The Art of Adapting (24 page)

“What did Trent say?”

“I said I was giving you a ride to your dad's house, and if he kicked my ass for driving his daughter without permission, I'd need to get ahold of Byron to explain, and he said, ‘Well, he'll be at State until five,' followed by a lot of swearing because he wasn't supposed to say anything.”

They laughed and Abby was surprised at how easy it was, having a conversation with Gabe. The butterflies in her stomach weren't going quite so crazy anymore. He felt less like some mythical god whose beauty blinded her and more like a boy she knew from school. Maybe even a friend.

“You know, you forgot your sweatshirt at my house,” she said. “I keep meaning to bring it back to you, but . . .”

“No worries,” Gabe said. “I have, like, twenty of them. One thing about having two homes, you get doubles of everything. Triples sometimes.”

“What do you say for twenty?” Abby asked. “Twenty-tuples?”

Gabe smiled at her. “I have twenty-tuples in sweatshirts. Keep it. To remember me by.”

Abby's heart jumped. As if there were any chance of her forgetting Gabe, ever.

“I need to change my shirt,” she said. Her soccer jersey wasn't muddy, but it was hot, itchy polyester, full of static, and she couldn't stand it for another moment. “I have a tank top on underneath, so don't freak out.” Abby pulled the jersey over her head and slipped her T-shirt on. When she looked over, Gabe was staring at the road, but smiling. “What?”

“You,” was all he said. And then the butterflies were back. Gabe exited the freeway and headed for campus. “So, Trent mentioned the commons. I think I know where that is.”

They took a few wrong turns but soon found the grassy area. And there was Byron, in a crowd of bigger, stronger, older guys, jumping and running and performing the most ridiculous stunts Abby had ever seen. They just parked and watched him for a while, both too captivated to speak.

“I never would've guessed,” Gabe said. “I figured it was about a girl.” And then a gorgeous girl with a perfect body and tiny dress trotted up to Byron and threw her arms around him. Gabe laughed and playfully smacked Abby's arm. “And I was right!”

The girl seemed more into Byron than he was into her, which made no sense at all. She was gorgeous, and Byron was . . . Byron. Then a bigger, more muscular guy came up to Byron and Byron
sort of shook the hot girl off in a hurry. The guy and girl squared off and she walked away.

“Love triangle?” Abby asked.

“Ah, the games women play,” Gabe said. Abby hoped he still thought of her as the only drama-free girl he knew. “Well, our mission is accomplished,” he said. “What next? Something to eat? I'm starving.”

Boys were always starving. And since she'd only had a few bites of apple for lunch, Abby was starving, too. She'd promised to tell Matt exactly what she ate that day, and so far it was nearly nothing. They went to a little sandwich shop on campus and Abby got a salad. She made herself eat about half of it, no dressing. Gabe wolfed down fries and a grilled panini that smelled amazing.

“You should try this,” he said, holding the sandwich out to her. She wanted to and didn't want to. Matt would be so excited if she had a bite of real food to report. “One bite,” Gabe teased. “Don't be one of those girls that can't eat in front of a guy.”

Abby accepted the challenge and took a small bite. The panini was as good as it smelled: salty, buttery, crunchy, cheesy. As she chewed and swallowed she felt conflicted: empowered because she'd done it, eaten food with actual calories, and guilty, like she'd failed herself somehow.

“You need real food after a workout. Not salad,” Gabe said. He tore off a chunk of his sandwich for her. She shook her head but he already had her hand in his, was carefully wrapping it around the panini, and the fact that he had ahold of her hand overrode all other senses. She took the sandwich, smiled, and tried to eat it. She took a small bite and chewed and chewed. When he wasn't looking she spit it into her napkin. In the end she had to lie and say she didn't like it. She blamed it on the pesto spread.

They headed back toward her dad's apartment and Abby fought tears the whole way. She wanted to be lighthearted and fun and make witty comments that made Gabe want to see her more, but all she could do was think about that sandwich and how she'd gone so far off track that she couldn't even eat three bites of food. They drove in silence.

