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“How?”
I flexed my fingers that ached a little from clocking Frankie. Not my way. Don’t be like me. Like him.
Miller peered up at me. He was a few inches shorter than my six-two. “The guy you punched? His dad’s a cop.”
A sneer curled my lips. “Fuck them both.”
“What do you have against cops?”
I thought of the dozens of late visits from police that ended with my dad “cooling off” in jail for a night, only to come back the next day, more pissed off than ever. Restraining orders that he wiped his ass with like toilet paper.
That was shit you couldn’t tell a total stranger, but it felt like, with every step we took on that same path, Miller was less and less strange.
We walked in easy silence until I got to the corner of the building I managed. I’d turned on the TV before I left that morning. We could hear it droning.
“That you?”
I nodded.
“I’m a block down.” Miller stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “You need to get home?”
“Home.” I scoffed. I didn’t know what that word meant anymore. “No.”
Miller nodded. His dark blue eyes looked like they’d seen their fair share of shit too.
“Follow me.”
Miller walked us down a path that started behind a parking lot with an abandoned utility shed. It led to the beach, away from the Boardwalk with its lights and roller coasters and laughing tourists, and toward the cliffs that gave our neighborhood its name.
The way was rocky and hard; we climbed over large rocks where the coast crumbled and spilled into the ocean. Just when I thought we’d have to turn back, it got easier. The water receded, and Miller led us around a huge boulder that blocked our path. On the other side was a small fisherman’s shack, weather-beaten and old but still standing.
“Found it four days ago,” Miller said. “Been coming here every night, since. After work.”
“Yeah?” I examined the small space that had a wooden table, bench, and a window cut into one wall. “Where’s work?”
“The arcade, down at the Boardwalk.”
I nodded and sat on the bench. “You can see the ocean.”
Miller jammed his hands into his pockets again. “Yeah, it’s nice. A good place to just…”
“Get the fuck away from everything?”
“Precisely.”
“You looked sick earlier,” I said. “What’s with the watch? That part of it?”
“It’s an alarm. My blood sugars were low.” Miller lifted his shirt to show me a small white device stuck on his abdomen. “I have diabetes.”
I nodded and then an old childhood memory—one of the rare decent ones—came back to me. I covered a smile so Miller wouldn’t think I was making fun of him.
Too late.
“Something funny?” he asked, a suspicious edge to his voice.
“I knew a girl when I was a kid…five years old,” I said, and then the laughter came at me like a wildfire, taking me off guard. “Her aunt had diabetes. The kid called it dia-ba-titties.”
Miller stared at me and then the laughter spread to him too.
