Chapter 7: The Couch

Holt rode us down the ridge road in a straight line to the lot, and he stopped the Harley six feet from Brent's front bumper.

Brent rolled his window down.

"Nice view up there?" he said.

"You followed us," I said.

"It's a public road, babe."

Holt took off his helmet and set it on the seat.

He walked to the driver's door of the white truck and stood beside it with his arms at his sides.

He didn't say anything.

Brent looked up at him, and his grin got stiff at the corners.

"Can I help you?" Brent said.

"Why are you following her?"

"I'm not following anybody. I came out for the air."

"Take the post down."

"It isn't my post anymore, man. It's hers. She's the one who made it a circus."

"Take the post down," Holt said again, in the same voice.

Brent's eyes slid away from him to me.

"Three thousand's off the table, Joni," he said. "You've been very rude."

He rolled up his window and drove out of the lot slowly enough that nobody could say he had fled.

I stood in the dust with my arms wrapped around myself.

"I don't want to go home," I said.

"Then don't."

"I mean I don't want to sit in that apartment and watch him post."

"I know what you mean." Holt picked up the helmet and handed it to me. "I have a couch and a kitchen."

He lived above the garage, in four rooms with a bike frame hung on the wall and a flat brown sofa that had seen a lot of dog.

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