All It Takes (4 page)

Suddenly the Dumpster out front makes so much sense. But as I look at the mess in front of me, and think back to the Dumpster, all I can think is
it’s not going to fit.

“Now you see my problem,” Star says, and I turn to look at her. She’s perched on the edge of the porch—which is, itself, covered in enough junk that I’m actually seriously worried that it’s going to give out under the weight and take her down with it. She takes a step down, moving toward me. “I know it’s a lot of work, and I won’t blame you if you hightail it out of here, but I can really use the help. I need to sell this place by the end of the summer, or I’m screwed.”

She’s standing next to me just as I manage to swallow down my instinctive response of
I hear arson can be fun,
because as much as I can use the money she’s offering, this is . . . It’s too much. But as I turn to look at her, all I can see is the way her face is already falling, like she can tell what I want to say.

I’m an asshole.

I let out a breath and look around, trying to convince myself it’s not as bad as it looks. After a moment, I almost believe it. And I don’t know if it’s the look on her face or the fact that I need the money to
live,
but I find myself holding out my pinkie—first just like I did earlier.

“Like I told you earlier, I’m in,” I say, and link my finger with hers.

Her smile? Is fucking blinding.

So I do the only thing I can. I shrug off my coat and get to work.

Star

I
have to hand it to Ash; he is a hard worker. Like, he’s a really hard worker. Actually, that doesn’t even come close to covering it. The guy worked his ass off. And, mercifully, he didn’t complain
once.

I had seen the look on his face when he first saw the inside of the house. He’d been floored. And as we’d gone through the garbage in the backyard, I could tell just how disgusted he was. But he’d kept quiet about it. He just . . . worked. Picked up a box of garbage bags, asked me if there was anything he should keep an eye out for, and when I shook my head, he just pulled out a bag and shook it out. Then he started filling it up.

After a few minutes, though, we realized that the garbage bag plan wasn’t the best one. The entire yard was littered with so much stuff, that it just wasn’t feasible to bag it all. So instead, after the first half-dozen bags, we switched methods and started hauling the big stuff into the Dumpster. Waterlogged boxes, huge piles of lawn furniture that had been left out so long it was all broken and faded by the weather. Christmas decorations, most of which were star-themed, which killed me a little bit, were dragged away and dumped. But bit by bit, the piles began to shrink. Hours later, when the sun is just starting to dip, I call it a day and we head inside to wash the worst of the grime off. And that’s an adventure in itself, because it’s not like the bathroom was miraculously spared from the hoard.

Afterward, finally, we step out onto the porch together, and I close the front door behind us and slide the key into the lock.

“Well,” he says, pulling his jacket back on even though it is still really warm outside. “Is it cool if I come back tomorrow?”

I boggle at him. Is this guy
serious?
I was ready to just hand him a twenty and hope for the best.

“Dude,”
I say, so relieved I’m almost ready to cry. “Of course. You worked your butt off. Of course you can come back.”

“So I’ve got the job?” he asks, but I can already see the grin he’s trying to smother as it pulls at the side of his mouth. His eyes meet mine, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Oh, shut up,” I tell him. “You know you do.” And he honestly did. Between the two of us, we must have hauled three or four dozen bags of garbage to the curb, all of them stuffed full to the brim, and put even more than that into the Dumpster. There had just been so much stuff. It had been everywhere, all over the backyard. Bins and boxes, covered with tarps that weren’t doing anything to protect them from the elements. Nearly everything that my mother had stored out there had been destroyed by rain and dirt and god knows what else.

It was heartbreaking. I don’t even know how long things have been like this. Had the stuff she’d been storing back there gotten to that state of disarray and decay while she was still alive? For all I know, it could have been out there for
years.

But, together, we’d managed to haul out a good chunk of it. Not a huge amount, not enough for the backyard to be even close to clear enough for me to use it as a sorting area, like my plan had been, but it was still a whole lot better than it had been before. And it was so much more than I could have done in one day on my own. Hell, to be honest, it was more than I could have done on my own in a week.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and pulls one of his hands out of the pocket and gives me a little wave. “Same time work for you?”

