His “bye” was muttered, but hey, it was better than nothing. According to one of my cousins, one of his sons had gone through a one-month long phase of not answering with anything more than grunts and nods, so I figured this was normal.
Figuring my job was done, I took a step back and almost ran into Johnny.
He smiled down at me when I glanced up and gestured toward the hall. Johnny followed, so close to my elbow, it kept brushing his upper body. “You said you were a neighbor?” he asked suddenly.
“Something like that,” I told him. “I’m staying in the garage apartment.”
The way he asked “What?” made me peek at him.
He looked confused as hell, that notch back between his eyebrows. “It’s a long story that Amos can probably explain better.”
“He won’t. He says about ten words a day if we’re lucky.”
Fair enough. I laughed. “To make a long story short, he put it up for rent behind his dad’s back, and I reserved it. Mr. Rhodes found out and wasn’t happy, but he still let me stay when I offered to pay extra.” That was a lot quicker than I expected. “I’ll be here about another two weeks.”
“What?”
I nodded then grimaced. “He really wasn’t very happy. Now he’s not going to be happy I came over probably, but I was worried about Amos.”
“I was wondering about the car out there.” His laugh came out of nowhere and caught me off guard. “I’m sure he wasn’t happy. At all.”
“He was really, really mad, but I get it,” I confirmed. “I don’t want to piss him off anymore, but tell Mr. Rhodes that I was eight feet away from his son and you were around the whole time. Please.”
Johnny opened the front door with a smile. “Eight feet away and you brought him soup and his phone. No problem.”
I walked through, and he moved to stand in the doorway.
It had gotten a lot darker in the ten minutes I’d been inside, and I pulled my flashlight out of my pocket. God forbid I trip on a rock, break my leg, no one hears me screaming, and I get eaten by meat-eating bears and birds take my eyeballs. That was literally a scenario that my aunt had imagined and texted me about days ago.
“You’re from Florida?” he asked just as I flipped it on and aimed the beam toward the driveway. It was faint. I should look into getting one with more lumens.
“Kind of. I used to live here, but I moved away a long time ago.” I hopped down the steps and waved at him. “Thank you for letting me see him. Nice to see you again.”
He was leaning against the doorway. “Thank you for taking him.”
“No problem.” I waved again and got a short one in return.
I didn’t want to say I ran to the garage apartment, but I definitely walked fast.
And just as I shoved the flashlight under my armpit to aim it at the doorknob, I heard the crunch of tires on gravel and panicked. Where was the key? As long as I didn’t see Mr. Rhodes, he couldn’t tell me to beat it, right? Shoving my hand into my pocket, I tried to find it but couldn’t. Damn it! Back pocket! Back pocket!
The headlights caught me just as my fingertips touched the cool key.
And I dropped it.
“You okay?” I heard Johnny holler.
He was watching. Probably laughing as I panicked. Did he know what I was doing?
“I’m fine! Just dropped the key!” I yelled back, sounding rabid and panicky because I was as I patted around the ground.
The headlights weren’t moving anymore, I realized just as I found the damn key again.
I heard a door open and slam closed just as I pushed it into the lock.
“Hey,” a gruff voice called out.
Play it cool. Everything was fine. He owed me, didn’t he? I’d saved his son. Kind of. “Hi,” I called back, resigned. Busted.
The lights caught a silhouette as my landlord slash neighbor crossed in front of his Bronco. “Aurora, right?” the man asked. Tobias. Mr. Rhodes.
I totally turned around, flipping off my flashlight when it hit him in the chest. He had a T-shirt on. His headlights lit him up from the back, but I didn’t have that good of a view of his face.
Was he mad? Was he going to kick me out?
“That’s me.” I held back a gulp. “Can I help you with something?”
“Thank you for what you did” was his reply, catching me off guard.
Oh. “It was no problem,” I told the shadowed part of his front. He’d stopped just a few feet away, arms crossing over his chest, I was pretty sure.