October/2017

It’s been ten days.

Ten.

Conner dropped me off in front of my building with nothing more than a terse no, to my offer to come upstairs almost two weeks ago.

I haven’t heard from him since.

I’ve seen him plenty. I meet Tess for lunch every day. I walk to the garage and then we walk over to Gilroy’s to grab something to eat. She goes back to work and so do I. Sometimes we meet up for a drink afterward. Sometimes we don’t. We’ve found a semblance of normalcy. Almost the same, but not quite. We talk and laugh. Catch up. Complain. Console.

What we don’t do is talk about Conner.

Some unwritten rule has made him an off-limits topic between us. It’s a relief, really. As much as I want and need to process what happened, I can’t talk about it with Tess.

Today, when she sees me standing beneath the open roll-up, Tess steps away from the truck she’s working on and pulls an old bandana out of the back pocket of her coveralls. “I’m going to lunch,” she says, rubbing grease and oil off her hands. Her tone is off. Overly solicitous, like she’s talking to a stranger.

A sharp clang comes out from under the hood where Conner is buried, followed by muffled curse.

Tess lets out a sigh. “You want me to bring you something to eat?”

More silence.

She stalks over to the car he’s working on. “Con.”

Nothing.

She reaches under the hood and grabs his ear, giving it a hard tug. “CONNER!”

“FUCK!” he shouts, his head jerking up so fast he nearly clips it on the raised hood of the car he’s buried in. “What?” he glares at her, slapping her hand away.

“Food.”

He shifts his glare in my direction, but it slides over me without sticking. “No,” he says before reburying himself under the hood. He hasn’t talked to me since that night in his car. Will barely even look at me. It’s like I’ve gone invisible.

Tess shoots a glare in his direction before jamming her bandana back into her pocket. “You need to eat, dumbass.” Despite the insult, she sounds worried. “I can swing by Benny’s and grab—”

“I said no,” he barks at her, pulling his head from under the hood again to glare back at her. “If I get hungry, I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself.”

Something about what he says pulls a laugh out of Tess but there’s nothing amused about her tone. “Put your watch on.”

His glare bounces over, nailing me in place, before it finds her again. “I’ve got a mom, Tess—and you look nothing her.”

“Put on your goddamned watch or I’ll put it on for you,” Tess says, pushing the threat through clenched teeth. Feet braced apart, grease-stained hands curled into fists. Logically, I know she’s tiny. Five-foot nothing and maybe a hundred pounds, but right now, she looks like a giant. Like she’s about to Hulk out and start throwing cars around if he doesn’t do what she says.

He glares at her for a long moment before he finally relents. “Fuckin’ stupid…” he mutters to himself before he stalks over to the work bench between them and sticks his hand into an old coffee can. Pulling out a watch, he snarls at it. “I don’t need a goddamned babysitter,” he tells her, brandishing it at her like a gun.

“The fuck you don’t,” she barks back. “Put it on.” When all he does is stand there and glare at her, she cracks. “Please.”

It’s the please, delivered on a thin, shaky tone, that gets him. Breaks his resolve.

He drops his gaze and straps it on. “Happy?” he says, flashing her his wrist. I get the feeling he’s deliberately not looking at me. Like he’s embarrassed.

“No, I’m not.” Tess shakes her head. She looks terrified. “I’m going to have food with me when I get back and you’re going to eat it—got it?”

“Whatever.” He turns away from her and disappears under the hood again.

She pulls me out the door and down the sidewalk. “Ridiculous…” she mutters while she stomps down the sidewalk. “Hasn’t slept in nine days. Nine.” She’s not talking to me, I know that, but I respond anyway.

“Conner hasn’t slept in nine days?” I think about all the times he showed up outside my window in the middle of the night when we were kids with a casual, I couldn’t sleep. “What’s wrong with him?” I shouldn’t ask. I know I’m not supposed to, that it violates the unspoken rule between us, but I can’t help it.

“What’s wrong with Con?” Tess throws me a laugh over her shoulder as she rounds the corner. “How much time do you have, because I could go on for—” She stops short so suddenly I almost run her over. “Jesus Christ.”

“What?” I say aiming a look around her shoulder at Gilroy’s parking lot. “What’s wrong?” More cars than usual. Declan’s work truck parked in the far corner. Next to it is a red Mercedes C-class convertible.

“Jessica’s here.”

She told me everything. About her and Declan. Her pregnancy. Declan breaking it off without explanation. Losing the baby.

How Jessica pushed her way from the background to center stage, sinking her claws into Declan, who is either too stupid to run or has abandoned all hope for survival.

Something about the way Tess is just standing there, rooted in place, like she’s too stunned to move, makes me angry. She finally looks at me. “Maybe we should just—”

I don’t even let her finish her sentence. “Hell. No.” I grab her by her arm and start pulling her across the parking lot. “We’re going in.”

“Hen—” She starts dragging her feet in earnest went I reach for the door. “I really don’t feel like putting up with her mean-girl bullshit today.” Whatever’s going on with Conner has her taxed. She’s reached her limit. She can’t take anymore lumps today. Not from me and certainly not from Jessica.

But she’s my friend.

The least I can do is cheer her up.

I stop and turn to look at her. “We aren’t taking mean-girl bullshit today, Tess.” I jerk the door open with a smile, ushering her through it with a wave of my hand. “We’re giving it.”