“Are you kidding?” I ask. I know this guy’s been through some shit, but this is ridiculous. “Get in the car, Ash. I’m taking you for dinner.”

“You . . . what?” He’s looking at me like I’ve grown another head. Possibly one that belonged to a lizard. “What are you talking about?”

“Dinner.” I say the word slowly, but I smile to let him know I’m teasing him. “Din-
ner.
The last meal of the day. I’m buying you dinner.”

“Why?”

“Because you worked really, really hard, dude,” I say, starting to get exasperated. “And you offered to come back. And because we didn’t even stop for lunch. I don’t know about you, but I’m
starving.”

“But . . . we had lunch.”

“No,”
I say. “We had a couple of crappy bagels that I swiped from the B + B’s breakfast buffet. They were dry and gross. Would not recommend. What I want is a big, greasy cheeseburger. So are you going to get in the car, or are you going to follow me in yours?”

***

It took a lot more cajoling than I expected, but I eventually got Ash into my mother’s old station wagon. I figured that way if it crapped out on me again, I’d have him there with me, at least, until I dropped him back at the house for him to pick up his car.

I don’t think he realized what my plan was until I turned into the diner’s parking lot.

“Uh . . . I don’t think this is a good plan,” he says as I pull into a parking space right by the front door.

But I just turn off the engine and pull the key out of the ignition. “Come on,” I say. “We’re going inside.”

“No,” he snaps, and I kind of jerk in my seat at his tone. I look up at him, and the anger just bleeds right out of his face right in front of me. He sighs and scrubs both of his hands over his face. “Fuck. Sorry,” he says. “It’s not your fault. I just . . . This is a
really
bad idea. I’m not exactly welcome in there.”

“Look,” I unbuckle my seat belt and turn in my seat to face him straight on. “I heard what they said to you. But the way I figure it, you have two options here. You either hide yourself away until your parole ends and you can start over somewhere else, or you
make
these people accept you.” He’s not looking at me. He’s just sort of staring off into space. I reach out and hesitantly place my hand on his arm. He doesn’t move.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I killed someone,” he says. “I got high as fuck and I killed someone.” He squeezes his eyes shut and his head smacks back against the headrest hard enough that it actually looks like it hurts. “And you’re just here. Why are you even here? Why aren’t you just like everyone else?”

“Look, you messed up,” I say. “Bad. I’m not going to pretend like you didn’t. But you’ve served your time, and you’re stuck living here until your parole is up. You’re trying to do the right thing.” I rub my hand against the sleeve of his jacket.
“Illegitimi non carborundum.”

That
got his attention. He opens his eyes and looks at me.
Ah, there was the why are you suddenly a lizard-person look again.

“What. The. Fuck?”

I can’t help it. I throw my head back and laugh. One day, one single day of having his help has made the weight I’ve been carrying on my shoulders feel about fifty pounds lighter.
“Illegitimi non carborundum,”
I say, and shimmy out of my hoodie, which is not an easy trick when you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. The steering wheel is kind of unforgiving, but finally I manage to get it off. I stretch out my right arm and twist it so that the back of my lower arm, and the dark script that runs down the bone there, is directly in front of him. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

With a tentative hand, Ash reaches out to touch, but then his fingers stop a hairbreadth away from my skin. “Can I?” he asks, and I nod.

“Of course.”

His touch is soft, and it’s only there for a second. But he swipes down the words, and I have to stifle a shiver that threatens to run down my spine. “You’re a weird girl,” he tells me as I pull my arm back, and I smile.

“I’m very aware of that,” I tell him. “Now get out of the fucking car. I want a burger.”

This time, instead of waiting for him to argue, I tug on my hoodie and hop out of the car.

And mercifully, he follows.

***

To be honest, dinner could have gone better—we both could have done without the wide-eyed stares from the other patrons—but it definitely could have gone worse. At least Lacey and the waitress that kept giving me dirty looks weren’t there. Instead we had a young guy with skinny hips and what looked like purposefully-styled bedhead as our waiter, and though his eyes widened a little when he saw us slide into a booth, he didn’t say anything.

