Page 53 of Yolo

She walked me to HR, and I filled out my new hire paperwork. Once I was done with that, she said, “I’d like to take you out tomorrow at lunch to introduce you to the main people you’ll be working with. A few of them are my sons.”

I smiled. “That would be lovely.”

She walked with me and we discussed her children, where they worked, and what they did.

A weird niggling feeling started to roll through me when she started talking about her sets of twins.

But before I could ask her if she happened to be related to a certain set of twins that I knew, she got a call.

“Oh, shoot,” she said. “Yeah, I can get him off the bus. Love you, Atlas.”

“That’s my son, Atlas,” she explained. “His son, Forest, gets dropped off here from daycare.”

I nodded. “I really appreciate your help,” I said. “Thank you so much. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be sending a ride for you,” she said. “He’ll be there around eight. I’ll have him buzz up to your apartment, however, so you won’t have to worry about spotting him.”

After saying our goodbyes, I started walking back toward the sidewalk.

I had a spring in my step as I went, and likely a goofy smile on my face.

I felt really, really good about this job.

Like, it was the perfect one and I could spend the rest of my life here.

“Listen,” I heard someone say in Spanish. “I don’t care if you’re Jesus or Mother Mary. You don’t get to speed, get pulled over, and run from the cops. You’ll find that it’s easier to just pull over next time. If there even is a next time. Dumbass.”

I kept walking, keeping my head down, despite the grin curving up my lips.

It was a good five-minute walk, almost at the same spot that Rooster had stopped earlier, that I heard the whispers start up.

“Think there’s a dog inside. Look,” I heard someone say.

“I’d say something, but then they’d tell me to freakin’ leave, and I just got here,” a man replied. “I may be homeless, but I ain’t…”

I missed whatever else he was going to say when someone stopped me with a hand on my arm.

“Miss?”

I swallowed hard, trying to bury my nerves behind a pleasant smile. “Yes?”

I almost took a step back due to the smell of body odor that assaulted my nose.

“There’s a dog in this car right here,” the man said. “Look.”

I winced, hating the feeling of having my belly drop out at the reminder of how impaired I was. “I can’t. I’m blind.”

“Oh,” he sounded defeated.

Rooster started to whine and sat down, refusing to get off of my feet when I urged him to move forward.

That’s when I realized that there was actually something wrong.

Trance had told me that if he felt something was unsafe, or that I needed to know about something, Rooster would let me know. And I knew that firsthand to be true because he’d stopped me in a very similar way twice.

Once when I’d been about to step out in front of a car that was speeding, and another time when there was a missing board that would’ve likely broken my leg if I’d stepped on it.

Meaning, there truly was something wrong.

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