“You okay?” Gabe asked when they were almost to Del Mar.

“Yeah. Tired, I guess. But I really appreciate you doing this. Driving me.”

“Do you?” he said. He parked outside her dad's apartment and stared out the windshield. A lady was following her toddler down the sidewalk. The kid looked pretty unstable to be out there on the concrete without a helmet or padding, like any minute the cute little stroll was going to end in bloodshed. It was exactly how Abby felt at that moment.

“I do. Especially considering you'll probably catch hell from Caitlin for it.”

Gabe shrugged and turned toward her. He was wearing sunglasses and they made it hard to read his expression. “Don't worry about her.”

“She's the kind of girl you don't want to make angry,” Abby said.

Gabe nodded. “She's called me about six times in the last hour.”

Abby shook her head. “Maybe you need to get that whole thing figured out.”

“Yeah, I do.” Gabe took off his sunglasses. “Sorry to drag you into it.”

“Don't be sorry. I'm not. I got a ride home. And now I know Byron's big secret. Two secrets, if you count the girl and the college sport stuff separately. I'm sure I can use that to my advantage somehow. Plus I got to hang out with you.”

Gabe smiled at her. “I like hanging out with you,” he said. “But you're right. I need to deal with this.” He held up his phone and shook his head. “Make that seven calls, nine texts.”

Abby sighed. Why did the Caitlins of the world always get the Gabes of the world? It just wasn't fair. “Good luck with that,” she said. She started to open the car door, turned back to say goodbye, and found herself wrapped in Gabe's long warm arms, his earthy boy scent and trace of lavender, his shoulder against her cheek and his heartbeat against her chest. She held her breath. It was all she could do not to cry.

“Thanks,” he whispered into her hair. “For understanding. I'll call you.”

He let her go and she got out of the car and walked toward her dad's place on shaky legs. She looked back when she got to the staircase that led to her dad's upstairs unit, but Gabe was already gone.

She let herself into her dad's apartment, where the stale cooking-oil smell that was always there was the only thing to greet her. She opened the windows to let some fresh air in and sat on the hard couch, just staring at her phone for a while. Then she started typing a message to Mr. Franks's anorexic daughter Celeste.

Byron put Matt's truck in reverse and backed out of the parking space, turning a little too hard and making the power steering squeal.

“Sorry,” he said, but Matt seemed unaffected. He was much calmer than Lana with the whole driving thing. He never held on to the dash like he was bracing for a crash, or gripped the handle over his door like he was expecting to be thrown from the car. Byron drove in a large loop around the empty parking lot, picking up speed.

“Slow down before the turns. Accelerate once you're past the midpoint of the curve,” Matt said. Matt stared out the window like he was just on a leisurely drive enjoying the scenery and not in the empty, off-season lot of the Del Mar horse-racing track. Byron slowed down for the next curve, then pressed on the gas once he was halfway through the turn, and the truck glided out at a better speed, with less pull.

“Good,” Matt said.
Good
was not something Lana or Graham ever said while Byron was driving.

Byron took another lap around the lot. Matt looked up at the ceiling of the truck like he was calculating something. And he probably was. “Parallel parking and three-point turns,” Matt said.
He held his index finger in the air, putting some thought on hold. Matt had memorized the whole driver's-test handbook and he was taking Byron through it page by page. “Over there.” He pointed at a curb and Byron drove toward it.

They spent the next fifteen minutes suffering through Byron's attempts at parallel parking. Matt got out of the pickup and measured Byron's distance from the curb after each try. Matt didn't seem to care how many times Byron messed up. He wasn't frustrated or impatient. He was just along for the ride, as if there were nowhere he'd rather be than setting up cones for Byron to knock over again and again as he failed to squeeze in between them. Once he finally got it, Matt didn't make him keep trying like Graham always did. Graham wanted three perfect tries before calling it a success. Matt was happy with one.

“Three-point turns,” Matt said, sliding back into the passenger seat, the orange cones balanced on his lap. They were cheap plastic cones that Byron and Trent used to set up skateboarding courses, and they were mangled beyond saving now. “When you look back, put your hand on the headrest of my seat. That helps you turn around. Never back up without looking behind you. There could be a dog back there.”

