Page 2 of Touch of Innocence
“Sam can do a lot,” Isaac loyally defended, as Sam had half known that he would. That was, maybe, the worst part about being belittled. Isaac was such a good person, and all of the resentment Sam held toward him seemed unfair in the face of that. Hearing Isaac stand up for him made Sam feel about twelve inches tall.
“Then he should show me,” Mike grumped, but at least he laid off. For the moment. Still, Sam would take it, even as small a mercy as it was. He shot Isaac a little bit of a look, and the older man shrugged.
They’d talked about this before. It was nice that Isaac cared so much, but he wasn’t really a member of Sam’s family. Not when it came down to it. He was just some guy married to Sam’s older brother.
“Dad!” Ruby came over and started to tug insistently on Isaac’s arm, while Sam tried not to roll his eyes. It was her choice what she called Isaac, but of course, Isaac wasn’treallyher father. For a while, the town had thought that he was, but that fiction had fallen by the wayside a long time ago. “I’m bored. C’mon, let’s go.”
“We have to wait for Ben,” Isaac explained, his voice so damn patient and kind with the girl that it made Sam’s teeth want to grit into tight little walls. It was just how Isaac was, but it came across as so fake to Sam sometimes. “He’s going to bring the other car.”
“I’ll take yours,” Sam offered, more to get out of there than anything else. Isaac handed over the keys as Ruby wandered off, poking at things idly, her face discontent.
She was bored. Well, Sam could definitely sympathize with that. He went to Isaac’s car, a basic sedan which was saved from complete ugliness by its bright, shimmering blue color.
It took only a second to park the car, but Sam honestly considered just staying right where he was. It was getting hot outside, but in the garage, with the remnants of the air conditioning still lingering in the dim interior, he was cool and comfortable, and there were no children, no angry bosses, no ringing phones.
Maybe he could get away with it. Do the oil change and stretch it way, way out. That might work. Although Mike would know very well how long it would take to do the change, Sam figured that his own lack of knowledge could work out in his favor in this case. Mike would assume that he was taking so long because he didn’t really know what he was doing.
“Sam! Get your ass in here,” a bellow met his ears, a sound loud enough to make it through a wall and a car to get to him. Mike was not just irritated now, and Sam swallowed down a surge of sickness which threatened to overtake him as he stepped out of the car.
No, definitely not just irritated, but actually actively pissed off. The small space still seemed to echo with the sound of it, the fury. No matter what happened, Sam did not want to take the few steps toward the door which separated the front of the shop, where the customers would wait, from the back, where the work actually happened.
Reminding himself of his bank account balance, and of the cost of tuition at Harvard, Sam took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. What was Mike going to do to him, anyway? Nothing. Or so he tried to reassure himself as he opened the door.
Isaac was still there, speaking earnestly with Mike. Sam didn’t have to hear the words to know that Isaac was speaking on his behalf once more. Damn it. Sam could take care of himself. He didn’t need to be babysat.
Though it might be sort of nice if it calmed Mike down, even he had to admit that.
“Sammy.” Isaac corrected himself before Sam could even say anything. “Sorry. Sam. Are you going to be home for dinner tonight?”
It was a reasonable question, but Sam wanted to growl back something incredibly unreasonable. Or better yet, leave the room, make some sort of excuse—the oil change, that would do nicely. But Isaac was so damned nice, and Sam had always, even in the depths of his teenage rebellion, found it hard to be mean to him. It was like kicking a puppy or something.
“Probably not.” Sam shrugged as he took his place behind the desk, willing the phone to ring. It would be amazing to be pulled away from this awkward scene, but when he actually wanted the distraction, the phone stayed stubbornly silent, mocking him. “I’ll probably just hit the bar and then come home late, so don’t wait for me.”
Sam held his breath, and he tried to reach out into Isaac’s mind, tried to make him accept that without making some big deal about it. Oh, Isaac would be disappointed. He liked it when the whole family, however strange that family might be, was around, and that included Sam.
“What? No!” Ruby ran over to him, her small body practically plowing Mike right out of the way, utterly heedless of his presence. Mike’s face was starting to glow red, and Sam honestly started to wonder if he might see smoke start to pour from his ears like in an old cartoon.
“Ruby! You can’t be behind the counter,” Sam scolded because he knew that he would be nicer about it than Mike was.
“You’re never around, Sammy,” Ruby complained, and Sam recoiled, just a little bit, from the honest sadness in her big blue eyes. The same shade as the other set of eyes that were fixed on him, Isaac’s, both of them pleading with him. “Won’t you come home tonight? Ben’s making beef stew!”
There was really no graceful way out of this, and Isaac, he might have been able to put off. But Ruby had had him wrapped around her little finger from pretty much the first moment he’d seen her, just a tiny little baby, dwarfed even by his slender child’s arms.
Well, he wasn’t a child anymore, but she could still make him do things, even against his best judgment. It wasn’t actually pleasant for anyone when he was around, no matter how much they claimed to want him there, but it looked like he was going to have to bow to necessity here as gracefully as he could.
Before he had to answer, a loud rattle started outside. It was just a drone at first, but it grew until, even blocks away, they could all hear the vehicle approaching. And not a healthy vehicle, either. Even Sam, with his limited knowledge, could tell that much.
A motorcycle pulled up outside, and a stocky figure in a leather jacket pulled off a dusty black helmet. While everyone was distracted by that, since it wasn’t just every day that a new person pulled up into town, Ruby flung herself at Sam and hugged him tightly, apparently deciding he wasn’t taking her urgent request seriously enough.
As she did, her arm hooked through the telephone cord, which was still one of those old-fashioned, curly ones because Mike was cheap and had never seen the point in replacing what was working just fine for him. Her sudden movement knocked not only the old phone but also stacks of receipts, right off of the desk into a tangled mess on the floor.
“Get out of here!” Mike had clearly had it. He didn’t quite snarl at Ruby, maybe because he knew that Isaac would never allow it. But he was speaking quite emphatically, and she scrambled away, genuine horror on her face as she looked at the huge mess she’d made.
“I’m sorry!” She gripped Isaac’s arm, clinging to him, but before Mike could reply, Isaac was leading her away. They held the door open for the newcomer, who had been riding the dirtiest, dustiest motorcycle that Sam had ever seen, and luckily, Ben’s car had pulled up outside, so they wouldn’t be stranded in the heat.
“Damn it, Sam,” Mike grumbled, and Sam fell down to his knees immediately, cleaning up the mess that Ruby had made. What choice did he have? At least Mike seemed to have calmed down a little, maybe stunned by how close he’d come to snapping at a kid.
Truthfully, Sam didn’t pay a lot of attention as Mike turned to the new guy, other than to notice that he had beautiful, round hazel eyes and that his face was dirty from the road. Mostly, he was just focused on cleaning up the mess and then slinking down into his chair to snag his book again.
It would be better to leave Mike alone for a while. The guy had a temper. He would just finish this one issue and then go do the oil change, unless Mike got to it first, of course.
