Page 28 of Runaway
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Turned out, he wasn't kidding.
Two hours later, we drove back down the highway toward Pineville but pulled off before we arrived in town. Mark didn't say where we were going as we bounced down a paved road that turned into dirt and eventually a worn two-track with dead weeds in the middle. Instead, his forehead remained slightly puckered with thought. I held onto the seat and tried not to panic.
When Mark had ideas, sometimes they gotweird.
Fifteen minutes later, he stopped at a small, gray house with two windows framed by dull red shutters, a porch with a swing, and a giant gray truck. The charming little place was tucked up against a hill at the foot of a sprawling mountain, like everything here. When I stepped outside, I could hear the tinkle of a creek nearby.
“Where are we?” I asked as I stepped out.
A man with salt and pepper hair and a lined face stepped onto the porch in a pair of cowboy boots and a long flannel shirt. The screen door slammed shut behind him with acrack.The knees of his jeans were worn to soft white patches. He half grinned, and it looked so much like Mark that I knew immediately who he was.
His father.
“Hey, Dad.” Mark started around the front of the truck and toward his father, who stepped down a few stairs, gaze on me.
“Hi.”
Mark motioned to me. “This is my friend, Stella. She's staying with me for a while. Stella, this is my father, Jim.”
I nodded. He returned it. A fishing pole leaned against the front of the house near the screen door. Mark stopped a few feet away from the porch and half-tucked his hands into his pockets. He seemed at ease. Jim, at first sight, didn't strike me as a talker.
Mark dove right in.
“Is your Cuban friend, Camilo, still painting these days?”
If Jim noticed my sudden surprise at the question, he gave no indication. Instead, he frowned at the dirt. “Not sure,” he finally drawled. “Why?”
“Trying something new.”
Jim snorted, but his lips twitched with a smile. “I can ask him.”
“Do you have his number? I'll call. No need for you to break your quota and talk to more people than me for the next week.”
Jim snorted with warm amusement, then pulled a phone out of his pocket and tossed it to Mark. Mark scrolled through and seemed to text something to himself because I heard the buzz of his phone a second later. Meanwhile, Jim glanced at me again. A silent question lived there. One I didn't want to acknowledge or have to answer, so I pretended to study the creek.
Why are you living with my son?he seemed to want to say.
“You like to fish?” I asked him.
Jim nodded. I couldn't help but wonder if Mark had so much to say because he felt that he had to fill the silences his dad may leave behind.
Mark tossed the phone back to his dad. “Thanks, Dad. Good to see you. Need anything?”
“Nope.”
And just like that, we were back in the truck, rumbling back toward the highway. Jim disappeared inside with a brief wave, and I blinked.
Wow. That was . . .
“What?”
Mark asking the question made me realize I'd spoken out loud. “Oh.” I shook my head. “Sorry, I . . . I'm just . . . that was so quick.”
He shrugged as he flipped on the blinker and turned toward the highway. Cars whizzed past. The Zombie Mobile needed a lot of land to get its slow engine up to speed, so he had to wait for several minutes. On our way here, he'd driven on the side of the road to get going fast enough.
“I see him pretty often,” Mark said as we chugged along in a break of traffic. “He actually wanted to live at Adventura because of the river running through the canyon, but the fish aren't great there.”