Matt used
dog
in the same scenario that Lana always described, except she always said
baby
. Byron had a hard time picturing a world where people let babies crawl across streets left and right, but he definitely could picture a dog darting out without warning.

“I think you might be a better teacher than Mom,” Byron said.

“Your mom is a teacher,” Matt said. “But she doesn't teach driver's training.”

He had a point there. The three-point turn portion of the lesson was a fiasco, because Byron kept turning the wheel the wrong way when going in reverse, making each one into more of a six-point turn. They quit after that. Byron had just over an hour to make it to campus for the parkour club. Matt caught him checking the time on his cell phone.

“It's against the law to text while driving,” Matt said.

“I'm not texting. And I won't. I was looking at the time. I need
to get going. I have to take the bus all the way downtown. Two buses, actually. So can you drop me off at the bus stop on your way home?”

Byron and Matt switched seats and Matt carefully readjusted the seat and mirrors. Matt had just bought the little red Toyota pickup, but he only seemed to drive it with Byron. It wasn't like Matt had a lot of places to go or people to see. Byron was hoping he'd offer to share the truck with him once he had his license. Maybe Matt would even sell it to him once he realized he didn't actually need a car. Byron could pay him a little each week over the summer. He had a job lined up at a smoothie shop owned by the family of one of his track teammates. It was down near the beach and the perfect place to meet girls. Not that Byron seemed to be having trouble in that department anymore. Now that Chelsea was using him to make Dale jealous, and he was hoping to use Chelsea to make Betsy jealous, and Trina was jealous even though Byron no longer wanted her, he had all the girls he could handle.

“Why don't I drive you there?” Matt said. “Driving is much faster than the bus. We'd have time to get something to eat. There's a restaurant downtown. It has old cars from the fifties inside.”

“Corvette Diner,” Byron said. “Have you been?”

“No, I don't like to eat in restaurants. There are a lot of germs,” Matt said.

“But you want to go? To see it?”

“Could we?” Matt asked.

He was a strange uncle, but he was Byron's only one. Matt finished his preflight check, then drove straight there as if he had the route memorized. And of course he probably did.

Byron got a Rory Burger with peanut butter, extra protein for the workout ahead, and Matt just sat and stared at the decorations in the place. He wouldn't even drink the water they brought him. But he seemed happy just looking around and pointing stuff out. He knew everything about the cars: what year they were, how many had been made, which movie stars had died in one just like it. Afterward he dropped Byron off.

“You can take the bus home?” Matt said.

“Yeah, of course. See you there.”

Matt waved and put the truck in reverse. He hadn't even asked why Byron was going to campus. One thing about Matt, you could never call him nosy. Byron was halfway through the workout, breathing hard and regretting the burger and fries, feeling sluggish from the extra weight in his gut instead of energized by the load of calories, when he spotted the rust-colored Toyota pickup still sitting in the lot. Matt had moved the truck from the loading zone over to one of the real parking spaces in the shade, but Byron was sure it was him. Had he forgotten the way home? Was he having one of his episodes? Byron hadn't seen Matt lose it, but his mom had warned him that Matt could freak out without warning. She was worried that it might happen while they were in the car together.

Byron sprinted over to the driver's side of the truck, and Matt looked at him through the closed window.

“Everything okay?” Byron asked. Matt just blinked at him, squinting into the sun. Byron made a motion of rolling down the window and Matt tried, but the truck was off and the power windows refused to budge. Matt looked panicked by this, clicking the button repeatedly to no avail, so Byron opened the door. “Forgot, the windows won't work when the car's off,” Byron said. Matt turned the key and rolled down the window, even though it was no longer necessary, what with the door open.

Matt nodded, looking relieved. “Everything's okay,” he said.

“I thought you were going to drive home,” Byron said.

“I am,” Matt said. “What's that you're doing over there?”

“Parkour. Or free running. You keep the body in constant motion. It's great exercise.”