Wyatt sighs at that, and neither of us says anything until the light on the wall shifts, slows, shifts again. Then the danger passes and there’s the sound of an engine whooshing past on the highway.
“If I hadn’t wanted to come, I wouldn’t have come,” Wyatt says in his normal voice. I blink at the dark, now that I’m not used to it, and the pale circle of Wyatt’s face appears inthe doorway. “What else was I gonna do around here on a weeknight?”
“Dunno. Not get shot and or arrested?”
He runs one hand through his hair, makes a face, and shrugs. “Probably not shot,” he says and nods at the motel sign in the tub. “How are we getting that back to the truck?”
The answer,it turns out, iswith a lot of sweat and swearing. It’s hard to get it out of the tub—why thefuckwas it in the tub, and how did someone even get it in there in the first place? —and hard to maneuver out of the bathroom, hard to get onto the hand truck, and extra hard to wheel back through the woods to where we left Wyatt’s truck.
When it’s finally secured, held in place by bungee cords we’re trusting too much and covered by a tarp, we flop into his front seat and look at each other. It’s almost two in the morning, and we’re both covered in grime, sweat, flaked-off paint, and something that had better be pine sap.
“Next time I’m bringing pulleys,” I say.
There’s a long silence before Wyatt says, “Next time?Also where would you put them? They’ve gotta be, like, anchored.”
It’s a good point, since this may well be my first and last motel-sign burglary. I’m not even sure why I want it so much, other than sheer, sudden impulse. I heave another breath, then straighten up in the passenger seat, twist, and look through the rear window.
“It still there?” Wyatt asks, slowly pushing himself upright.
I can’t help but grin at the shape under the tarp, at the prize I rescued from certain destruction. It’s sopretty.
“Yes,” I say, and Wyatt rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling a little, too. He gets a thrill out of this shit, and we both know it.
“What are you even going to do with it?” he asks, starting the truck. “Is it for a project, or…?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
He snorts. “All that and it’s not evenforsomething?”
“It’s for my personal enjoyment, okay? I like it, and now it’s mine.”
“You’re so weird,” he says, but he’s grinning and shaking his head, and I snort. There’s way weirder shit in the world, and we both know it.
“Takes one to know one,” I say, because when I’m this exhausted I revert back to third grade apparently. In the cupholder, my phone buzzes, and I pick it up. “If I ever make something with it, I promise to put you in the artist’s, uh, notes. Shit.”
We’re back in range of cell service, and I’ve missed six calls and about a dozen texts from Admiral Lopez. It’s never a good sign when he calls after midnight.
“Are those all your dad?” Wyatt asks, because he can’t mind his own business.
“Eyes on the road,” I tell him and tip my head back against the headrest. “Fuuuuuck.”
“How bad is he this time?”
I sigh and scroll through the texts, scan the voicemail transcripts. I hate how I can hear everything in his voice—his cadence that makes everything sound like an order, Tejano accent clipped by decades in the Navy.
“Could be worse,” I finally say. “He wants to see me when I’m in Virginia Beach this week for my mom’s engagement dinner. I had the temerity to tell him no when he first asked, and he’s not taking it well.”
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about already. I’ve only met my mom’s fiancé, Gerald, once, and only for a few minutes. He’s a sweet, dorky naval engineer who’s nothing like my father, and Ido notwant to fuck this up. My mom deserves better than me coming in and ruining another relationship. She was married to my father for thirty years; she deserves dozens of roses and moonlit carriage rides and standing on a balcony while being serenaded—all that shit. A new start without too much baggage.
She doesnotdeserve me bringing my mess to her doorstep. Gerald seems like a nice, normal man, and I want him and my mom to have a nice, normal life.
“Fuck him,” Wyatt says decisively. “You don’t have to go at all. If you’re not up to it, then you can always?—”
“I don’t need you to be my therapist.”
“Someone’s gotta do it.”
“Not you.”
