Rebels Like Us. Liz Reinhardt

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СКАЧАТЬ Rahn Lawn Care and Maintenance.

      “Most days my grandpa and cousin’d be out here during the day, so as not to disturb y’all. I jest head out to the places where there’s no renters in yet. Your house was on my list. Sorry ’bout the inconvenience, ma’am. And about working with my shirt off. Rahn Lawn Care and Maintenance strives to provide professional service, and I apologize if I made you uncomfortable, ma’am.”

      He sounds like he’s reciting lines from the HR handbook I had to sign when I worked at the local Y last summer.

      “I promise I won’t report you to your boss if you promise to stop calling me ma’am.” When my joke leaves him looking extra terrified, I snort, pull out my sunscreen—SPF 50—and plop onto the nearest lounge chair. “Dude, chill. Seriously, it’s cool. I took my first life-drawing class when I was twelve. Trust me, I’ve seen my fair share of naked guys. I’m not a prude.”

      He manages to yank the T-shirt—neck all stretched from his crazy flailing—right side around and get both arms through the sleeve holes. “Uh, cool. I’m Doyle Rahn. Pleased to meet ya.” He holds out a hand.

      I shake it, and dirt from his fingers muddies my sunscreen. “Doyle? I’ve never met anyone with that name before. I like it. I’m Agnes. Agnes Murphy-Pujols.”

      “Pujols?” His wide, white grin contains just the slightest twisted tooth here and there, and it sends an electric pulse through me. Unexpected, but definitely nice. “Like Albert Pujols?”

      “I don’t have any Alberts in my family.” I squint up at him, his head haloed in the sun. He has blond hair that’s just this side of being strawberry, and freckles that have almost melted into a tan.

      “Too bad. He’s pretty much the best pure hitter of all time.” Doyle squats down next to what I guess is supposed to be one of the many “shade trees” the real-estate woman kept squawking about. I hate when people say one thing when they mean another. Like, if you mean shriveled, leafless sticks, don’t say shade trees.

      “Ah. Baseball. My father is a Caribbean studies professor who lives in France, and my brother is hard-core into soccer. Like, he insists on calling it football when he’s in the States even though he knows it’s confusing.” I think on that for a second. “Huh. I wonder if he does that because it’s confusing. Jasper’s a weird guy like that. Anyway, not much baseball watching going down at my place. But my dad’s where the Pujols part of my name is from, and the DR is pretty famous for baseball players, so, who knows? Maybe I should pay more attention to baseball.” Doyle’s examining the dried-out stick so intensely, I swear he’s doing it to avoid examining me.

      “You should. Watch baseball, that is. Actually, you should play baseball. We get a killer game goin’ most Friday nights in the far field back there. You could come ’round if you like. Your brother too.” He nods over his shoulder, and, even with my amazing internal compass, I have no clue where “back there” could be. Someone’s backyard? The empty woods that line the neighborhood? The community office lawn?

      “Actually, my brother lives in Paris with my dad,” I blab. It’s weird how sweet it is to talk to a normal person about normal things in my life. Like what a jerk my irritating brother, who I miss a ton, can be. “My brother is one of those guys who ties a silk scarf around his neck like Freddie from Scooby-Doo because he thinks it’s fashionable. He enjoys eating animal organs and watching really depressing documentaries—basically he’s more Parisian than most French citizens.”

      “Yeah?” Doyle’s gaze settles on me with a laid-back comfort. Like he could look all day.

      I flap my hand in front of my face like a makeshift fan. Was there some kind of sudden solar flare?

      “Yeah.” I reach back and lift my hair, damp with sweat, off my neck.

      “You ain’t wantin’ to move to Paris too?”

      I cackle. “Nope. No way.” I should stop while I’m ahead, but this guy is listening to me. Complete attention. Damn that’s highly attractive. The most explosive arguments Lincoln and I got into before we broke up had to do with the way he seemed to look right through me, the way I felt like I had to fight for every scrap of attention he tossed my way. It really hurt because we’d been friends before we dated, so it wasn’t like I was just losing my boyfriend. I was losing one of my best friends. But Doyle is one hundred percent invested in what I’m saying, so I ramble some more. “First of all my French is awful. Second, the French are, how should I say it...? Les Français sont bites.”

      “Sounds fancy.”

      “I just said, ‘French people are dicks.’”

      The laugh catapults out of his throat so fast, he half chokes on it. It’s nerdy to laugh at your own joke, but I do it anyway. There’s been an alarming lack of laughter in my life lately.

      “So, what about you? Do you have any siblings who irritate the crap out of you?”

      When he chuckles, the skin over my ribs tingles like I’m being tickled. “I sure do. I got an older brother who’s a marine. Proud as hell of him, but it ain’t exactly easy living with a decorated combat vet.” He dips the tips of his fingers into the soil at the tree’s roots and stirs it into a shallow pattern of spiraling furrows that make me think of those Buddhist sand gardens.

      “Does he have PTSD?” I’m not sure if I’m being direct or nosy. I hope I’m not overstepping. Ollie and I did a Civics project on PTSD at Newington, so I know the facts but have no real experience with the horrors of it.

      “PTSD? Nah.” Doyle scoops up a tiny mound of dirt and sprinkles it back on the roots. “Lee’s one of them guys who was born a natural soldier. He’s a leader, he handles stress real well, he’s always got a plan, thinks on his feet. One time we got lost out hiking in the woods overnight when Lee was only ’bout ten or so. I was jest a little kid. Lee built a lean-to, caught us some fish to eat, made a fire... He near burned down half a nature preserve, but that’s what led the rescue crew to us. I was crying so hard when they found us, but my brother was cool as can be. He got a medal from the sheriff, and, man, it blew his head up so big. He was... What’s the word? A bite?”

      I love the way his accent coils softly around the rude French word. “Brothers are annoying as hell, but Lee sounds like a great guy to have around in an emergency. My brother would have known every statistic about how close we were to death and had a panic attack.”

      Doyle’s eyebrows, lips, and dimples all lift up when he smiles. I’ve never seen a smile change a whole face that way. “Problem is, Lee got used to being the boss, and he forgets I’m his brother and a civilian, not some jarhead in his platoon. But my grandparents won’t hear it when it comes to him. They tell me to grab Lee’s laundry, and if I decline, my granddad says, ‘Your brother puts his life on the line for this great nation. You show some respect and pick up his dirty socks.’ I don’t sass my granddad anyway, but that’s some hard logic to argue.”

      “So you live with your grandparents?” My guard must be way, way down because I swear I planned to keep that thought in my head, but there it is, sprung from the trap that is my flapping mouth. Maybe I’m relaxing after so many months of watching what I said around Lincoln. “I’m just asking because I considered going to live with my abuela in New York.”

      “Huh. Yeah, I’ve lived with them since I was in elementary school.” He leaves it at that, and some instinct tells me not to push. “How ’bout you? Were you just so ready to come down here and soak up all this sunshine?” СКАЧАТЬ