Page 17 of Yes No Maybe

I take my rejected whiskey inside and wander to my office. A highlight reel of the night in question replays in my head.

The call from my agent about my publisher’s threats to drop me and take their advance back…

All day staring at a blinking cursor and blank page…

My friends showing up for a baseball game we got too drunk to watch…

And a bike ride—five drunk idiots doing laps around our street like we’re twelve. Chris put credit cards in the tire spokes like baseball cards. Bryan rode Mom’s old pink bike with the tassels on the handlebars, basket and all. It would’ve been funny if they hadn’t spent the time complaining about their wives and chauffeuring their kids to games and practices all the time.

“Wish I had your life, Jack,” Bryan said.

No, he doesn’t.

I remember her loud-ass VW puttering up the road. My face lands in my hands as my words echo.Pretty fucking annoying… bet you still bed her… hell no… Damn it.

My tabby, Harper Lee, saunters up with what sounds like a chiding meow. I wonder if cats can read minds—I’ve always felt she can. Her golden eyes narrow in what looks like disappointment. I deserve it. I plop in my reading chair beside the open window and hear a thwack outside. A voice comes next.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, peachy,” Rowan answers sharply, suggesting she isn’t. Table legs scrape against concrete. They sit at her embarrassingly small, pizza-sized metal table with matching ass-numbing chairs. They’re close enough for me to hear the wine being poured.

In hindsight—not the best idea, adding on to my house so close to hers. But Ben and Margot rarely used that dinky porch, and I never considered that they wouldn’t be there. With only a few feet and a shrub separating her porch from my office and being higher up, I see everything, even through the window over her kitchen sink.

I’ll have to put up a fence, tall and solid.

I reach to close the window but stop when Rowan says, “This isn’t about Dean, is it?”

And my ass is glued to the seat. Rowan’s shitstorm love life has inspired me before. I can’t afford to miss a second opportunity.

“—Please, Mira. It’s been a bad day already.”

“It’s not about Dean. I need your help with something.”

“Sure, anything.”

“No, hear me out first. You’re allowed to say no. This isn’t something you should agree to because you’re being asked. Understood?”

“Fine. Just tell me what it is already.”

“Now that you have the house and an extra bedroom, I wondered if you’d be open to fostering a teenager—”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

They laugh knowingly, like it’s an understanding between them, before Mira asks, “Maybe I should give you all the details first?”

“Sure, but I’ll do it.”

I watch through the corner of the window where they can’t see me, even though this conversation has veered into a category that I don’t care about. If not for the irony, I’d already be on the phone with my fence guy. She couldn’t give a straight answer to her boyfriend’s proposal but couldn’t give her yes fast enough to a stranger living in her house. This woman is strange.

“Her name is Sara Sweet. She and her father, Eddie, live on the other side of The Pines, inherited from his mother. He’s a landscaper. Good guy but doesn’t make the best choices. He was caught with stolen property stashed in his garage. Sara says he was duped into storing it by a no-good relative, which is probably true, but he wouldn’t come clean. So, he’s about to do ninety days, and there’s no guardian for Sara.”

“So, she needs a temporary placement.”

“Yes, but one inthisschool district, which is impossible to find. She’s starting her sophomore year at Coastal. I don’t want to force her to switch schools.”

“Well, now she won’t have to. I’ll get a bed, dresser, and desk for my spare room—I have a little money set aside. We’ll ride to and from school together. It’ll be great!”

“It’ll behard, Rowan. She won’t want to be here. She’s pissed at her dad, and she’s got a very bad attitude.”

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