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“You okay?” I asked Kara as she sat, not getting out of the truck.
“I—yeah.” She stared out the windshield. “It’s weird to think that it’s gone. I spent half of my childhood there.” She laughed humorlessly. “You know that. You were there.”
“Yeah.”
“We better get inside,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt as she threw open the door.
“You should be wearing your mask,” I said as I followed her out.
“It’s like fifty feet to the front door,” she argued.
“Fifty feet of smoke,” I replied, resting my hand at the small of her back. “You got it with you?”
“It’s in my pocket,” she said, glancing up at me. “I’ll put it on if we come back out.”
I didn’t bother arguing since we were already climbing the front steps. When we got inside, the familiar sound of people talking over each other surrounded us. Pretty much everyone had congregated at Callie’s, but the usual sound of kids running wild was absent.
They’d circled the wagons. I wasn’t surprised.
“I’m going to find Charlie,” Kara told me over her shoulder.
“I’ll find you in a bit,” I replied, kissing her head as we parted.
I went looking for my gram and found her standing in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in her hand. Anyone else and I would’ve expected them to look haggard, but not Farrah. She was dolled up to the point of looking like she was headed for a night on the town, not an eyelash out of place.
“How you doin’?” I asked as I walked over to give her a hug.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she replied, sighing. She rubbed my back as she returned the hug. “I’m alright. It’s just a house, right?”
“Still sucks,” I replied.
“It really does,” she said with a huff. She smiled as I pulled away.
“Have you guys seen it?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Cody got a call from one of the guys you met at the house yesterday? I guess he gave him his number. We haven’t been out there yet.”
She got pulled into a conversation with someone else, so I made my way through the house, saying hello to people as I passed them. Surprisingly, my parents hadn’t shown up yet.
“Hey, Muhammed Ali,” Gramps Casper said as I reached him. “You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” I replied. “How’re you doin’?”
“Pissed,” he said with a huff. “But it is what it is.”
“We did what we could,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, we did,” he replied. “Thanks for helpin’ with that.”
“Of course.”
“I think we’re gonna head over there in a bit. Get a look at the place,” he said, glancing toward my gram. “Not sure it’s sunk in yet. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid.”
“Is it safe?” I asked.
“Safe enough. Sounds like the fire burned through and moved on down the road.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“Cecilia and Mark’s place is fine,” Gramps said, shaking his head. “Isn’t that some shit?”
“Some people have all the luck,” I joked.
Gramps smiled. “I’m seriously fuckin’ glad for it.” He paused. “We probably should’ve driven Mark’s excavator back to their place yesterday.”
“Oh, shit,” I replied as realization dawned.
Gramps laughed. “Fuck it. I’m sure he had insurance.”
“You better hope to God he did,” I replied, imagining the cost of replacing that piece of equipment.
“Hell, I’ll just blame it on you,” he joked. He looked at my gram again. “I better go check on your grandmother.”
“You know where Charlie is?” I asked.
“Upstairs, I think,” he said, patting me on the shoulder as he moved past me.
I found Charlie and Kara sitting on the floor of one of the bedrooms with their backs resting against an old set of bunkbeds.
“Hey,” Charlie said as I walked in, her face blotchy with tears. “If the apartments burn, too, I’m going to be seriously pissed.”
“I bet,” I said, sitting down with them on the floor. I leaned back gingerly against a dresser. My back definitely had some gnarly bruises. I could feel them every time I moved. I was almost nervous to take a piss. If there was blood in it, I was going to find Curtis again. The fucker.
“You look like you were put through a meat grinder,” Charlie said, looking at my face.
“You should see the other guy,” I replied dryly.
“I have,” she said with a watery laugh. “Never a quiet moment around here, huh?”
“Hey, I’m here to entertain,” I said with a shrug.
Kara was suspiciously quiet. When I looked over, she was staring at the carpet. When she finally looked up at me, I could see a hint of the panic she’d been in the day before.
We needed to talk about that. Soon.
“You two fucked like bunnies!” Charlie blurted, her eyes wide as she looked back and forth between us.
“Shut up,” Kara hissed, glancing at the doorway.
“You did,” Charlie said, barely lowering her voice. “I knew when you did it before, and I know it now! You look exactly the same.”
