Page 17
Pickup line? This new idea revved up a part of her that had been idle for a long time. As someone always primed to anticipate the worst, she hadn’t even considered that his persistence the other day might have been because he…
Before she could finish the thought, Bradley was amending, “Not that I was trying to pick you up, I mean. In the store. I don’t really do that. Well, not anymore. I was only trying to help. In my own flawed way.”
“Oh.” Devra didn’t want to acknowledge the stab of disappointment. It’s not like she was interested in him either. Even if she could put aside the mess of this week and this very precarious truce they seemed to be building, he was her neighbour. Any animal, feline or otherwise, knew not to poop where it ate.
Bradley gestured with his chin. “The van wouldn’t be my first choice of vehicle. It’s from the store. I used to make deliveries with it, but it wasn’t the most reliable vehicle. After its second breakdown in four months, my manager, Eunji, super-duper nice lady—I should totally introduce you—offered it to me in exchange for a few extra hours of overtime during the busy season. Had to paint over the company logo for insurance reasons, and I haven’t thought about doing anything else with it yet.”
“I see,” Devra said, although she wasn’t sure she did, not entirely, because Bradley talked in these quick, run-on sentences she often had trouble following.
“How about I just leave some cookies at your door, neighbour, instead of trying to lure you somewhere with the promise of hot cocoa?”
Devra wanted to smile. Instead, she only said, “I won’t eat them. If you do. So it would be a waste.”
“You wouldn’t? Why not?”
“They might be poisoned.”
Bradley looked like he wanted to laugh but also like he wasn’t entirely sure she was joking.
She wasn’t.
Devra shrugged. “It’s December.”
“Right…”
She shivered under her bathrobe, the chill of the night finally finding her. Briefly she considered how much warmer Bradley appeared standing there in only his T-shirt. “Anyway. I am sorry. About tonight. About the, you know, dead things.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “You’ve been incredibly understanding. But it’s late. I’m exhausted. I should probably…” She motioned toward her door, already turning away.
“Hey, wait.” He paused for so long she got the curious impression he didn’t actually have anything more to say but simply didn’t want her to go. “Um, what kind of car do you drive?”
“What?”
“I told you about my car. Or, well, the origin story of my predatory van. Now it’s your turn.”
“Um, I don’t really drive. Especially not in—” She stopped herself but not quickly enough.
“Especially not in December?”
“Um, yeah.”
He tilted his head inquisitively. It was clear he found her odd, but he seemed to sense there was more to her story than simple oddness. His curiosity unnerved her.
“The roads are pretty awful this time of year,” she tacked on by way of explanation. “Ice. Snow. Not worth the risk.”
She could feel his stare pricking her skin, as if his eyes were physically trying to pull free the information she was holding back.
“You were in a bad accident?”
She heard the screech of tires, the shattering of glass, as the freshly cut end of a Douglas fir crashed through her windshield. She nodded slowly.
“I get that,” he said, like he actually might. “I stopped driving for a while too. I’m…well. I’m a recovering alcoholic. Feels weird to admit sometimes, but my therapist keeps encouraging me to be open and honest about my past instead of harbouring it like some deep dark secret. Anyway. At one point, I was afraid I’d get too drunk to remember I abhor drunk drivers. Figured it was safest to just never carry around keys. Funny, isn’t it? The logic there.” He laughed, seemingly charmed by this sad tale. “After this one particularly wild night, I came to while walking on the side of the highway. Can you imagine? Waking up not in a bed, not even lying down, but literally walking, not sure where you are or where you’re going or how you’re managing to put one foot in front of the other?”
Devra rubbed her arm, uneasy with this overload of personal information. And yet at the same time, she couldn’t help but sympathize. “Um, yeah. I can kind of imagine.”
“You can?” He looked adorably hopeful as he mussed his hair, one strand now sticking straight up in a cartoonish fashion. “Really?”
“That’s sort of what happened here.” She gestured toward Frosty. “Not that I was drinking. I sort of…I dunno, blacked out from the stress, I suppose?”
“That’s rough.”
