Chapter 4: The County Road

The doctor put eight stitches in my palm and told me not to lift anything heavier than a coffee cup.

I lifted a coffee cup.

I did it in front of Gabe, twice, in the yard office on Monday morning, and he found something to read on the wall.

At nine my father came in with a list of parts.

"Sandusky," he said. "Impeller and a gasket set for a customer's boat. Gabe's going. Vic, you stay and run the desk."

"I can ride along and sign for it."

"One-handed?"

"I'm good at signing."

My father looked at Gabe.

Gabe was looking at his boots.

"Take the kid who sweeps," Gabe said. "He's going that way anyway."

"Who?"

"The kid who sweeps. He has a license."

"Nobody sweeps in sleet," I said.

It was starting already, a thin gray rain that clicked on the office window and was turning to ice on the dock rails.

"Then he'll drive carefully," Gabe said, and left.

Through the window I watched him climb into his truck.

He drove out of the yard, turned left and went inland, away from the lake.

I stood there with my coffee cup.

The lake road to Sandusky was twenty minutes.

The county road was an hour.

I asked my father for the keys to the pickup.

He gave them to me without a single question.

That told me he had been waiting for me to ask.

I drove out with my stitched hand held loosely on the wheel.

I didn't take the county road.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Seducing My Dad's Best Friend from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.