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“Does that mean you work on cars?”
“I used to, yeah. Now I’m the boss.”
Brightening up with a more concrete interest, Ajax said, “I like working on cars. My grandpa lets me help him work on his car. He’s an engineer. He’s retired now, but he used to design satellites.”
“That sounds like a pretty good job.”
“Yeah,” Ajax said, and the conversation began to fade out.
Damn. That had been a promising topic—something they both liked, a connection they could forge. But the weight of who Eight was sat on the table between them, throttling any dialogue before it could take a full breath.
Marcella felt like she was being torn into pieces. What was her place here? To sit quietly, observing, making sure Ajax was okay? To play cruise director and try to keep a real conversation going? What did her son need of her right now?
She had no idea.
But again, Ajax stepped up. “Is there anything you want to know about me?”
Eight chuckled. “Yeah, sure. Anything you want to tell me.”
What a shitty response. It suggested that Eight wasn’t really interested in Ajax, only in the novelty of him. Bastard.
Ajax didn’t like that answer any more than Marcella did. “I didn’t, like, write an essay. I don’t know what you’d care about. You don’t have any questions or anything?”
Again, Eight looked to Marcella. She sent daggers back, and he looked away.
“I have a lot of questions, kid. I just don’t know which ones I should ask.”
Their meals arrived, and they had a few minutes of relative ease while they sorted out their food and got started eating. Thank God, they now had something else to focus on.
“You’re a biker, right?” Ajax asked as he swallowed a bite of chicken.
Eight’s head swung up, and he paused with his hands over the chicken breast he was dismantling with his fingers. “I am.”
“Do you like it?”
“I do, yeah. It’s not a life for everybody, but it’s a good one for me.”
“How many bikes do you have?”
After a drink of water, Eight smiled and leaned in. “Three. Harleys. A 2015 Fat Boy Softail, a 2005 Dyna, and a 1971 Hydra Glide. You know about bikes?”
Ajax shook his head. “But I think they’re cool.”
Eight’s grin deepened, and Marcella saw him relax. Oh. He was nervous. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might beintimidatedto meet a ten-year-old.
“They are cool. After we eat, if it’s okay with your mom, we can go out and take a look at the Fat Boy.”
Ajax turned to Marcella. She couldn’t think of why it would be dangerous to look at a motorcycle. If there was a way, Eight would find it, of course. But she said, “Sure.”
“Okay. I’d like that.”
“What else do you like?” Eight asked.
“Um, lots of stuff.”
“Sports?”
“Uh huh. I like all of them. I play soccer, mainly. And baseball. I played football, too, but I stopped.”
