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Hunter hesitated. The thought of food was almost making him dizzy—but he didn’t want to spend his last nine dollars until he was sure Michael would be good for the fifty he’d promised.
But watching someone else eat would be the worst form of torture. Hunter reached into his pocket for his wallet.
“It’s on me,” said Michael. “Since you’re doing me a favor.”
“Whatever you’re having, then.”
It wasn’t until ten minutes later, when he had half a grilled chicken sandwich left in his hands, that his suspicion fully kicked in. “Why are you being nice to me?”
Michael pulled a handful of fries from the bag but didn’t glance away from the road. “Nice?”
“I thought you were all pissed at me because of what happened with Bill Chandler.”
Michael shrugged.
And then he didn’t say anything.
Hunter scowled at the windshield. Pride was pricking under his skin, trying to convince him to climb out of the car at the next stop light.
The promise of fifty bucks was keeping his ass right here in the passenger seat.
But really . . . the atmosphere in the car wasn’t tense. He had a task, something to take his mind off his mother and his grandfather and the mess of a situation he was in.
Michael hit the turn signal and eased the truck onto a gravel driveway that led back to a sprawling ranch-style house on the water. “Look,” he said. “I’m not upset about the Bill Chandler thing. I get where he was coming from, asking you to watch Gabriel.”
“I wasn’t—it just—” Hunter stopped himself and sighed. “It wasn’t like that.”
Michael stopped at a curve in the driveway and threw the truck into park. “Put the hat on and grab those rolls of landscape fabric.”
So they weren’t going to talk about it. Fine.
Hunter slid out of the cab. He pushed his hair back from his face and tucked it under the cap, breathing in the air off the water. The house sat alone on a few acres of land, and even here, in the driveway, they were a good hundred feet away from the front door. He felt better now that they were outside, with the sun on his skin. Casper bounded out of the truck to sniff at pallets set off to the side of the driveway, stacked with cut stone and sacks of soil and mulch.
Despite the breeze and the water, the whole place had a quiet stillness. It felt nice against his senses.
“Is anyone home?” said Hunter.
“Nah. They don’t need to be.” Michael pointed inside the curve of the driveway where the manicured lawn was broken by an eroded slope. “We’ll build a wall to match the curve today, then I’ll come back next week to plant stuff on top. Here. I have a sketch.” He reached inside the truck to grab a clipboard.
Hunter took a glance at the rough drawing. It was probably a good thing Michael was paid for landscaping instead of artwork. “Got it. What’s first?”
Michael was looking at him a little too closely. “Did you get in a fight at school?”
“What? No.”
“Then what’s with the bruise?”
Hunter wanted to pull the hat off and let his hair fall across his face again. He hadn’t noticed a mark this morning, but then he’d been hustling to get out of the locker room before the first bell since he wasn’t sticking around for classes. “It’s nothing.”
For a second, he thought Michael was going to push. Hunter didn’t look away, but inside his head, his brain was spinning out trying to think of some excuse to give.
But Michael just gave half a shrug and turned, gesturing to the grassy slope again.
The work was harder than Hunter expected. He kept his mouth shut and did as he was told, digging and laying stone dust and staking rebar. It felt good to work, to put his hands in the earth and let the sun draw sweat from his back. The cut stone was heavy, and he was really feeling it in his shoulders before they had a third of the wall built.
He straightened and stretched his back.
And from the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of movement between some trees by the road.
