Chapter 30: Six Oh One, Again

Jude waited three days.

On the fourth, he walked into the Eastgate library at five fifty with a pie box in his arms and stood at the end of the third-floor stacks.

Ken had studied there at six every night since the first term.

He had never missed an evening.

At one minute past six, he came around the corner with a stack of books and stopped dead.

He looked thinner.

He was in the gray hoodie, and no ring.

"You said you'd bring pie," Ken said, quietly.

"I said I'd bring pie in a text, and you said don't come."

"I know."

"So I came anyway. It's cherry."

Ken put his books down on the cart very carefully.

"Jude, I asked for a few days."

"It's been four."

"It hasn't been enough."

"Then I'll stand here until it is." Jude set the box on the shelf. "You took the tin."

Ken's jaw moved.

"It's mine. It's the only thing in that house that's mine."

"So you can pay us back."

"Is that what you think?" Ken said.

"I don't know what to think! You left a ring and a note, and you won't tell me why. What was I supposed to think?"

Ken looked at the floor, and when he looked up again his eyes were hard and wet.

"You want it? Fine."

"On the first night, in the tent, you said all you wanted was someone who didn't want your money. I held onto that for months."

"Ken..."

"Then we went to Millbrook. My grandmother has a bucket under a leak, and you looked at it and said you'd buy her a house."

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