“Guess so,” he said. “What are you doing out here, anyway? Did you leave something at the county jail?”
“What?” I said, chuckling. “No, silly. My dad has my sister and me working out here now.”
“Here?” he said with a snort. “In Santa Maria? Did your Dad fall and knock his brains out of his head?”
“Trust me, Elizabeth and I thought the same thing,” I said. “But no, there’s a business opportunity out here. Plot of land to the south for some solar farming.”
“Yeah, an opportunity to light some money on fire.”
“Hey, I’m not going to complain about it.”
Recognition briefly crossed Brock’s face. I laughed, half to cover the blushing that ran to my cheeks.
“So, how have you been since Sunday? How are things with you and the boys?”
Brock chuckled.
“Fine.”
“Just fine?” I said. “C’mon, Brock. You’ve got more to say than that.”
He shrugged, but a bemused look crossed his face, like he would play the part of a defiant boy who would say nothing.
“Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Nothing more.”
“Really?” I said with a giggle. “Because my impression of Brock Noelle has been that he tries to act all cool, but actually, he’s one of the more thoughtful Bernard Boys.”
“Uh-huh.”
“By the way, are you guys ever going to change that name? It makes you sound like the Backstreet Boys, and none of you are in your teens anymore. You’re men now.”
Brock laughed with a bit of unease.
“You give me far too much credit,” he said. “I’m just a gas station attendant who likes motorcycles and taking care of the people he cares about. I’m no hero.”
“That you take care of your people puts you ahead of a significant portion of the population. Because you do it, you don’t say it or throw money at it.”
And that is one of the most attractive traits a man can have.
“I agree with you on one point,” Brock said. “We have got to change the name Bernard Boys.”
“Right? None of you all even live on that road anymore!”
“I know, it’s just…”
Brock was laughing, but his gaze turned kind of contemplative. He looked out the window, out toward the distant, rugged, almost alien terrain of New Mexico. Everyone always judged New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada as being this barren, desolate place; that was true, but it also allowed us to cast a blank slate against that backdrop to think.
“I don’t know, I don’t think all the Bernard Boys want to grow up,” he said. “Some are afraid to do so. Some of them figure if we do, maybe we’ll split apart or fall apart.”
“Why would that be the case?” I said. “It’s not like you all are moving away.”
“No, but…”
Brock sighed.
“You’ve come here for work, right? For you, coming from Albuquerque is a day of work. But for us, to contemplate going into the city is like moving to a brand-new state. That’s an entirely different world that none of us really know how to handle. Sure, we go there and have a good time. But take it like this. We tell Zack he’s the best hope for making it, for getting out of Santa Maria. And we don’t mean making it to Houston or to New York or to San Francisco. We mean making it to fucking Albuquerque.”
He shook his head.
