Page 24 of Flock Around and Find Out

I nodded, then answered the phone. “Hi, Mom. Yes, I’m on my way! I’m almost there.” I tapped my fingers on the desk beside Ruben. “Yeah, hear that? It’s my turning signal. I’ll be there in like…five minutes. Hanging up now!” I slid the phone back into my pocket, then focused on Ruben. “See, I’m supposed to be somewhere like, thirty minutes ago, and if I don’t hurry it up, someone might just kill me.”

“You said ‘Mom’.”

“Exactly! She’s the one person I really think could kill me.”

“Didn’t you drive here?”

“I did, but you know how the parking lot is for employees. It takes forever to get out of it!”

He narrowed his eyes.

I went on. “So because you’re special, you get that snazzy reserved parking spot right in the front.”

“I am not a chauffeur.”

“I know, but listen. You didn’t want to show me the book because you wanted to protect me, right? Well, here is a time when I actuallyneedprotection! My mom is terrifying, and I’ll never live it down if I can’t get there right away. Please, Ruben, be my knight in a very lovely fitted suit?”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as though he couldn’t believe he had to deal with something like me this late in the day. Still, after a moment that was honestly shorter than I expected, he nodded. “Fine. However, you will owe me.”

“Yep. Fair. Let’s go already! She thinks I’m almost there.” I waved him on as he followed, not moving nearly fast enough for what I needed.

He drove a large, king cab truck with an extended, covered bed. I wondered if it was so he could put bodies in the back?

I wouldn’t put it past him. Ruben did some shady shit, all for the sake of the council and the Justices. It was amazing, really, because he barely seemed to care about anything beyond the rules and regulations.

And only the rules of the council. He didn’t fuck about anyone else’s.

I had to use the step and hoist myself into the truck, given the height it had and the height I didn’t.

Despite the huge size of it, Ruben maneuvered it easily through the crowded streets. In fact, it amazed me that he drove so well. It didn’t seem fitting, somehow. Probably because I imaged him as old and serious and not at all modern. Watching him drive a large modern truck didn’t work well with the aesthetic I’d built up in my mind.

“Why are you late?” he asked.

“I just lost track of time.”

“You do that a lot, don’t you?”

“I mean, sometimes?”

“I believe you were cited six hundred and three times for lateness over the five years you’ve worked for the council.”

“You know that offhand?”

“Well, it is a record.”

I sighed and leaned back in the truck, watching the buildings and houses move past us. The city was strange in that there weren’t as many defined commercial versus residential areas. It came from the constant expansion of the cities in the low desert, where one large road might have been the only commercial area, but expanded as more and more people moved here. It meant that everything mixed together, eventually, with individual houses dotted right beside restaurants and shops.

“Why are you always late?” His question pulled me from my distraction.

“I just have a lot of things in my mind, a lot that I deal with. I can’t help it if I’m always going a mile a minute. Things like dealing with appointments or being exactly on time are just strange to me. I mean to be there, but other stuff just inevitably gets in the way.” I thought about it, then frowned. “Plus, I’m pretty sure my crow hates being on time.”

“You’re really going to blame your bird for your actions?” He scoffed as though I were blaming elves or Santa.

“I’m serious! Just like she can unlock doors for me, I swear there are times that she creates chaos. One time, I set my alarm an hour early, got everything set up the night before so there was no way I’d be late to a meeting with you at eight in the morning. I dideverythingthat you’re supposed to do. It was the one where we were talking about the cake incident.”

“I recall you were an hour late to that one.” Talk about annoyed—his tone said he didn’t at all appreciate the reminder, and I could almost picture him stewing over it all.

“That’s the thing, I did all of that to get ready, and do you know what happened? A power surge fried my phone so my alarm didn’t go off. Then, when I did wake up—only a little late—I found a pipe in the bathroom had burst, ruining the clothes I’d set out. Add to those things a flat tire, three ride shares who canceled on me, and my badge not working at the front door. What I’ve found is that the more I try to be that organized, regimented person people want me to be, the less I manage it. The more chaos occurs around me that ruins it. The truth is, things run much more smoothly and it’s less stress on me if I just go with the flow.”

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