head. “She called my dad’s car an ugly clunker. Twice.”
Wyatt folds his dish towel, sets it on the counter, and winces. “I kind of … used that word, too. Not the ‘ugly’ part. Um, sorry,” he quickly says when I look at him. “I didn’t know it’s your dad’s.”
After a second, I shrug. “It is a clunker. But it’s my clunker. It’s all I have left of him.” I lean back against the counter, eyes on the car through the window.
Wyatt’s voice softens. “It means a lot to you. That car.”
I shrug. “Of course it does.”
“You … You don’t really … talk about him.”
I can feel all the eggshells Wyatt’s walking over, bringing this up. Guess he’s been wondering for a while. Don’t blame him.
“We don’t have to …” He chuckles. “Sorry. I’m just … I was just curious. Because of the … the car.”
I’m still staring at it through the window. “Someday, I’ll get it up and running. It’s what he would have wanted. It’s my greatest project. Because it was his project. His baby.”
“You inherited the work, in a way.”
“Work of love,” I say, even though the words feel a bit heavy and dramatic coming from me. “Keep him close to me. No one else in the world seemed to care when he passed away.”
“Not even your uncle?”
I cross my arms. As much as I hate to admit it … “My tío’s fine. He loved my dad. May’ve been a hard-ass on me, but he loved his brother.”
Wyatt nods slowly at that. I watch him. He winces and, after a second of obvious hesitation, asks, “And … your mom …?”
My jaw tightens. “She left. What else is there to say.” I turn to the window again. After a minute, Wyatt does, too. We stand here in silence, the subject dropped.
Henrietta comes out of the garage to take a smoke break, then launches into a coughing fit, wagging her hand in front of her face as she grimaces, muttering to herself.
“The hell’s she smoking for? At the house she’s trying to sell? I’ll give her ten more minutes, and if no buyers show up …”
“How about we put on a movie?” suggests Wyatt.
I turn to him. “Huh?”
“Even if the buyers are late, they could still take a while to go through the house, ask their questions, all that. And we never just hang out, you and I. So why don’t we … put something on? Some movie you like. What do you like?”
I can’t remember the last time I had the patience for a movie, let alone just an episode of a series.
But the idea of watching something next to Wyatt.
On that little couch I spotted in his living room.
Is he inviting me to a “movie” so we can “watch” it while we do “whatever usually happens” when we “get too close”?
These thoughts alone help me forget whatever the hell might or might not be happening next door. “You pick.”
“Great! I’ll get the popcorn going.”
Ten minutes later, we’re on his couch, a classic red-and-white striped plastic tub between us overflowing with popcorn. And he’s put on a movie, some action adventure I already forgot the name of, and is eagerly curled up watching it.