I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 18 of 32

Chapter 18: Dish Duty

"Yes," I said. "Come up."

Gavin drove.

Boston to Fairbanks, up through Canada on the Alaska Highway, in March, in a ten-year-old sedan with bald tires.

He sent me a photo every night from a different motel.

A bison in the road in British Columbia.

A gas pump with a sign that said NEXT FUEL 160 MILES.

A selfie with frost in his eyebrows that said only: why do people live here.

He pulled into the Station 3 lot on the twenty-seventh at four in the afternoon.

The moose was there to meet him.

I went out in my socks.

"Don't pet him," I said.

"I wasn't going to pet the moose."

From the bay door, Emory said, "Everyone says that."

Gavin got out of the car.

He looked thinner. He'd let his buzz cut grow out into something shaggy.

Then I hugged him, and he made a noise into my hair.

"Hi, Joss."

"Hi. You smell like a motel."

"Six motels."

The captain wouldn't let him bunk at the station.

"Roster only," he said. "But anyone in the building at dinner eats."

So Gavin rented a room over the hardware store that never closed and took the night shift stocking shelves.

Every evening he walked to the station for dinner.

Every evening, without being asked, he washed every dish.

On the third night, Dodie stood next to him at the sink with a towel.

"You're doing it wrong."

"I'm washing a pan."

"You're rinsing the soap back onto it." She took the pan out of his hands. "Were you raised by wolves?"

"By my mom."

Dodie thought about that.

"Same thing, from what I hear," she said, and handed the pan back.

Gavin laughed, really laughed, for the first time since he'd arrived.

He watched her walk away with the towel over her shoulder.

He didn't stop watching until she turned the corner.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Hid My Perfect Score from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.