Page 118 of The Endowment Effect

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“What do you mean you’re staying here?” Mia asked as she perused what was once the front counter and office area of Folsom’s. “It’s… a gas station.”

Birdie was determined to look on the bright side. It wasn’t all that bad as accommodations went. Besides, Angus had talked her into staying another week at the inn, on his dime, until she refused to be a financial burden.

Neither did she care to watch the elderly women of Wayward stand in line for a seat at the table with the devilishly handsome Scot, feasting on the attention like it was a trencher of haggis.

While Lucas avoided her like the plague, or at least a questionable skin rash, shuttling Mia out his front door without a word to Birdie each morning, just a single head nod.

“Yes, I’m aware it’s a gas station. That’s what makes it… eccentric and cool,” Birdie said, modeling what it meant to see the glass half full as opposed to an impending drought.

“No,” Mia countered. “That’s what makes it weird and crazy.”

“What? This place is awesome,” Birdie said, standing on the leather-covered bench and screwing the brackets into the wall for the window blinds she picked up at the nearby Target.

Angus added, “No to mention, free.”

Birdie glared at him from over her shoulder and resumed her work, the screwdriver slipping and digging into her thumb. She yelped and stuck it in her mouth.

“Yer like a half-shut knife,” he admonished, taking her by the arm and helping her down. “Yawright?”

“I’m fine,” she said with a pout.

“Skedaddle off,” he ordered, taking the screwdriver. “I’ll hang ye blinds. Away and tummle yer wilkies.”

Birdie hesitated.

“Find something else to do,” he translated, climbing the bench like a man twenty years his junior.

Fine.

Birdie set to work pulling the bed linens she had picked up at the Target superstore out of the shopping bags, hoping twin-sized sheets would work on the long, hard-as-a-rock bench.

As she searched for the bag with the pillows, Mia continued to investigate. She opened the door to the bay stations and pulled her head back. “This place reeks of oil and gasoline.”

“The smell’s not all that bad, considering, but if it bothers you so much, shut the door.”

“I just don’t understand why you can’t stay at Dad’s. He told me he offered to let you sleep in his office.”

She noticed her daughter’s casual use of the term “Dad” without correcting herself and following up with the more benign “Luke.”

Okay, they were getting used to one another. Growing closer. More like a father and daughter rather than a bio-dad and his skeptical offspring.

This was good. This was a good thing.

Birdie opened the industrial strength plastic bags with what looked to be a pair of wire cutters she found on the top of an empty soda vending machine.

“You should be spending time with your dad. Not me. I’ll have you during the day and drop you off in the evenings.”

Mia poked at the cash register buttons. “The whole arrangement sounds so, I dunno, normal.”

Birdie laughed, freeing the sheets from the bag. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“All my friends either have divorced parents or live in a blended family. Being part of a traditional family, when Dad was alive, was so abnormal in comparison.”

Birdie whisked the top sheet in front of her to release some of the wrinkles. “I never would’ve guessed that going on a quest to find your father, seven states away, your mother having to track you down, and then agreeing to stay and make temporary custody arrangements, would ever be looked upon as mundane and normal.”

“I don’t know,” Mia said, distracted by going through several wood-front drawers behind the counter. “My friend, Noam Goldmann, got an email from the crown prince of Nigeria, informing him he was a long-lost brother and he needed his help as he was being extorted for millions of dollars. That tops me finding my dad in Wayward.”

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