“It’s probably as beat up as you, but I’ll take a look at it. I’ve wrecked a bike or two that I had to repair.”
He lumbered up the hill, his breaths coming shorter and shorter with the exertion. Good thing he’d been training all summer on the field.
“How do you know where to take me?” she asked in that timid voice.
“Heard I had a new neighbor by the name of Daisy.” He kept it light. “I live right there.”
He angled his head toward their house on the right side of the road, a two-story tucked far back on the property in a thicket of oaks.
“Oh,” she stammered, barely lifting her head to peek at it.
He continued to carry her to the top of the hill and to the front door of Ms. Lopez’s house. “Going to set you down, but don’t put any pressure on your foot. Just hang onto me.”
She nodded, and he settled her on the ground, the girl hanging onto him for dear life as he pounded the back of his fist on the door.
There was thudding from the other side and, a moment later, the door swung open wide.
“Oh, goodness,” Ms. Lopez gasped when she saw Daisy.
Daisy ducked her head.
“She wrecked her bike,” Cash explained for her since she didn’t seem to want to talk much.
“Oh no, sweet girl. Are you hurt?”
Daisy only dipped her head further.
“Think she might have hurt her ankle,” Cash supplied.
Ms. Lopez looked at him with a soft smile. “Thank you for getting her back here. I told her to head to the park to see if she could meet with any of the other kids she’ll be going to school with. It looks like she found her first friend.”
The next day, with the sun blazing down from above, Cash knocked at Ms. Lopez’s door. He’d spent most of the day in his father’s garage hammering out the bend in the frame and replacing the bike’s tire.
He could hear rustling on the other side, though it felt like an eon passed without anyone answering. He raised his fist to knock again when it finally cracked open.
One giant blue eye peered out.
“Hey, Daisy,” he said, casually, while her face turned crimson red. The freckles he hadn’t noticed yesterday were vibrant where they were smattered over her nose and cheeks.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Fixed your bike.” He lifted it by the handlebars, letting it plop back down with a little bounce. “Good as new.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Sure I did.” He grinned.
She turned redder and dipped her head.
“How’s your ankle?” he asked.
She peeked up at him. “Sprained but not broken.”
“That’s good news.”
She hiked a shoulder. “Yeah. It’s not like I was going to be trying out for the track team, anyway.”
Light laughter left him. “And why not?”