I made a point to glance at his name tag when he actually managed to be polite, as opposed to Lacey and that that blonde mean-looking waitress. According to the little plastic tag pinned to his shirt, his name was York, and from the looks of it, it was only him and a heavily-pregnant girl with thick-framed black glasses working that day. And York was doing most of the running around since the girl seemed to be staying put behind the cash counter as much as possible. I didn’t blame her. Especially when I saw just how much effort it took for her to pull herself up off the stool back there. But even when some of the other customers were rude to her, calling out for her to hurry it up with their drinks, she didn’t utter a single complaint the entire time we were there.

Tough cookie.

We got a few strange side-eyed looks from the other patrons, but unlike the one from the other morning, they stayed silent. Ash looked like he was about to bolt out the front door when we initially sat down, but as time passed, his shoulders slowly began to unhunch themselves and he started to relax.

And by the time our food came, he was leaning back in his seat and actually smiling.

Like I said, it was a good look on him.

Ash

“W
ell . . . ” I trail off as Star pulls the car to a stop in the driveway. I don’t know what to say.
Thanks for dinner? Thanks for the job? Thanks for putting up with all the fucking gawkers at the diner? Thanks for not letting me be a complete asshole to you?
I’ve got nothing.

I used to be smoother than this. I fucking know I was. But all the words are caught in my throat. Jesus. What is wrong with me? The silence between us gets longer and longer to the point where it’s so awkward I’m shifting in my seat like a five year old. I want to just mutter
thanks
and then make a break for it, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to leave the impression I want.

Star glances over at me, and she must see how uncomfortable I am, because she just shakes her head and laughs. “It’s okay, Ash,” she says, and pulls the keys from the ignition, turning in the driver’s seat to face me. “How about this?” She reaches out and offers me her hand to shake. “Thanks for your hard work. I hope you enjoyed your dinner. Hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I kind of stare at her outstretched hand for a minute before I manage to shake myself out of my haze. I reach out and clasp her small hand in mine, pumping it up and down twice before dropping it like it’s on fire.

Seriously. I
really
used to be smoother than this.

“Thanks,” I say. “Ugh, you, too.” And then I’m up and out of the car, booking it down the driveway before I can fuck this up any further. I’m pretty sure I can hear Star chuckling to herself as I slide into my car, but I hope it’s just her crap car sputtering back to life. I sit in my car and wait as she turns the station wagon back on and pulls back down the driveway. I wait for her to drive down the street, headlights disappearing at the turn, before I let out the breath I’ve been holding for what feels like forever. “Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and let my head drop forward against the steering wheel. Why haven’t I thought this far ahead? I can’t keep this hidden for much longer. She is bound to figure it out eventually.

I have nowhere to go.

I’ve been driving my car around Avenue for days, trying to find the perfect spot to spend the night, but in a town as small as this one, it isn’t like there are a shit-ton of options. People are going to start noticing. Star is going to notice. And how long am I going to be able to keep the job, as crappy as it is, if she finds out that I am such a fuck-up that I don’t have anywhere to live?

At this point, I’m just lucky I don’t stink.

With a groan and a muttered
“fuck,”
I stick the keys into the ignition and start up the car. I’m half tempted to just park it in the driveway and sleep there, but Star’s mom’s house is in a nice neighborhood. My car would stick out like a sore thumb, no matter how much junk we dragged to the curb. With my luck, I would end up getting towed while I was still asleep in the back.

For the millionth time since the crash, I wish I’d somehow managed to grow up to be less of a fuck-up. I wish I’d actually listened to the people who’d told me to smarten up. Maybe then things would have gone differently.

Maybe then I wouldn’t be such a fucking loser. I’ve sunk so low that half the friends I’d had won’t even let me couch-surf—and I’d very nearly gotten down on my knees and
begged
—and the other half I haven’t bothered with because if my parole officer found out I’d been talking to them, well…it wouldn’t be good. But then it wouldn’t be good if he found out I was living out of my car, either. Fuck, I
really
need this job.