Page 33 of Indigo Sky

He slammed the shop door behind him, and Roy groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Nathan!” he bellowed, storming out from behind the register.

A moment later, Nate appeared in the doorway, a forced look of nonchalance on his face. “Yes, master?”

“Listen to me right now.” Roy pointed a finger up into Nate’s face, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Nate never did respond to confrontation well. He didn't like to listen.

“I like you, all right, but how much I like you doesn't mean jack shit when it comes to the job. The next time you speak to a fuckin’ customer like that, your ass is out of here—you got me? I don’t give a shit if he’s a loudmouthed son of a bitch who thinks he can do your job better than you. You speak out of line, you’re as good as fired. Understand?”

Nate’s jaw flexed as he looked down at our boss. We were roughly the same height, Nate and me—six foot two, six foot three, something like that—but Roy was short, and he wasn’t in the best shape. Nate could’ve snapped the man in half had hebeen pissed off enough. I watched him carefully, not trusting that he wouldn't hurt the old guy. I never knew with Nate, never knew where his mood would take him, and while I didn't think that Roy could fight him off, I could.

But Nate inhaled, puffed out his chest, then exhaled and nodded. "Yeah, I understand."

"All right. Now, get to work, and if you can't find something to do, go home and sleep off the rest of that hangover. You look like shit."

Nate huffed a chuckle, a reluctant smile spreading across his face. "Man, Ifeellike shit."

"You're getting too old to drink like that," I finally chimed in, resting in the knowledge that I wouldn't have to beat his ass.

"That's some quitter talk right there," he said, turning to head back into the break room. "You a quitter, Rev?"

I left the front desk to join him in the closet-sized room. "Not sure you can quit if you never started," I muttered, dropping into one of the two folding chairs.

I had never been one to party the way Nate did. Sure, I'd have a beer or two every now and then, but apart from being a little tipsy on a few occasions, I couldn't say I'd ever been drunk. Nate though? He was either mad or elated, high or drunk. Sometimes a combination of all four. Never between. Never anything else.

"Well, maybe it's time you did," he said, kicking his feet up onto the table and pulling out his phone.

We settled into a comfortable silence as he browsed the internet or social media or whatever the hell it was Nate did. Funny how you could live with a person and not fully know what they did in their spare time. I was pretty cut and dry. What you saw was what you got, and I wasn't a closed book. But Nate? I couldn't tell you what he did in his room, apart from drink and smoke, despite our landlord repeatedly asking him to go outside. I couldn't tell you what he did on his phone, where he went when we weren't together, who he saw …

Fuck, when I really thought about it, it was easy to convince myself that I didn't know him at all.

"So, uh, whatcha doing?" I asked, glancing across the table.

He pulled his eyes away from his phone to say, "Just looking some shit up."

"What kinda shit?"

He lifted one hand in a shrug. "I dunno. Some shit. Why?"

"I was just curious," I muttered, eyeing him now with suspicion.

Nate chuckled and pulled his feet from the table to shift in his chair. "You’re giving me the creeps, dude. Stop looking at me like that."

"Sorry."

I took out my phone and tried to watch a video, but couldn’t focus on it. All of a sudden, I could only think about that house he'd broken into. God, that had been so long ago, andwe had never talked about it. It had just been dropped like it'd never happened, and I remembered it now like it'd been a dream instead. But ithadhappened. Had he ever done that shit again? There was no way he'd tell me if he did, and considering the times he'd been arrested, I figured that, if he was breaking into people’s houses, he at least wasn't getting caught.

As if that makes it better.

I shook my head. No, I needed to stop thinking about this. There was no reason to obsess over it now. But … I couldn't stop, and I couldn't put my finger on why.

Some people might call it a premonition or, uh … intuition. And maybe it was one or both of those things—I had no idea—but later that night, I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, when my phone began to ring.

With the toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, I walked to my room, grabbed the phone off the bed, and saw Nate's name on the screen.

"Hey, shouldn't you be—"

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