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Davis smiled. "Well, it was fun while it lasted, Aza, but our friendship has come to an end." I laughed and followed him down the stairs. "Rosa, can you stay until I get back?"
"Yes, of course," she said. "I've left you some chicken chili and salad for dinner in the fridge."
"Thanks," Davis said. "Noah, my man, I'll be back in twenty minutes, cool?"
"Cool," Noah said, still in outer space.
--
As we walked toward Davis's Cadillac Escalade, which Daisy was leaning against, I asked, "Was that your housekeeper?"
"She's the house manager. Has been since I was born. She's like what we have now instead of a parent, kinda."
"But she doesn't live with you?"
"No, she leaves every day at six, so not that much like a parent." Davis unlocked the doors. Daisy got in the backseat and told me to take shotgun. As I walked around the front of the car, I noticed Lyle standing next to his golf cart. He was talking to a man raking up the first fallen leaves of autumn, but staring at Davis and me.
"Just gonna drop these two off," Davis told him.
"Be safe, boss," Lyle answered.
Once the car doors were closed, he said, "Everyone is always watching me. It's exhausting."
"I'm sorry," I said.
Davis opened his mouth as if to speak, seemed to think better of it, and then, a moment later, continued. "Like, you know how in middle school or whatever you feel like everyone is looking at you all the time and secretly talking about you? It's like that middle-school feeling, only people really are looking at me and whispering about me."
"Maybe they think you know where your dad is," Daisy said.
"Well, I don't. And I don't want to." He said it firmly, unshakably.
"Why not?" Daisy asked.
I was watching Davis as he spoke, and I saw something in his face flicker without quite going out. "At this point, the best thing my dad can do for Noah and me is stay gone. It's not like he ever took care of us anyway."
--
Although only the river separated us, it was a ten-minute, winding drive back to my house because there's only one bridge in my neighborhood. We were quiet except for my occasional directions. When we at last pulled into my driveway, I asked for his phone and typed my number into it. Daisy got out without saying good-bye, and I was about to do the same, but when I gave him his phone back, Davis took my right hand and turned it over, palm up. "I remember this," he said, and I followed his eyes down to the Band-Aid covering my fingertip. I pulled my hand away and closed my fingers into a fist.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
For some reason, I wanted to tell him the truth. "Whether it hurts is kind of irrelevant."
"That's a pretty good life motto," he said.
I smiled. "Yeah, I don't know. Okay, I should go."
Right before I closed the door, he said, "It's good to see you, Aza."
"Yeah," I said. "You too."
FIVE
AS DAISY AND I DROVE toward her apartment in Harold's warm em
brace, she wouldn't shut up about the crush she was certain I had. "Holmesy, you're aglow. You're luminous. You're beaming."
"I'm not."
