“I don’t see any blood,” he says. “Can you sit up?” With his other arm he braces my forearm and pulls me up, and I absolutely hate my body for even reacting with the tiniest thrill when his skin touches mine. I tell myself that the feeling in my stomach is revulsion.
“What are you even doing here?” I ask.
“It’s called a job.”
“Oh.” I didn’t realize Dad had high school students working for him, but then, why would he tell me who works for him?
Dad jogs down the hill and pats me on the back. “You okay, bud? This terrain is awful. You should have called. I would have come down the hill to pick you up.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him, deepening my voice, like that will somehow help me fit in here. “Dinner is not.”
The three of us consider the trail of spilled containers leading down the hill, and after we pick them up, Dad tosses me the keys to his truck. “You and Tucker go get some Chicken Express for the crew. Dinner’s on me tonight.”
I pocket the keys. “I can get it by myself.”
“Actually,” says Tucker, “we have a school project to discuss, so that would be great. Thank you, sir.”
“No problem, Tuck.”
Tuck? Tuck? Not only did my dad give him a nickname, but it also has a double meaning in very specific circles. So many things wrong with this situation.
I march up to Dad’s huge, honking beast of a truck and take off down the hill before Tucker even shuts his door.
“Buckle up, Tuck.”
We rumble down the hill, and not until we pull back into town do I say, “You never told me you work for my dad.”
“I didn’t know I needed to.”
“Isn’t it kind of weird that I see you every day in class and you never thought to mention it?”
“I guess neither of us say very much of anything to each other.” His voice is low and gravelly.
And whose fault is that? I make a wide turn into the parking lot of Chicken Express. This truck is the size of a boat, and not in a cute welcome-aboard-my-yacht way. “Well, I guess we should talk about prom court.”
In the drive-through, I order enough fried chicken and sides to feed a football team and then some. After paying with Dad’s card, we wait in what feels like a fragile silence for our food to be ready, the staff behind the window obviously annoyed by the size of our order.
“I know that neither of us are really thrilled by this partnership,” I say. “Who knows? Maybe you wanted to end up with Melissa. Rekindle the flame or whatever.”
The window opens and the woman on the other side begins to hand me bags of food, which I pile up in between Tucker and myself. If we’re going to be in the same breathing space, at least I can separate us with a barrier of fried chicken.
Once we’ve pulled back out onto the road, Tucker says, “How do you know what I want?”
“You’ve made yourself pretty clear.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe I’m stuck doing another project with you. I’m so close to being done with this place and then the gods of high school throw down one last gauntlet.” I roll my shoulders back in a sad attempt to relieve the tension in my body and in this truck. “You know what? Never mind. What are we going to do for these projects?”
Tucker shrugs, totally chill and completely unmoved. “We could do a breakfast like Mrs. Leonard said.”
I shake my head. “That’s not inventive. Me winning this thing is a long shot, but I’ll die before I’m boring. What would you want if you were a teacher?”
He laughs. “A day off.”
That gets a slight smile from me. “Fair, but I don’t think we have that kind of authority. What about, like, a spa day?”
“That sounds really awkward. I use three-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, so I don’t think that’s really my speed.”
And admittedly, outside of the occasional sheet mask, I’m no pro either. “Well, do you have any ideas for the legacy project at least?”
He shrugs. “I could build something. Like a bench. Or a planter box.”
“Are you trying to flex on me? I can build something with a piece of wood and four legs too.”
Tucker watches the road disappear behind us through his rearview mirror and smiles. “I didn’t say you weren’t good with your hands.”