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“But it’s my room!” Kate complained, clearly annoyed that she had to leave the scene of the crime too. But she obeyed anyway, calling over her shoulder as she went, “I’d like a new folder for that lab report while you’re out, please, Michael!”
And then the door closed, and miraculously, Lea and I were left alone.
Lea located some pajama pants and a T-shirt from a bureau beside her bed while I sprang for my coveralls, cursing myself that I hadn’t even changed before coming here last night. Now, I was expected to climb out the window like a criminal? I couldn’t have come up with a worse way to ingratiate myself to the family. Maybe I could leave a note.
Which would say what?
Hey, Mattias, how you doing? That’s right, I’m still an ex-con with about twenty dollars to my name and nowhere to live but your upstairs breakroom. By the way, I’m giving it to your granddaughter now. Yeah, the one you explicitly told me to stay away from. Also, I’m nothing but a grease monkey who can’t even put on a clean pair of pants to enter your home.
Fuck.
“You’d better go,” Lea said behind me. “I’ve seen him like this before, once, when he caught Mattie sneaking his girlfriend out after curfew. And he doesn’t even like Sherry.”
“It’s not like he doesn’t know exactly where to find me,” I grumbled as I yanked on my boots.
Lea shrugged as she shrugged into her robe. “It’s better to give him a few days.”
When I was finished tying my boots, I stood up to find her opening the window. She had every intention of following her grandmother’s suggestion.
Out the window. Down the drainpipe.
No more than I was worth.
“Lea!” stormed Mattias from downstairs. “It’s been two minutes!”
“You’d better go,” she said again, then popped up onto her toes and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “I’ll come to the garage when he’s done.”
“If he doesn’t kick me out first,” I mumbled as I headed toward the window.
Briefly, I contemplated where the hell else I would go if not the garage. Back to the church, I supposed. Father Deflorio might have a place for me. Otherwise, it would have to be a friend’s couch if I could still find one. Worst-case scenario, a shelter.
“Hey.”
I turned around after opening the window and found Lea watching me.
She touched a hand to my knuckle. “I love you.”
I wondered, if I asked her, would she follow me?
I didn’t have time to find out.
“Lea!”
The doorknob turned.
“Go,” she ordered.
And I flew.
I hadn’t gone two blocks when the snow started to fall.
TWENTY-TWO
FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW
Lea
There were still only flurries outside when I heard Nonno announce he was going to close up the garage for the day and get it ready for a potential snowstorm. The last time a blizzard hit the city, a pipe burst and flooded his whole office. That was four years ago.
