Page 142 of First-Time Caller
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Dan cuts me off. “I’m worried about you.”
“What? Why?”
Angelo wheels out from beneath the Jeep at his station. “You look like someone stole your galaktoboureko.”
“A galactic what?”
“It is unimportant,” he says, blinking owlishly at me from beneath thick white eyebrows. “You’ve been sad.”
“Yeah,” Harvey adds, sticking out his bottom lip for emphasis. “And when you’re sad, we’re all sad.”
“I’m not sad.” I’m just stuck. Caught in the in-between of wanting and waiting and wishing. Keeping busy keeps my thoughts from drifting, and that’s exactly where I want to be. “You don’t have to worry.”
“The Audi was a six-day fix,” Dan supplies. “You did it in less than twenty-four hours.”
“We had the parts on hand from the Audi that Angelo fixed last winter.” I make a face. “Who quoted him six days?”
“The guys over at the Fed Hill garage.”
“Why are we letting those guys set our standards?” I stand up with a groan and brush my hands against my coveralls. My hand catches on the zipper and I immediately think of Aiden. That day in the tow truck with the pizza box digging into my rib cage. My brain won’t stop with the Aiden Valen Greatest Hits, and the rest of me is struggling to withstand the blows. It feels like tripping over something in a dream. The jolt right before you wake up. I think of Aiden and my whole body goes into free fall only to be snapped back into place by awareness.
I squeeze my eyes shut and exhale a sharp breath. When I open them again, Harvey and Dan are giving me matching concerned looks. Angelo pushes out farther from beneath the car to add his to the mix.
“As my mother likes to say—”
I wave my hand. I do not have the patience to withstand a Greek proverb today. “I’m fine.”
Harvey leans closer. “You look a little green around the gills, Lu.”
“I’m fine,” I say again. I am. I’mfine. It’s easy enough to keep moving forward if I break everything into pieces. This car and then the next one. Another after that. I wish I could reach into my chest and tinker with the parts in there like a radiator. Tighten everything up until I’m humming along again.
Angelo joins Harvey and Dan and together the three of them stand in a line of thinly veiled skepticism.
“All right, well”—Dan pushes his cap off his head and drags his fingers through his hair—”I’ve got something for you to do.”
“Good.” I clap my hands. “I’d love something to do.”
He reaches into his back pocket and grabs a set of keys. He tosses them to me.
“I need you to take Aiden’s car over to the station.”
I almost throw the keys right back. “What? No. Why?”
Harvey makes a sound that he tries to cover up with a cough. Dan gives him another warning look. “Because it’s done, and I told him I’d drop it off.”
“You talked to him?” It’s another paper cut against my too-soft heart. He’s still doing the show. He’s taking calls from Dan. Why hasn’t he bothered to reach out tome?
My unflagging optimism is starting to flag.
“I talked to Maggie,” Dan corrects gently, like he knows how important that detail is to me. I release a sharp breath. “He listed the station number on the paperwork as the best way to get a hold of him. She answered the phone. I told her we’d drop the car off there.”
I look down at the keys in my hand. He has a crab-claw bottle opener, the metal faded at the top edge from the press of his thumb. I touch mine to it and then sigh.
“And you need me to do it?”
“Angelo’s got an appointment coming in.”
“And Harvey?”
