Chapter 5

FIVE

On Wednesday, he greets me with a hot dog. He holds both out for me and nods toward the one on my left.

“This one has bacon, tomatoes, and relish.”

He nods to the other hot dog.

“This one has coleslaw and mustard.”

I make a face. “Coleslaw?” I quickly take the bacon one.

“What’s wrong with coleslaw?” he asks, a genuine look of surprise on his face.

“Nothing at all. Provided it’s not on a hot dog.”

“Coleslaw tastes good with everything,” he says.

“Please,” I scoff. “There are plenty of foods that don’t go with coleslaw.”

“I disagree.”

I give him a mock sympathetic nod. “Because of that terrible accident where you lost all your taste buds?”

And then, instead of going inside and getting to work, I somehow find myself sitting on the front steps of the building, wolfing down a late dinner, with Sutton sitting next to me.

“Adding coleslaw to a hot dog goes against hot dog etiquette,” I say between bites.

Sutton hands me a bottle of water before he waves me off.

“Who cares? It tastes good.”

“It messes with the unpretentious nature of a hot dog,” I say.

“You and I have very different ideas of pretentious if you want to label coleslaw that.”

I make a sound of protest through a mouthful of food and hold my index finger up while I chew. “Coleslaw itself might not be pretentious, but it’s what it represents. It’s a gateway topping. You start with coleslaw. From that, you’ll be all, well a few slices of avocado never hurt anybody. Next thing you know you’re dressing your hot dog with stuff like artisanal mustard and goat cheese and apple relish. And eating it from your grandmother’s wedding china with a knife and fork.”

His eyes stay on me, his lips twitching.

“I’ve seen the light,” he says. “Just out of curiosity, what is on the list of appropriate toppings for a hot dog?”

“Mustard—the normal kind, not the pretentious kind. Most basic relish.” I hold up two fingers and continue raising the others as I list more. “Onions. Pickles. Cheese. And chili.”

“Ketchup?” he asks.

“Be serious. That obviously falls under the Dirty Harry rule.”

“The what?”

“Clint Eastwood?”

“Oh. The movie,” he says. “Yeah, never seen it.”

“Whoever was responsible for your education clearly did you dirty. ‘Nobody, I mean nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog!’”

“I’m guessing this is a quote?”

“You’d be guessing right.”

I stuff the last bite of hot dog into my mouth and glance at him. He has a strange look on his face, a thoughtful frown as he keeps studying me.

“What?” I finally ask.

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Before I can dig deeper, he hands me a napkin, and I wipe my fingers, ball the napkin up, and toss it into the garbage can by the door. We both get up and head inside, and once there, we get to work, seamlessly taking up the tasks we’ve somehow wordlessly divided between the two of us.

And while we work, we talk.

He manages to slightly lower the sheer number of innuendos that seem to accompany whatever he says.

I still don’t get why, but Sutton is easy to talk to, and I’m saying that as a person who finds very few people easy to talk to. Especially strangers. I’m usually too in my head, and a lot of the time I can’t seem to think what to say or how to respond. Some of it can probably be put down to the lack of practice. Invisible people don’t learn to chat. But then Sutton is just so unapologetic about everything that comes out of his mouth that the straightforwardness somehow seems to disable my filter, too. When I’m with him, I don’t endlessly overthink and overanalyze every single response. Half the things that come out of his mouth? Most people would never say them. He does, and he won’t try to sugarcoat or be polite or tactful. Whatever I tell him, he doesn’t take it personally.

It’s kind of nice.

There’s a light on in the basement when I get home. I lock the door behind me and hang up my jacket before I trudge down the stairs.

Remy’s hunched over at his work desk, soldering the tonearm cable lead of a turntable he’s been working on for the past two days. He retired from his job as an aerospace engineer about a decade ago, and he managed to relax and kick back for a grand total of two days before he started his career as the neighborhood’s unofficial repairman.

“You’re up late,” I say when he looks up from his work.

He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes before he glances at the clock on the wall.

“I’m not up late,” he says. “You’ve just been home early this whole week.”

I drag my hand through my hair and lean my ass against the side of his worktable. “Yeah, I sort of have help right now, so we get everything done quicker. Things will go back to normal on Monday.”

I frown. It’s been just a few days of Sutton, so I’m not sure why it suddenly feels weird that he won’t be there anymore next week.

I shake my head to clear it. This whole thought sequence is pointless, and I’m writing it off as the late hour.

Remy leans back in his chair.

“Who’s helping you?”

I don’t think I know how to explain Sutton to him, so I don’t. Easy way out and all.

“Just some guy,” I say. “It’s a long story. It’s somebody who owes Quinn a favor.”

“Lucky for you, then.”

I nod and yawn and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to get rid of the yawn-tears.

Remy chuckles softly when he looks at me, somehow exasperated and affectionate at once. “Go to bed, kid.”

Remy’s been calling me kid ever since I landed on his doorstep all those years ago. He took me in, he put a roof over my head, and he’s treated me like family ever since.

I can never repay him for everything he’s done for me.

“You should follow your own advice, you know,” I say as I push myself off the desk. “Jordan will fly into Dad-mode if you don’t, and you know it.”

That can-never-repay-him thing? It applies to Jordan too.

Where Remy is mostly stoic and not prone to overreact to anything, Jordan, in comparison is overprotective to the max. Especially when it comes to Remy and Theo. And me, too.

“Bed, then,” Remy says, then gets up with a familiar groan.

I help him put his tools away and straighten everything up before I turn off the lights.

He squeezes my shoulder when I pass him on my way up the stairs, and I smile at him.

This is home.

So why I spend the next few hours staring at the dark ceiling of my bedroom, not sleeping, feeling restless as hell, is anybody’s guess.