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“No,” I interjected. “No, I want to learn from you.”
“Lucky,” Zach began, but I shook my head and took a few more steps back.
“Zach, we’re practically family, so we need to figure out how to get along. If I… if I promise to keep my hands to myself from now on, can we maybe just be… friends?”
“Friends?” Zach asked suspiciously.
“Yeah. It’s that thing that they made this whole successful sitcom about back in your day—”
Zach actually took a swipe at me. I jumped back and grinned.
“Uh-uh, hands to yourself,” I reminded him. “So what do you say?”
“Friends?” Zach asked, his voice clearly unsure.
I nodded, then stuck out my hand. “Friends,” I said firmly because at that point I was going to take as much of Zach Warner as I could get.
“Friends,” Zach agreed, then he was shaking my hand. I managed to keep my expression neutral but inside my brain, the same phrase kept repeating on a loop.
Oh, Lucky, what have you done?
Chapter 17
Zach
“I’m not sure about a 5K with my knee,” I admitted, avoiding Lucky’s eyes. It wasn’t easy admitting my weaknesses to anyone, much less him, but there was no way I could run three miles on paved roads. It was hard enough running on the softer ground of the trails near my cabin, and even then, I was only up to a couple of miles on a good day.
“You’re not listening,” he said with a grin. The afternoon sunshine sent greedy fingers all the way across the open hangar to paint warm stripes across his face as he handed me equipment from our last airborne drill. It had been three days since our new friendship agreement, and Lucky was helping me clean up from a half-day of training. The day had been cut short when a fire in the park had required Tag’s help ferrying firefighters and equipment to the site. He and Johnny had dropped the rest of us off before winging away to help with the emergency response.
Lucky continued. “The Running Rabbit 5K is just the name of the event that this whole festival centers around. I’m not saying I want to actually do the race, but when Nimrod puts on this famous race, they also have the Goat Lick Music and Arts Festival.”
I stowed the last of the gear in the metal locker at the back of the hangar and turned back toward him. “You’re making this all up. Who’s Nimrod?”
Lucky flapped his arms in frustration. “God, you’re such a man.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. It felt so good to be back on steady ground with him. “Explain, please.”
“Are you seriously not listening to a word I’m saying? Nimrod is the name of the town. It’s just past Goat Lick Overlook and west of Running Rabbit peak. The combination of names is what ended up drawing people to the area a few years ago. Once they had a cult following for this hometown event, it like… boomed. Now all of these hot musicians and artists go to it which draws in more and more people.”
One of the things that attracted people to Lucky was his wide-open enthusiasm for life. I’d noticed it many times over the years, and especially as I’d spent more time with him during this course. People were drawn to him. His entire being seemed to bounce and brighten when he was sharing something he was passionate about. Just today, I’d overheard him telling one of the other students about an emergency call at school where two students had been found in a bizarre cycling accident. One of the mangled bikes had wound up twisted around the sign for a pub called The Peddler.
He’d flashed a big grin when he’d said, “The wheels ended up framing the bottom part of the two letter d’s. So they just left it there. And now it’s part of the sign. Totally meta, right? And now both cyclists get free drinks whenever they go in. They’re like local celebrities there.”
By the time he’d finished telling the story, everyone around him had congregated over to hear it. That was what it was like being in his presence.
It had reminded me of the time I’d been with my brother and Lucky’s family at a cookout and I’d seen Lucky off to one side of the backyard showing a little boy some tricks Lucky’s dog, Bear, could do. As Lucky progressed through Bear’s repertoire, every other kid and half the adults had wandered over to watch the animated teenager command the goofy dog with nothing but his voice and hand gestures.
“I’ll go,” I said suddenly. Because of course I wasn’t going to let him down. I knew if I didn’t agree to go with him to the festival, he’d most likely still go by himself. And I didn’t want him to be alone. More than that, I didn’t want him to go by himself and meet someone else there. Someone new, someone better.
