Page 95 of Power Play

Nick blinked a few times, as if wrapping his head around us being nice to him, when he’d basically been a dick so far.

“Uh…no,” Nick said. “Thanks. I’m ah…just picking up something to eat and taking it back to the garage.”

“You eat breakfast in your garage?” Tess asked.

“My garage is my shop,” Nick answered. “I fix cars.”

“You own your own shop?” I asked, hungry for any little detail.

“Yeah. On Second Street, just past the park.”

I held my breath waiting for him to invite me to come see it. To casually ask me to hang out. I’d never fixed a car in my life but I would learn if we could do it together. But Nick was silent. That silence told me loud and clear he wasn’t interested in me dropping by his place. He’d apologized for threatening me, sure. He’d made small talk with me. That was as far as he was willing to take it.

“Nick!” A man in the back, with a bald head and earring rang a bell on the pass through between the kitchen. “Come get this burger!”

“You have hamburgers for breakfast?” Tess asked, like the idea was fascinating. “That’s almost as crazy as pie.”

“Well, I’ve been up for a while so this is my lunch,” Nick said, smiling at Tess. He gave us a wave and went to grab his sandwich.

I made eye-contact with Kit, and she gave me a little wince of understanding. Like she understood how much more I wanted from Nick. It was like when you were so hungry you stopped being hungry and then you had one tiny thing to eat and your stomach became a bottomless pit.

That tiny conversation only made me want more. So much more.

“Am I so see-through?” I asked her, and to my shock, she lifted her hand and pushed the hair that had fallen over my forehead back up on my head.

“I’ve never seen anyone who wants to be loved more than you,” she said.

“Except you,” I said, and she seemed struck by the comment.

That’s right, I thought, you can see me, and I can see you.

Kit shifted a little in the booth and turned to Tess as a distraction. “So your birthday was in January, Tess. What’s the actual day?”

“January 14th,” she said. “My mom took me out for a special lunch and we didn’t have pie but I had birthday cake. It was awesome.”

Maybe it was wrong to ask a kid, but it made me wonder about Tess’s dad. Was he part of her life at all now that he wasn’t with Janice? “What about your dad, Tess? Does he send you a present or something on your birthday?”

Tess shook her head. “I don’t have a dad.”

There was no sadness or regret in her tone. Just like she was stating a fact.

“Well,” Kit said. “You do have a dad, but maybe you just don’t see him very much.”

“Nope,” she said, filling in more of the puzzle on her place mat. “Mom said some kids have dads and some kids don’t and that’s that.”

“That’s that,” I repeated, not liking the finality of that. Tess was a great kid and some guy out there was really missing out.

I was distracted then by the woman headed to our table. She carried a large tray over her shoulder and stopped when she got to us.

“Okay,” the server said. “Who is having pie for breakfast?”

The three of us raised our hands.

22

Kit

Tess fell asleep like a stone, exhausted from a day of pie and books and swimming and cleaning up the beach. And just generally being amazing.

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