AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are those boys talking carstoday?”
“Maybe?” Kelsey said, feeling guilty on her father’s behalf. Of course they were talking cars. Her father and Uncle Gun always had some old muscle car rehab project going, and Mr. Crane was the same. The only thing those men talked about was cars. Mr. Crane didn’t ride, so they couldn’t talk about bikes.
“Will you please go out there and tell my husband that I’m not pleased with that decision?”
Kelsey laughed softly. That was how Mrs. Crane expressed a serious threat. “I’ll convey the message, yes.”
~oOo~
Her dad, Uncle Gun, and Mr. Crane were, indeed, standing in the garage, around Mr. Crane’s half-completed early-70s Mustang convertible. Their ties were loose and their shirtsleeves rolled up. Each man held a sweating beer.
And Dex was with them. He hadn’t been in the house; he must have come straight into the garage.
She’d never seen him wear anything but his Sinclair uniform or what she thought of as a Bulls uniform: faded jeans, scuffed heavy boots, a t-shirt or hoodie, and the kutte. But now, he wore pressed black chinos, a plaid collared shirt, and a blue pullover. On his feet were shiny black shoes that seemed far too dressy for his business-casual getup.
Her father, Uncle Gun, and Mr. Crane all looked over at the door to the house when Kelsey came through it. Dex looked down at the car.
“Hey, pix. Everything okay?”
“Mrs. Crane sent me out to let you know she’s not happy you’re all standing out here talking cars today.”
Her father turned and grinned at Mr. Crane. “Uh-oh, Kenny.”
“Somebody’s in trou-ble,” Uncle Gun added with a smirk.
Mr. Crane waved them off with a sidelong grin. “She thinks she’s tougher than she is.”
“I see you walking to the door, though, don’t I?” Uncle Gun teased.
Kelsey stepped aside as Mr. Crane went into the house. As a member of the Bulls family, she’d been to her share of funerals and wakes in her life. Some losses had hit very close to home; all of them were laden with sorrow. Yet she always marveled at how much normalcy filled the spaces between bursts of grief, and how quickly mundane life returned. She’d never been to a funeral without moments of laughter, or experienced grief of her own without moments of regular life, of bill-paying and television-watching, errand-running and meal-making, of work and play, rushing back in within a day or two of the loss.
The durable elasticity of the human spirit, she supposed. It took a great deal of pressure before it truly broke.
“We should go in, too,” her dad said. “Dex, you comin’?”
Dex looked at the door, managing to avoid looking Kelsey in the eye, though she stood right there. “Uh … I don’t know. I’m thinkin’ I should go. Shouldn’t’ve come at all.”
Her father shook his head. “I texted you because it was right you be here.”
“My dad’s right,” she said, and he finally looked at her. “It’s good you’re here. Mrs. Crane’s been asking for you. She wants to thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything to thank.”
“Sure you did, brother,” her dad said.
But Dex shook his head. “I was too late. I don’t need thanks for calling 911, and that’s all I did.”
Actually, he’d walked a mile in two feet of snow and gone into a house that was obviously full of gas, taking a huge risk, on the slim chance that he could help the Turners. That he couldn’t didn’t diminish his heroic effort.
But Kelsey was annoyed with him for being weird right now. Shy or introverted or misanthropic, whatever he was, was fine. She was pretty introverted herself. But when a grieving woman said she needed something, you gave it to her.
“It’s not about what you need, Seth. It’s about what Mrs. Crane needs. She needs to thank you. So get in the house and give her what she needs.”
The three men still in the garage, all of them Brazen Bulls, gaped at her.
Then Uncle Gun burst out laughing. “Damn, Kelse. You’re scary when you act tough. Better get in there and do what she says,Seth.”
Dropping his head like a chastised kid, Dex nodded and walked past Kelsey and into the house.
