Page 110 of A Surefire Love
Sterling appeared in the doorway and stepped in far enough to offer Marissa a hand up. Like a hostage being led to freedom, she took it. Moments later, they were gone. David found the directions and sorted parts, vaguely aware of Anson leaving. Components for not one but three bookshelves littered the room. Marissa never should’ve been left unattended in there.
When he finally had all the parts in order, he worked on Marissa’s F.
“Pastor Anson!” Footsteps pounded in the hall, then a boy’s voice broadcast into the room. “Guess who gets to go to college after all!” A red-faced freshman—a guess, but he had that look about him—waved a sheet of paper. “Someone finally wants Carter.” The kid pivoted one way and another, like six-four Anson might materialize from nowhere.
He spotted David through the office doorway and lowered the paper, his shoulders dropping. “My brother got a scholarship. It’s a good one at a school with the major he wants too.”
“Sounds like the kind of thing he’d want to announce himself.”
“He’s off at a basketball tournament with his club.” The kid shrugged. “You snooze, you lose.”
David snorted. The kid had spunk. “I don’t know where Anson went.”
The boy slid the paper onto the table Anson had just assembled. Then he crossed the room and sat near the bookshelf directions. After cocking his head at them for a moment, he grabbed a handful of parts. “I’m Dylan. Who’re you?”
“What do you think you’re doing?” No way he trusted this punk with a screwdriver any more than he trusted Marissa.
The kid turned his head to an impossible angle, focused on a sideways label on one of the parts. “Helping.”
“What if I don’t want help?”
Dylan righted his head and grinned. “Needing help isn’t bad. That’s what my family’s counselor says.”
“Your family has a counselor?” And the kid wasn’t embarrassed enough to keep the fact to himself?
“Yeah. I mean, mostly, she’s for my parents, but they dragged us—me and my brother—along a couple of times.” He lined up a shelf and a sidewall and wiggled his fingers as he scanned the screws. “She’s all right. I mean, things are a lot better now. You ever see a counselor?” He shot a self-conscious glance at David.
He didn’t believe in lying, so he said, “A couple times.” He also didn’t believe in baring his soul, but this kid seemed more interested in unloading than in learning anyone’s secrets.
He watched Dylan work for a minute. He was better at following the directions than Marissa. David ventured out for the drill Anson had abandoned. With the power tool, he finished Marissa’s bookshelf in no time and stepped overwhere Dylan worked on the second shelf to begin assembling the last one.
“This place is pretty nice, right?” The kid blindly pulled screws out of a bag as he looked into the classroom.
The entire place smelled like a kindergarten craft supply cabinet. Stains blotched the ceiling tiles, moisture clung between the panes of the windows, and the floor should’ve been replaced a decade ago. But Sterling said the former preschool was only a temporary home for the church, until they rebuilt.
“Beats the burned one.”
“Yeah.” Dylan’s head bobbed. “That was an accident. I was just … you know how some people light candles when they pray for people? It seemed like if there was something I could see, my prayers would mean more. I guess it wasn’t a good idea, though.”
David’s shock came out in a loud laugh before he checked it. “You’rethatkid?”
The boy’s eyes bugged. “You didn’t know?”
“I’m just here because a friend asked.Youburned the old place down?”
“Not on purpose.”
“Right.” David directed his focus to his work. He probably shouldn’t find it so entertaining that this goofball set the church on fire. “How many candles did you light?”
“Just one … at first. Some wax got on a railing, and I was going to clean it off, but then I realized I could stick the candle bottom to the puddle and the candle would stand up. Then I didn’t have to hold it anymore, so I started setting up other candles. I just didn’t realize how close some of them were to the flowers and how close the flowers were to the banner thing and ….”
“Went up quick, huh?”
The boy threw his hands up. “So quick. And do you know how hard it is to get a fire extinguisher to work? Like, shouldn’t they be easy?”
“You’d think.” David had never had occasion to use one.
“Anyway, everything got really bad really fast.”
