Page 31 of Shadow Of Sin
The air shifts. He said that like it cost him something…like admitting there’s a thing his brain can’t explain or figure out.
“What about you?” he asks. “What do you listen to?”
“Anything loud. Concerts are on my list.”
“What list?”
“The list of things I’m going to do when my life isn’t a dumpster fire. Loud, sweaty, terrible concerts where you can’t hear for two days after.”
“That sounds—”
“Don’t say counterproductive.”
“I was going to say loud.”
“It’s supposed to be loud. That’s the whole point.” I put my fork down and lean on the bar. “What else do you do besides work and eat cereal?”
“That’s a pretty complete list.”
“It’s a depressing list.”
“I play basketball against my brother Cillian.”
“Are you any good?”
“I beat him most of the time.”
I grin. “So either you’re good or he really sucks.”
“Or I’m just really good at predicting his pattern of play,” he says in a serious voice.
I can’t help the chuckle from slipping through my lips. “Okay, anything else, LeBron?”
“I read.”
“What do you read?”
“Whatever’s interesting.”
“Vaguest answer in history.” I smirk. “Tell me one real thing about yourself that I don’t already know.”
He’s quiet for a second. “I used to take things apart as a kid. Everything. Watches, radios, the lock on my bedroom door. My dad thought something was wrong with me. He sent me to specialists. They told him I was fine, just wired differently. He didn’t buy it.”
He says it in a monotone voice without a shred of self-pity in it. But I hear the kid underneath…the one who needed to understand how things worked and the father who looked at that need and saw a defect instead of a person.
“He was wrong,” I say. “Your dad.”
“I know.”
“Really? Because it doesn’t sound like you really believe that.”
His eyes drop to his plate and my heart clenches tight.
“The taking things apart,” I say in a softer voice. “That’s not broken. That’s just your brain doing its thing.” I shrug. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s one of your better qualities.”
A hint of a smile lifts his lips. “Now I have more than a few redeeming qualities?”
“Don’t push it. You’re at like, three.”
