garden or do homework in my room whenever he came over.
He turned and strode outside.
Mom and Dad had arrived home when I’d finally found the courage to check out this beloved bus.
They were all standing on the grass. Well, Everett, Dad, Mom, and Hendrix. Graham and Dale were already inside it, jumping around and making it rock on its two flat tires.
“A school bus?” I asked, blinking at the faded, peeling yellow paint and the rust marks that sprinkled the bumper, windows, and axles. “Does it even run?”
“Why do you think it was towed here, dumbass?”
“Hey,” Mom snapped.
Hendrix sighed. “No, it doesn’t. But that’ll change. Right, Dad?”
Dad didn’t look convinced. Scraping a hand over his beard, he shifted toward the bus. “We can only try, kid. We can only try.”
Hendrix scowled. “With our mechanical knowledge, plus your construction experience, I think we’ve totally got this.”
“You’re just the help, dude,” Graham said, jumping down the bus steps and almost tearing off the door when he caught it to steady himself.
“Shut up,” Hendrix spat, shoving him away from the door so he could inspect it.
“He’s right,” Everett said.
“Rett’s been working there more than you, grease monkey.” Dale leaped down to the front lawn. I cringed as he narrowly dodged the garden bed I’d recently planted some hydrangeas in. “Don’t be so quick to toot your bragging horn.”
“Fuck off, Chippendale. Don’t you have college brochures to beat off to?”
Dad cuffed Hendrix, and he cursed again, grimacing.
Mom just watched it all with her arms folded over her chest and still wearing her work clothes. A black and blue maxi skirt and cream peasant blouse.
“I suddenly don’t know if this college thing is going to work out,” Dale mused, then laughed. “Who am I kidding? You guys won’t get this thing running. I’ll come home next summer, and you’ll still be trying.”
Everett stepped closer to the bus then, his back rippling beneath his grease-stained white shirt. Tension wafted from him, drifting on the gentle breeze as he headed for the rear of the flat-nosed monstrosity.
I couldn’t tell if it was Dale’s comment that’d bugged him, or if it was the way I’d tried to lie to him. Maybe it was both. I watched him disappear, and then a bang sounded, followed by a screech, as he opened the back of the bus.
He and Dad bent inside, murmuring to each other as the rest of the guys bounced around like a bunch of preschoolers heading on an excursion for the first time.
“Should we order in?” Mom asked, sliding an arm around my shoulders. “I doubt we’ll be able to tear them away from this thing unless it involves fried chicken.”
I huffed. “Maybe not even for that.” Glancing around the street, I noticed some of the neighbors were taking a peek at the monster that now resided half on our front lawn and half in the street. “That doesn’t bode well.”
Mom sighed. “Looks like I’ll be offering free lessons to the McGregor’s grandkids again.”
I looked over at Mr. and Mrs. McGregor, who were gawking at the bus, and then at Mom, remembering the last time she’d had to bribe them into not causing a fuss. It was when Dad and Hendrix had built a skate ramp. The thing was so big, it had to stay on our driveway. It was now in five rotting pieces in the back shed.
Idly, I wondered if something similar would happen to this bus. Or if it’d do the unthinkable, and take the band—take Everett—away from Plume Grove.
The dirt changed color, from light to dark brown, as water escaped the hose in my hand.
“You do know that works better if you stand.”
Startled, I almost slipped off Hendrix’s skateboard, my head snapping back and up. The sun framed Everett’s face, too bright to make out his expression.
I blinked and quickly righted the hose, which had been spraying the mailbox. “If by working better you mean breaking my bones and skin, then no thanks.”
Chuckling, he propped a drink on the driveway next to me. “For you.”
I stared at the cup, then reached out and wrapped my hand around the condensation-soaked cardboard. “A shake?”
“Vanilla.”
I didn’t ask how he knew. If I’d learned anything about Everett Taylor and his mysterious ways, it was that he paid attention even while seeming perpetually indifferent.
Sipping from the straw, I felt my eyes flutter. “God, so good.”
He took it from me, taking a sip, then set it on the concrete. “Hop up.”