“My name is Brody.”
I swallowed hard. Brody. Right. How could I forget that? He was named after my favorite character inJaws. Or that was what I’d told myself because it made him more interesting. Yeah,thatwasn’t the conversation we should be having now. I needed to get things back on track.
“Are you hurt, Brody?” I asked, keeping my voice level. “Did you break any bones when you fell off the road?”
The look he shot me was incredulous. “I did notfalloff the road. You ran me off the road.”
That was a gross exaggeration. “You turned off the road yourself.”
“So I wouldn’t hit you.”
“That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
His mouth fell open. “Excuse me?” He was getting shriller with each passing moment. “You were flying at me like a monkey in aWizard of Ozmovie. You had claws out, and your tail was twitching, and you were completely out of control.”
For some reason, the visual he was painting made me grin. “Did you just call me a flying monkey?”
Brody wasn’t in a laughing mood. “This is not funny!”
He moved to get out of the cart. I was gratified to see he was steady on his feet. Of course, because this day was jinxed, he slipped on the grass and fell face-first into a pile of moss.
My mouth dropped open as he rolled to his back. There was moss plastered to his face and dirt smudged across his neck. Yup, there was a worm there too. I pressed my lips together, darted a look toward Hayley, and found her watching the scene with abject horror.
“What do I do?” I mouthed.
She shrugged, which had me glaring. She was going to have to do better than that.
“What do I do?” I mouthed again in exaggerated fashion.
She didn’t even bother shrugging this time. She just stood there like an idiot.
I made up my mind on the spot and squared my shoulders. I took two tentative steps toward Brody and leaned over to look down at him. The worm was still there, still really gross. The dirt wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever seen. The look in his eyes, however, was otherworldly. He looked possessed.
“Have you ever seenThe Exorcist?” I asked without thinking.
“Are you about to spew pea soup on me?” he asked blandly.
“No. There’s just something about your eyes that reminds me of that movie.”
“Ah.” He was calm. Too calm actually. He made me think of a firecracker that was about to blow. He was just sizzling along, but he was going to hit the payload sooner or later.
“Would you like me to help you up?” I asked, determined to be helpful.
“No. I think I’m going to stay here.”
“Just staring up at the sky?”
“Eventually, I figure I’ll wake up from whatever this terrible nightmare is.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” I was all for this being a nightmare. I had some bad news for him, though. “Unfortunately, this is real.” I had to tell him the rest of it. “You have a worm on your face.”
He moved so fast I thought he was going to pull his arm out of its socket. He swept the moss off his face, made a weird whirring noise, then fixed his glare on me. “Why are you here?” he exploded.
“You mean in the ditch? I’m here to check on you. When you swerved the way you did, I figured it was my civic duty to make sure you were okay.”
“Because you’re the reason I’m in this ditch.”
I opted not to comment on that. “Would you like me to help you up?” I used my most pleasing voice and extended my hand.
