"You are doing it again," Nico said, about twenty minutes into the drive.
"Doing what?" I asked.
"The thing with your hands," he said. "You press your thumb into your palm when you are bracing for something. You did it at the party."
I looked down and stopped. "I did not know I did that."
He grinned. I laughed before I could decide not to. It still surprised me, how easy that was with him now.
"Are you nervous?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He glanced over, quick and pleased. "Look at that. No detour. No radio voice. Just yes."
"Do not make a ceremony out of it," I said.
"Nico."
"Okay," he said. "Canceled. But I noticed, Jules. I am allowed to notice."
We drove a while with the windows cracked.
"What do you actually know?" I asked. "About him. Not the outline. The man."
"Dylan talked for an hour the other night," Nico said. "Carefully. Like he was handing me something breakable."
"Tell me," I said.
"He works at the garage we are going to," Nico said. "Full time. Dylan says he is the one people ask for when a truck stumps everyone else. He listens to it run and says, there. That."
"That sounds like Dylan being loyal," I said.
"It is," Nico said. "It is also apparently true. He has been there six years. The owner keeps offering to make him a partner. Aaron keeps saying not yet, because the evenings belong to the boys."
"The boys," I said.
"Two of them," Nico said. "Five and three. The little one follows Aaron around the garage on Saturdays with a plastic wrench, very serious, like he is on shift. The older one told his kindergarten class his dad fixes everything."
"And Megan, Dylan says his sister runs that family like a good command post. She wanted to be here today. Aaron asked her to let this first meeting be just the two of you, and Dylan. She agreed, but she sent a pie. That was nonnegotiable."
"There is a pie," I said.
"There is a pie," Nico said. "Military grade planning."
I looked out at the fields going past. "And his leg?" I asked.
Nico's voice changed a little, not softer exactly, just more exact. "It never came back right," he said. "Some days are fine. Some days he works on the creeper under a truck because standing hurts more. He does not complain. He just plans around it."
"He stayed on the net with me," I said. "That whole time. I could hear how bad it was and he kept answering. He kept talking so I would know he was still there."
"I know," Nico said.
"I have thought about his voice for years without a name attached to it," I said. "Now there is a garage and a pie and two boys with a plastic wrench. It does not fit in my head yet."
"It will," Nico said. "That is what today is for."
"You are good at this now," I said.
"At what?"
"Saying the true thing plainly," I said. "We did not used to."
"No," he said. "We used to do weather and leave. I hated it. I just thought it was your rule."
"It was my rule," I said. "I am sorry it took me so long to change it."
"You are changing it," he said. "That is my whole position."
The town came up the way small towns do, a water tower first, then a feed store, then streets that slowed us down. My thumb found my palm again.
"Still nervous?" Nico asked, gentler this time.
"Terrified," I said. "Say something useful."
"You do not have to be Sticky Six today," he said. "You just have to be the person who answered. He already knows that person. He asked for her."
I breathed out. "That was useful."
"I have my moments," he said.
The garage sat at the far end of Main Street, a long low building with three bays and a hand painted sign. Dylan stood out front. When he saw the truck his whole face changed. He raised one hand, then lowered it, then raised it again, like he could not decide what his arms were for.
Nico parked and cut the engine. "My job ends here," he said. "I am the driver. I know that. But Jules, my hands are shaking a little, and I was not even on that net."
"I know," I said. "Thank you for driving me into it anyway."
Inside the open bay, a radio played low. A wrench rang once against concrete. Somebody laughed, an easy working laugh, and a man's voice answered, and I sat still in the passenger seat with the door handle under my hand, because I would know that voice anywhere.
Chapter 24: The Man Who Remembered, Part Two