Page 37 of Say it Ain’t So

More than two years since the accident, since Peter broke my hand with his baseball bat and bracing for the rollover had shattered my wrist, and it still hurt every time it got cold.

Beside me, Van chuckled.

“What?”

My entire body tensed when he took his eyes off the road in front of him and looked my way. That’s the reason I asked him to drive me to work this morning—because the roads were slick as snot, and I couldn’t bring myself to drive in conditions like this. I needed him to pay attention to the road, not me.

“Your North Dakota’s showing.”

“What?” I asked again as I reached for the oh-shit handle above my head.

“Your accent.” He turned to face the road, but it didn’t keep me from seeing the smirk creeping across his face.

“I don’t have an accent.”

He laughed. He actually laughed! “Not much of one. Not around here, anyway. But every now and again, you say something that pops.”

“What did I say?”

“Warm.”

“Warm?”

“Yeah. I didn’t notice it myself until someone in Louisiana pointed it out to me. You say it like ‘worm.’”

“Worm?”

He looked over at me again. “Like an earthworm. Those creepy crawly little things.”

“I know what a worm is, Van.” I pointed at the road in front of us, trying to direct his attention that way.

He raised his hands in front of him—taking them off the steering wheel! “Okay, okay! I was just checking.”

There was silence for a moment. Van kept his hands on the wheel and kept his eyes on the road. While he seemed to have forgotten the entire conversation, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I trusted Van to tell me the truth. We may have met just last week—when we both showed up to our job interviews with Lee Bridgewater that Lee had accidentally scheduled at the same time—but the two of us had hit it off in a way I hadn’t with anyone else since Cheyenne.

Van was from North Dakota, not far from where I’d grown up. He’d even come to my parents’ zoo once or twice as a child.

If anyone would notice my accent, it was him.

Dragging my gaze from my hands twisted in my lap, I directed my attention to him.

“Is it… bad?”

Van scoffed. He looked over at me, his eyes hard yet caring. “Nah. It’s nothin’. Fuck anyone who cares.”

Fuck anyone who cares.

I repeated that in my head about a few hundred times. It was hard to get used to that, coming from a place where I had to care what everyone thought for my own survival. Not giving a fuck wasn’t in my wheelhouse.

But I needed it to be.

Van pulled into the tiny parking lot at the side of the building, swiping his badge at the gate to let us in. We didn’t speak again until he’d pulled open the front door and ushered me inside.

He stopped me as I went to set the push bar so the door wouldn’t lock behind us.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”