LITMIR.BIZ

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Joe! Hang on a sec, man,” Sam called as his best bud passed him in the corridor of milling students and clanging lockers. They had five minutes before Friday’s last afternoon class started and Joey Fraser, Sam knew, was on his way to the upper level.

      Slamming shut his locker, he turned and pushed through the crowd to where Joey waited near the outside doors. “What up, man? Aren’t you going to math?”

      “Me’n a couple guys’re skipping,” Joey said.

      “Skipping?”

      Joey sniffed. “No big deal. I can catch up. Wanna come?”

      Brown fuzz grew along his friend’s upper lip and on his pointy chin, and Sam had to raise his eyes an extra couple of inches to meet Joey’s. “Can’t, man. Gotta test. Old lady Pearson’ll have my butt if I don’t show.”

      “Tell her you’re sick.”

      Sam snorted. “Yeah, like that’s gonna work. She just saw me two minutes ago in the library.”

      “So?”

      “So, if I don’t pass this lab, the witch is gonna phone my mom. I’ve already failed the last two.” He hadn’t really, but he might as well have. The marks barely skimmed sixty. Lately, his concentration was the pits. Studying was the pits.

      He knew why. It was Joey. His pal. His best bud.

      Who looked at Sam as if he had two heads. The way he was right now. What’s the matter, Joe?

      His pal turned toward the doors.

      “Want to do something after school?” Sam asked. Almost too eagerly, he realized, when Joey shrugged and looked away. Sam pressed on. “I have to baby-sit Emily till four. We can dunk some balls at my house.”

      The week they’d moved in, Sam’s mom had bought a basketball stand for the driveway. Last summer, he and Joey had done a lot of one-on-ones and hung out at each other’s houses, watching movies, playing computer games, roller-blading.

      Joey never saw Sam’s deformity as untouchable. In fact, the first time they met, Joe had given Sam’s hand its highest praise ever with his cool “suhweet.”

      This last month, though, Joey acted squirmy whenever Sam suggested they do stuff together. When he called Joey’s house, Sam often heard other guys in the background. Twice he’d recognized Cody Huller’s voice. Cody with earrings, nose-ring and orange, half-shaved hair. What Joey saw in Cody was beyond Sam.

      Joey said, “After school me’n the guys are hanging on Main.”

      The guys. Did he mean Huller? Sam hitched a careless shoulder. “Sure, whatever.”

      “Gotta go,” Joey said. “Later, okay?”

      “Yeah.” Sam watched his friend push through the doors, toward the warm afternoon sunshine. “Later.”

      Walking to class, Sam knew something had changed between them. He couldn’t name it, couldn’t describe it. Joey still looked like Joey, still walked like Joey, still talked like Joey. But there was a difference.

      Like Sam was a big waste of time to his friend.

      The cranky sputter of a lawnmower unwilling to catch grated on Jon. Tossing the crowbar he’d been using to rip apart the front veranda steps this particular Saturday morning, he considered his options. He could walk into Rianne’s yard and see about the problem, or he could jam in a pair of earplugs and pretend she didn’t exist.

      Neither option appealed to his good sense.

      But then, good sense had taken a hundred-year hike, so what the hell?

      Scowling, he yanked off his battered leather gloves, shoved them into his right hip pocket and headed once more into her backyard. Four days and this would be his third visit. Soon, they’d be attached at the hip.

      Was that as good as attracted to her hip—among other things? He scowled harder. “You’re depraved, Tucker.”

      Adjusting the brim of his Seahawks cap over his brow, he rounded her road-weary car.

      She was in pink cutoffs, bent over the machine.

      Jon stopped. Shook his head. Blew a weighted breath. Hightailing it back to his house—or the Pacific—loomed like one grand invitation. The farther from this woman the better.

      “Dang thing,” she grumbled, oblivious to all but the mean red machine squatting idle at her feet.

      “Troubles?”

      Her head jerked up. “Jon.” His name, a silken thread on the warm, sunny air.

      He walked over, focused on the mower. “Did you prime it?”

      “Yes, and probably flooded it.”

      Hunkering beside the mower, he checked the carburetor. The Columbia River was in better condition. “Yup, flooded.”

      She expelled air. “The thing’s been acting up ever since I started cutting the grass a couple of weeks ago.”

      Grunting in response, he inspected the wire to the ignition. While the machine appeared adequate enough to work, it could do with a cleaning. A second scan and he found the problem. “The spark-plug cap is off.”

      “It is?” Her shoulder came level with his chin as she peered at the tiny cup between his fingers. If he leaned sideways a little, he could bury his face in her hair.

      “When’s the last time this thing had a tune-up?” he grumped.

      “Don’t know. I bought it from a friend. It worked fine until…” She turned her head. Their eyes caught. “Now.”

      She had brown lashes. Straight and thick as a baby’s toothbrush.

      He shoved the cap on to the spark plug then climbed to his feet.

      She moved to the opposite side of the mower.

      Okay. You want the machine between us? Well, baby, so do I. He said, “It’ll need to sit ten minutes for the primer to drain before you can try it again.”

      Checking the plain-banded watch at her wrist, she frowned.

      “Running late?”

      “No. Yes.” Exasperated fingers checked the green bandanna around her ponytail. “I had a number of things I wanted to get done this morning, that’s all.” She looked around her small yard. “This could wait, I suppose.” Her brown eyes found his. “Thank you. Again.”

      He shifted, awkward with how the softness in her voice, her look, affected him. “Mower isn’t running yet.”

      “It will be.”

      Once more their eyes held. He looked away, zeroing in on the apple tree covered in white flowers. “If you need a hand, I’m working on my front steps.”

      “Jon,” she said when he turned to go. “About the other night—”

      “Past.”

      Undaunted by his tough tone, she went on. “Nevertheless, I want to explain. When I said I wasn’t used to having company, I meant male company. Since my husband died, I haven’t been much into developing…friendships.”

      “Understood.”

      “Especially with men.”

      Considering his own choice about women and involvements, he accepted her avowal. “I know the feeling. I’m divorced.”.

      “Oh.”

      For several long seconds, the morning held its quiet. A yellow butterfly flitted over the mower, bent on reaching the apple tree.

      Then, because the thought had bugged him for two days he said, “You recognized me that first day on the porch with the cats.”

      She smiled. “Yes. Ninth-grade

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