Evvie Drake Starts Over(38)

“Happy to help,” Dean said, spreading his arms wide.

“I’m gonna overlook that jersey you’re wearing,” Bill said with feigned sternness. “Was the drive down okay?”

“It was. I still owe Evvie a cruller, but I think we’ll make it back home.”

“I get paid in pastries,” she added.

Bill smiled. “I’m glad you could come down. I’ve been trying for a couple months to find a good home for this. I wanted somebody to have it who’d enjoy it.”

“Dean will really enjoy it,” Eveleth said. “I think you can safely assume you could not have found a more loving parent for it.”

Bill laughed. “All right, perfect.” He led them into a game room at the back of the house, where everything else had been cleaned out, but the pinball machine was against one wall. It didn’t look new or anything, but someone had dusted it, and, when Bill turned it on, it obligingly buzzed and rang its bells, like an eager shelter dog ready to be rescued. While there was no siren, brightly colored cars decorated both the sides of the cabinet and the backbox—hot cars, in someone’s mind, with fins and stripes, being leaned on by girls in full skirts and boys in cuffed jeans.

Dean helped Bill take the machine apart (he has such nice arms, don’t look, don’t look), marking the connections Dean would have to make again later, and Dean and Evvie carried it out to the truck in pieces they’d meticulously encased in bubble wrap and crisscrossed with tape. Back inside Bill’s house, she looked away politely as Dean counted out a wad of cash that he handed to Bill with a handshake, and they started back to the truck.

   “Not every lady would go for a pinball machine in the house,” Bill called out. “You got a good girl there.”

“Oh, I know I do.” Dean nodded over his shoulder.

Evvie opened the door of the truck and climbed inside, and when he’d gotten in, too, and pulled his door shut, she looked at him, and he shrugged one shoulder at her. “He’s not wrong.”

She shook her head. “Okay. You owe me a cruller. Let’s get to it.”

They got donuts instead of lunch, because it was that kind of day, and Dean guided the truck back onto the highway. This time, they mostly listened—to a variety show on the radio and to a true-crime podcast she liked (he kept interrupting and saying “the husband did it,” and it turned out the sister did it, but he said he still liked it in the end)—until they were back in Calcasset in the afternoon. When they pulled into her driveway, it was starting to get dark. “I’m starving,” she said as he opened up the back of his truck. “I should have demanded you buy me a peanut butter sandwich.”

“All right, Muscles,” he said. “Grab the other side of this.”

They took the cabinet inside, and the legs, and the backbox, and Dean neatly lined them up on the carpet in the apartment. “I am going to put all this together later,” he said, walking toward the kitchenette. “I love my race car pinball machine, but I also have to eat.” He leaned on the countertop. “Grilled cheese? I want a grilled cheese. You want a grilled cheese?”

“Sure.” She dropped down in her usual spot. “Is being a pinball machine owner everything you dreamed of so far?”

“Honestly,” he said as he rattled and opened and closed things, “I’ve thought about this for so long that I’m afraid to put it together. Like the anticipation might be better than the reality. Also, I’m not very good at pinball, and it seems like once I have this set up and working, that’s going to be more obvious than it is right now with the thing on the floor.”

   “I feel like Bill’s father is somewhere watching, and he’s very excited that you’re excited, but he’s still upset that a Yankee has his precious.”

“At least he probably has a great coffin.”

“Whoa, you’ve gotten dark since you got a pinball machine.”

She heard the bread start to sizzle in the pan as he came over and flopped down in the chair next to her. “Can I tell you something?” he asked, running his hand over his short hair.

“Sure.”

He pushed his right shoe off with his left foot, then his left shoe off with his right foot. He studied her face for a second.

“What?” she said, reflexively touching her cheek like she might find powdered sugar on it.

“I thought about kissing you a couple times today.”

She felt her brows go up, then down. Her mouth tightened, then loosened. Quick, quick, quick, what does a neutral expression look like again? “You did.” She was shocked. No, satisfied. Maybe gleeful. No, wait, she was just toe-curlingly eager. Also panicked.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve thought about it a few other times, but I thought about it a little bit more today. In the truck, and right when we got back and we were going to unload stuff out of, you know, the back.” He motioned vaguely with one hand toward the driveway. “I didn’t know what you would think, though, and it seemed like it might not be a good thing to surprise you. I mean, surprising you is what I’d normally do. I don’t usually hold talks or anything. But it seems like a special case.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, her brain laboring furiously, like duck feet underwater, while she held her face as still as she could. “Because of the widow thing? Or the landlady thing? Or because we’re friends now? