Читать книгу The Favour - Меган Харт - Страница 7

TWO

Then

THERE’S A GIRL with red hair in the backyard of the house next door, and she’s blowing soap bubbles from a big plastic dish. She dips the wand in the liquid and holds it to her puckered lips, then laughs as the bubbles stream out, one after the other, like beads on a string. Like pearls, Gabe thinks. Like his mom’s pearls, the ones in the drawer in the back bedroom, in the box his dad doesn’t think Gabe knows about.

The girl with red hair glances up, sees him looking and frowns. Gabe stands on one of the cinder blocks that keep his yard from falling into hers. If he steps down he’ll be on her grass, so he stays where he is. His yard is higher, which is good because he thinks she’s taller than him, and that would be annoying.

“Hi,” she says. “You’re Gabe Tierney. My dad says you have twin baby brothers.”

He does. Michael and Andrew. Gabe doesn’t question how or why this girl’s dad would know that. Everyone knows about the Tierney boys. His bare toes curl over the edge of the cinder block, but he doesn’t step down.

The girl stands, her fist dripping with suds. “I have bubbles, look.”

“I have bubbles in a big jug. Had,” Gabe mutters. “I spilled ’em.”

It had been an accident, but he might as well have done it on purpose since he got in so much trouble for it. The soap had soaked into the rug in the front room, making a squishy patch he’d been unable to clean up no matter how much water he used. Mikey walked through it, then onto the linoleum floor in the kitchen, where he skidded and slipped, hitting his head on the table. Then Dad came through, yelling, and he slipped, too. Went down on his butt. It would’ve been funny, kind of like something on TV, except Dad didn’t laugh about it. He hadn’t spanked Gabe, but it might’ve been better if he had. He’d not only taken away the rest of the bubbles, but he’d sent Gabe to his room for a whole day. No lunch, no supper. Gabe’s belly had hurt from being empty.

“I’m Janelle.” She holds up the wand. “Do you want to blow some bubbles? You can use mine.”

Gabe does want to blow bubbles, but he stays put. “My dad says I’m not supposed to leave the yard.”

Janelle puts her fists on her hips. Her lower lip sticks out in what Gabe’s mama used to call a pouty. “Gaby’s putting a pouty on,” that’s what she used to say. Before.

Janelle shakes her head. “What are you, a baby?”

He’s not anything close to a baby. Heat floods him, not from the summer sun beating down but from someplace deep inside. It comes from the same place that gets hot whenever he overhears someone talking about “those Tierney boys.” Which is a lot. Without another thought, Gabe jumps down from the cinder block and into Mrs. Decker’s yard.

“Be careful. Your dad might yell.” Janelle looks toward Gabe’s house, which is taller than Mrs. Decker’s. Made of brick instead of painted wood. Gabe’s house has three stories and he’s pretty sure the third floor is haunted.

“He’s not home. He’s at work.” Mrs. Moser wouldn’t yell if she came out from inside the house and found him in the yard next door. She’d be happy to see him playing with a friend. She’d be happy for him to stay out of the house, out from under her feet like she said, though it is the twins who are always crawling around under her feet. Not Gabe.

“Oh.” Janelle grins and holds out the bubble wand again. “So come and blow bubbles! It’s really fun.”

“Bubbles are for babies,” Gabe tells her, knowing it will wipe the smile off her face.

That’s what Dad says. Wipe the smile off your face. But it’s never like wiping your face with a cloth or a napkin or the back of your hand. Smiles always melt like Popsicles in the sun. Drip, drip, drip.

Janelle does stop smiling. That line appears between her eyebrows again. She puts one hand on her hip, the other still holding out the wand. “I’m not a baby, and I like bubbles! But if you’re too much of a baby to come into my Nan’s yard...”

“I’m not a baby!”

“Nope,” Janelle says with a grin that melts something inside him that’s nothing like a smile, “you’re a jerk.”

* * *

Gabe Tierney was still a jerk. He knew it. Cultivated it, as a matter of fact, because it was easier that way. People gave you a wide berth if you were an asshole. They left you alone. Well, most people did. Some women didn’t. For them, a sneer was as good as a smile, maybe better. For them a kiss from a fist was better than nothing, but Gabe would never hit a woman, not even if she hit him first, and he’d had plenty of slaps to prove it. He’d deserved most of them, though if you asked him, any woman who went after a man who told her right up front he wasn’t ever going to be her boyfriend probably shouldn’t get bent out of shape when that turned out to be true.

There were lights on in the Deckers’ second-floor bedroom, which meant he could see right in. There hadn’t been a light on upstairs in months, maybe even over a year. Mrs. Decker never went upstairs anymore, and though she sometimes had visitors, she didn’t have overnight company. Gabe moved closer to his window, hands on the sill. His breath fogged the glass, but he didn’t wipe it clean. He just waited patiently for it to clear.

Earlier he’d seen the woman inside, moving back and forth, emptying boxes and arranging the furniture. Her hair was darker now than it had been in childhood, but still red. He bet she still had freckles across her nose, and that twisted sense of humor. Other things would’ve changed over time, they always did, but surely that would be the same.

Janelle Decker had come back.

The door to that other bedroom opened, and there she was again. In the dark, behind the shield of his curtain, Gabe watched, waiting to see if she’d look over. She didn’t. She straightened and slid an elastic band off her wrist, then used it to fasten her hair on top of her head. She stretched, rolling her neck and shoulders with a wince.

Gabe had once sworn he’d get the hell out of this place and never look back, but Janelle had been the one to actually do it. At least until now. What was she doing back here? Easy enough to guess—Mrs. Decker was getting older and more frail. She’d fallen not too long ago, and Gabe supposed she needed caretaking. That explained the boxes and stuff in the upstairs bedroom, instead of only a suitcase or two.

“So,” she says. “That’s it? It’s over?”

“Nothing’s over. For something to be over, it has to start.”

“I did it for you!” she cries. “You asked me for a favor, and I did it!”

Then she’s leaving and his hands are on her. Too hard. He doesn’t know how to tell her he doesn’t want her to go, and he can’t make himself ask her to stay.

And after that, everything fell apart.