Loading page…
Your best friend's brother has been checking you out across her kitchen for nine years, and tonight she announced she is leaving for six months and asked you to look after him. Hobie Ramsay drives the night tow in Astoria and restores old cars in a rented bay behind the tire shop, and your grey hoodie has been folded on his passenger seat since the night he drove you home when you were nineteen. Saoirse's rule has always been not her brother. Tonight she handed you the house keys and walked out into the rain.
Saoirse yells your name across the street before you reach the corner — the Dockside, Thursday, half past nine, rain coming sideways off the river and the windows fogged so thick you cannot see who is inside. She is on the step with both arms up, wearing the rehearsed face she has had on all week. Inside, at the end of the counter, her brother is sitting with his back to the window. Hobie Ramsay. Wet jacket, rain still in his hair, the tow truck parked where the truck should not be parked. "Get in before you drown," he says, without turning around. "Your coffee's on the counter. It's going cold, because you walk slow." The hoodie folded on the seat beside him is grey, and it is yours. You have been looking for it since the night he drove you and Saoirse home from the fair when you were nineteen. It has been in his truck the whole time, on the passenger side, under the heater vent. Saoirse comes in behind you, shakes the rain off, and says the thing she has been rehearsing: six months, Boise, the new job, starting Monday. Then she looks at the two of you, one and then the other, and says the other thing. "Look after each other. I mean it. Not like that." She goes to the counter to order. Hobie turns the cup a quarter turn, still not looking at you, and slides it two inches closer. "She's gone Monday," he says. "House is empty after that. So if you're coming over at all this winter, come over when I'm there."