Page 47 of Down Bad

“In this? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I got legs.”

“Those legs are gonna be underwater.”

“So I’ll swim.”

“Diego.”

I shuffle my feet, annoyed for whatever reason.

Then my gaze snaps to his again.

I remember my helpful little one-sided conversation with the orchid in the kitchen last night.

“Fine,” I grunt, then step off the porch under his umbrella.

He walks me to his car.

Our shoulders keep bumping.

I didn’t realize how close we’d be walking under this thing.

Cuddled up together.

His face next to mine.

Arm around my waist.

Wait. His arm is around my waist? When’d that happen?

Then we’re by his car. He opens the passenger side door. I slip in. The door shuts. Muffled rain tapping the windows and the roof. Then he opens the driver’s side and in he comes, too, shaking off the umbrella as best as he can before pulling shut his door.

Even in the car, it feels like our shoulders are just as close as they were beneath the umbrella.

Is his car tiny? Or am I huge?

“Don’t know what you, um …” He fiddles with the radio. Then leaves it on some country song I don’t know. “This guy’s all I seem to hear them play lately. Do you like Chase Holt?”

“Dunno who he is.”

“Really? He’s kind of a big deal around here. Well, recently. In fact, um …” He clears his throat and shakes his head. “Never mind. If I start talking now, neither of us will get to work.”

I glance over at him as he pulls out of the driveway and starts off down the road.

I don’t think I’d mind not getting to work. Staying right here in this car, listening to him talk my ear off about country music nonsense and whatever the hell he wants. I think I’m minding him less and less. Or maybe just minding him in a different way.

If that even makes sense.

But he doesn’t say anything else. The country music is on so quiet, it’s basically noise underneath the squeaking of windshield wipers, the pattering of rain around us, and the engine humming.

He stops suddenly to let someone cross the road, an older lady with an umbrella that barely covers her, her whole side drenched. She waves at him as she hurries across the street.

At the next intersection, there’s another car, and even though we have the right of way, Wyatt politely gestures at them to go.

I don’t understand it, honestly.

His incessant courteousness.