I should have been dead on my feet, but for some reason, I felt buzzed. I wanted to talk to someone, but it was almost two in the morning. I thought that like it made a fucking difference. If it had been six at night I still would have had no one to talk to.
Then, suddenly, I remembered Blix. Lovely, smart Blix across the Atlantic and a good five hours ahead of me. That put her right around seven in the morning, and I knew she would be up. I punched in her number. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hello?” I could hear her breathing hard.
“Run, Forrest, run.”
“Saxon!”
I felt a good, calm glow at her excitement. In a world of haters, here was one person who loved me, even if she knew what a rotten apple I was.
“How’s Ireland? Let me guess. Green and wet?”
She laughed, a happy sound that made me smile. She had a great laugh. “You got it. And I’ll tell you what. I know why Ireland doesn’t have any kick ass runners. Who could run on slimy, mossy cobblestone? I almost busted my ass three times.”
“Don’t do that.” I lay back on my bed and let the image of her lovely backside take away some of the day’s pain. “That ass is too fine to get busted. How’s your nerd class going?”
“Lots of Joyce,” she griped. “But I’m writing my bildungsroman.”
“Really?” I drawled, grinning. “Bren, you’re only sixteen. Don’t you think you have a few more formative years ahead of you?”
She laughed again. “Seriously. But that’s the assignment, so I have to give it a try,” she said. “So how’s work? God, that’s a question I never imagined I’d be asking you.”
Now I laughed. “Well, it’s shitty. The people all know my drug-dealing past, so I’m referred to as Crackhead officially. My bosses are Scary and Crazy Bitch Scarier, apparently, and their daughter is hot, but probably wants to stick a kitchen knife through my heart.”
“Maybe you should write a novel about it when you’re done,” Brenna mused. I thought about it for a minute, but she obviously thought I had my feelings hurt or something. Good lord, I know I’ve been a fucking cry-ass lately, but I’m not that soft. “I’m just kidding, Saxon,” she said all gently.
“Blix, come on. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.” I remembered how it felt to lay my head in her lap and let her brush her fingers over my hair. I imagined what it would be like to do that again. Then I shook myself out of that train of thought. She wasn’t mine. She really wasn’t mine. She was Jake’s, and even this call was just me bullshitting myself.
“I worry about you,” she said, her voice wavery with emotion. “I think working might be good for you. And don’t worry about the other people there. You’ll grow on them.” Again that laugh. “You’re obnoxious, but you have an unmistakable charm.”
“Thanks, Blix.” I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. “Look, I know you have to finish your run before your depressing nerd class, so I’ll let you go. I just needed a sympathetic ear to bitch into.”
“Well, I’m here. Anytime,” she said earnestly. “Take care of yourself, Saxon.”
“Will do. You do the same.” And we clicked off. It was like severing the last connection to any person who gave a shit about me. I looked at my hand, holding my cell, and the big, silvery scar where I had sliced myself open to become Jake’s blood brother. Which was pretty unnecessary, since we’ve been blood brothers since he was born. Not that I’ve been a very good one.
I lay down on my hard mattress and started counting off things in my life that I had fucked up. It was better than sheep, and there wound up being so many things that I was asleep before I knew it, a deep mercifully dreamless sleep.
Then next morning I woke up to the clatter of pans and the smell of bacon. It was eight o’clock. Aunt Helene must be making breakfast. I got in the shower and washed with her Dove soap and Suave berry-smelling shampoo and conditioner. I brushed my teeth with her gritty baking soda toothpaste and got dressed in my little closet of a room. I did make my bed and left my dirty laundry in the basket. She didn’t need to pick up after me like I was some little kid.
I hadn’t seen my Aunt Helene since before I learned to ride a bike, but my memories of her were all good. I ducked into the kitchen, and she cried out like her lost kid had just come back from the dead.
“Saxon! Oh, Saxon,” she said, coming at me with her old, flubbery arms open. She crushed me in a tight hug. Granted it was a weird little hug, since she came up to just over my bellybutton. “Look at you!” she cried. “So handsome! So handsome. And strong. Come and sit. You must be hungry, and I made you a big breakfast.”
She wasn’t kidding. Little, tanned, wrinkled Aunt Helene scooped so much food on my plate, I could have eaten for three days. She sat with me, but she only drank a cup of creamy coffee with lots of sugar, like a kid.
“So, what is your work like?” she asked, watching me with her bright eyes.
“Shitty,” I said around a mouth of perfectly cooked eggs over easy. I washed it down with what had to be fresh-squeezed orange juice. “Sorry. I mean it’s hard work. But I’ll be here ‘til four thirty every day, so I’ll mostly only waste my nights there.”
She patted my hand. “Erikson is a fair man. And his wife? She’s firm, but fair also. You will do well working for them.” She beamed at me, so I made my mouth smile back at her. She was a nice woman, and nice was becoming a hot commodity in my life as it currently stood.
“So, what do you do all day, Aunt Helene?” I asked while she cleared my plate.
“Oh, boring for a man!” she cried. “Just cleaning up, gardening, cooking. You should go out, find some fun! A handsome devil like you should have a few girls around. Am I right?”
I grinned. “Give me a little time. Let me help though. I like to keep busy.” Wow, how full of shit was I? But this place was a dump. She needed help.
“Well,” she said carefully. “The Erikson boy was going to help do my gutters, but they had to fire a few kids, so he’s been really busy at the diner. Maybe…”
I didn’t have a damn clue how the hell to clean a gutter. But I had an iPhone and it has access to Google.
“I’m on it.” I went outside with my phone in hand.
One ladder with rotten rungs, two near slips off the roof, three tons of fermenting leaves, and four hours later I was covered in scum, panting for breath, and smelled like I had just climbed out of a toilet bowl in a White Castle.
“Why do leaves smell like ass?” I griped, shaking my arms off. And it would have seriously screwed up my mood for the day, except that Aunt Helene was clucking around me, worried about my filthy self and telling me how she’d baked some kind of crazy Polish cookie and that I should get right in the shower.
And it felt good to have someone give a shit about me.
I took a shower and ate some knock-you-off-your-ass fantastic cookies and took a nap, and then it was time to go. Pamela was in the driveway, waving at Aunt Helene and accepting a plastic baggie full of cookies. Jimmy was yelling thank you and Cadence was waving, and then we were off. The car was weirdly quiet with all three of them eating cookies.
“You’re so lucky!” Jimmy said. “Your aunt is so nice and she makes the best food.”
Pamela smiled at me. “Seriously, dude. You have it made.”
Cadence glared, nibbling on a cookie, then rolled her eyes at me. “It’s not like he deserves it.”
And I might have agreed. If I didn’t have remnants of gutter sludge under my finger nails. And a mental list of shit I had to pick up from a hardware store. Because Aunt Helene needed my help, so I’d give it to her. And it hit me then, that maybe I was pretty fucking lucky.