“I didn’t know you hated it there so much.”
“You didn’t?” Sammy brushed his hair away from his face, sending a tiny shower of water over Ed’s shoulder. “I thought that’s why you asked me to come with you.”
“No. I asked because I heard you were a good mechanic, and I was hoping to get some free labor out of you.”
“If you had told me that, I would have grabbed a few parts from the garage before we took off. Hey, you mind if I turn on the radio?”
“No.” Though Ed didn’t think that Sammy would be able to find any signal. “I have a few 8-tracks, too.”
The clouds around them were almost purple in their fury. They stretched down to the ground in long fingers, as though the weight of the water was so great, it could pull the very sky down. A bolt of lightning struck so close, and so hard, that for a moment, the entire world was nothing but white light. Ed reared back, away from the window, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.
“Oh, right,” Sammy said. “The radio doesn’t work. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Why?”
“You’ve got a death grip on the wheel.”
“Oh.” Ed took a deep breath and forced himself to loosen his hold. His knuckles were already turning white, and his armpits were damp. It was either nerves, or the humidity in the air. A humidity that only got worse with each second. “I didn’t think it was supposed to rain like this in the desert.”
“I think my old man told me once that there was always the danger of flash floods in the desert.”
“That would have been good information to have.”
Sammy smiled. “Yeah, it would have been. Sorry about that.”
As far as Ed was concerned, there was nothing as delightful as Sammy’s smile. It was so easy. Sammy had always been a good-natured boy, bestowing smiles on the world regardless of what was happening around him. When they were eight, Sammy had crashed face-first into a wall during a pick-up game of football. His face had been covered in blood, his eyes already starting to swell, and every kid on the playground stopped to stare in horrified fascination. Two teachers rushed over, as flustered as wet hens, prepared to drive him the forty-two miles to the nearest big hospital. And in all the chaos and confusion, Sammy had smiled at them. Missing teeth and all. Ed had been quite close to the point of the accident—he had been sitting against the wall reading when Sammy slammed into the bricks—and he never forgot that moment.
Now, thinking about it again, he wondered if maybe Sammy had seen him there and threw his body at an awkward angle in a bid to avoid trampling the smaller boy? Ed was consumed with curiosity, but he couldn’t think of a graceful way to introduce the topic. Or even explain why he was still thinking about it.
“What do you think you’ll do in California?” Sammy asked.
“I don’t know. I want to see the beach.”
“That’s your big plan? You’re dragging us all the way out to California to see the beach?”
“I’ve never seen it before. Have you?”
Sammy paused a beat. “No. Not too many of those in Wyoming.”
“My point exactly.”
“But you’ve got to have a plan after that. A guy like you.”
Ed dropped his head back and stared up at the ceiling. It was covered in unknown stains. He was pretty sure that a Coke can left out to freeze in his car was the source of most of the stains. He wanted to believe that it was a simple accident, and not his brother trying to destroy the one thing Ed owned in the world. He wanted to believe that, but he didn’t.
“A guy like me? What sort of guy am I?”
“Quiet. Bookish. You know.”
“A nerd?”
“I never said that.”
“I think it’s what you were implying.”
“Maybe, but I always liked that about you.”
“Really? Until two days ago, I didn’t even think you knew I existed.”
“I knew.” Sammy pulled at his shirt, separating the wet material from his skin. “We did have just about every class together in high school, after all.”
“Yeah, but we never saw each other outside of class.”
“Yeah, we did.”
Ed tilted his head. “When?”
“When you came up and worked for my dad last summer. That’s when I noticed you weren’t exactly the nerd I thought you were. You did a pretty good job of lifting those bales of hay.”
Something sizzled down Ed’s spine—it might have been pleasure. A secret, low sort of pleasure. Sammy had noticed him working in the barn? Had Sammy stared at him? No, probably not. That seemed like just a little too much to hope for. On the other hand, Ed had spent so much time watching Sammy, he was surprised he hadn’t noticed the other boy looking at him.
“I was motivated.”
“That’s my point. You did all that work, and you don’t have a plan for California?”
Ed snorted. “It’s not very responsible of me, is it?”
Light and shadows played on Sammy’s face, reflecting off the rain on the windows, constantly changing shapes. A sudden, violent burst of water momentarily overwhelmed their conversation, and the two of them were trapped in a strange silence. He could smell Sammy’s skin, and his drying hair, and his damp shirt. They were much too close, physically, to
