Page 47 of All of Him
“It won’t,” I said a little too quickly. “It’s not like that.”
Oscar rolled his eyes, not believing a word. He sat there, observing me for a minute. I didn’t want to look, but I tried to remember what I had on that day—black Converse, a gray Pink Floyd shirt, and jeans from when I had been twenty pounds heavier. At least I didn’t have bags under my eyes for once. It was as good as it could get, but he still looked at me as if I was just another stupid millennial.
“Listen,” he started. “I need you to leave me alone because I need to work. But before you go, just know that anyone who is a friend of Amanda’s is fine by me.”
“Thanks, Oscar,” I said back to him, even smiling a bit.
“Yeah, yeah,” he whined, waving me away. “Go buy some new pants.”
25
Amanda
BETWEEN MY MEETINGS WITHClaude, talking to Teel and Delia, and a lot of Ben & Jerry’s, I was feeling back to myself by Saturday. Thinking of Marcus’s words still made me cringe, but Delia had promised he wouldn’t speak to me. She also advised me to maybe not sleep with him again, but she wasn’t angry. In fact, she’d told him he’d have to perform a dance at the wedding if he disobeyed her. With that in mind, I kind of hoped hedidsay something to me.
I’d agreed to hang out with Noah after working on the house, though I was a little nervous about it after the wholerumor millincident during the week. I’d had to correct at least four people who’d heard about our supposed relationship, all of whom were disappointed. I wasn’t sure if they actually cared about me or just wanted some work drama.
Despite being nervous, I was excited to spend time with Noah again, especially since he’d promised to share something with me. I wasn’t sure if it would be anything substantial, but it didn’t matter. The fact that he wanted to share anything at all was enough to lift my spirits. Maybe a little too much.
My task for the day was to get rid of as much wallpaper as I possibly could while Dad and Noah replaced some fence posts. I turned up my music and set the speaker in the middle of the hallway and went to town. Alternating between perforating, spraying, and scraping, I got into a groove and hummed a little bit to the music. Footsteps closed in on me up the steps, and I turned to see my dad walking toward me.
“Looks good, kiddo,” he said. “You’re really moving along.”
“Thanks! I should finish the hall and start another room by the end of the day.”
Dad nodded and inspected my work, running his calloused hands over the bare plaster walls.
“Are you staying after again?” he asked, slightly suspicious of my recent increase in time spent with Noah.
“Yeah,” I answered, continuing to scrape the wallpaper. “Noah and I are hanging out. Why?”
Dad shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. I could tell he had something to say, but he wasn’t budging.
“Dad, what?” I finally asked, setting my scraper down.
“I just want you to be careful, Manda. He’s a good kid, but sometimes, addiction runs in families…”
“Dad, stop,” I said sternly. “He’s nothing like that. He’s just quiet.”
“I know; I know,” he defended, holding his hand up at me. “I just have to watch out for my youngest daughter, you know?”
I sighed and leaned against the dry section of the wall, folding my arms across my chest.
“I trust him, Dad.”
“Even with what happened with the accident back in Ireland?”
My head shot over to him, giving away that I knew something about it. My dad shook his head and sighed. “People talk, Amanda. Not many people know, but I found out about Garrett a few days ago from an old colleague. The accident was brutal.”
I walked to the nearest window, watching Noah as he drilled into a fence post. He looked so distracted, no idea that I was thinking about his accident and no idea that I was about to press Dad for details that Noah didn’t want me to have.
“Why wouldn’t I trust him after that?”
Dad sighed and stood next to me, also watching Noah.
“He was going ten over on a city street,” he explained. “The car that T-boned them had run a red light, so Noah wasn’t investigated. Garrett wasn’t wearing a seat belt and went partially through the windshield. He was crushed by the flipped car. I looked it up when curiosity got the best of me.”
“Oh damn,” I said, my heart aching for Noah. “That’s awful.”
