Page 140 of Down Bad

His face tightens.

Mine, too.

Then Joel pops up out of nowhere. “Hey, guys! Just checked in with the wifey. The guilt was eating me alive. Apparently Disney night is taking a pause and making room for Pokémon. Since when have my kids been into Pokémon? When’d that happen?”

“Beginning of the summer,” answers Wyatt. When Joel looks at him blankly, he says, “Ask Mindy.”

“I swear, the gay men in town know my wife better than I do.” He looks at each of us. “What’re we talking about so intensely over here? You guys look like you’re plotting shit.”

“Who’s plotting shit?” asks Lance, cutting in. “Love me a good little plot. I’m all in. Who’re we fucking up?”

“Wait a sec,” comes in Joel, looking at me. “Is this about that rich customer we had the other day?” He chortles and shakes his head. “Dude, I thought Diego was gonna chew him up and spit him out on the floor, but he kept his cool.”

“Rich customer?” Wyatt’s eyes snap to mine.

“Forget it,” I grunt.

“Mr. Bellamy came by the auto shop?”

Joel snaps his fingers. “Shit, I forgot! That guy mentioned you, Wyatt! It’s what almost set Diego off!” He laughs. “Nothing bad. He just said somethin’ about—”

“What’d you say to him?” Wyatt asks me, cutting him off.

I frown. “What makes you think I said something to him?”

“Everything I know about you.”

“I didn’t do shit but fix his car. And I fixed it right. Better than he’d have gotten it fixed anywhere else.” I frown. “You think I’d sabotage his car or something?”

After a second, Wyatt shakes his head. “Of … Of course not.”

“You hesitated.”

“You’d never do something unethical like that. I know. I … But you …” He frowns. “You had to have done or … or said something. You wouldn’t have just been nice to a guy like him. I know you.”

“Do you?”

He steps back, looking me over. For a second, he looks hurt I’d ask that. Then indignant. Then confused.

Joel, looking desperate to diffuse the tension, puts a hand on either of our shoulders. “Listen, pals. If there’s anything I know, all it takes is one rat bastard in our lives to make us all fight for days. We’re here to play pool and take a load off, right?”

“What’d you say to Grant?” asks Wyatt calmly, ignoring Joel.

I frown. “Nothing disrespectful.”

“Diego.”

“I asked him a question.”

“What question?”

“If he respected you.”

His face scrunches up, confused.

Even Lance looks confused, his face reading like he’s thinking, That’s it? Joel’s eyes nervously inch back and forth between us.

“The guy spent ten minutes kissing my ass ‘cause I had grease on my hands,” I go on. “Then he had the balls to bring you up and talk about you like a kid he was training. All I did was ask him why he didn’t treat you with the same respect as he did me, a stranger he just fuckin’ met. That’s all. That’s it. Kept my fists to myself.”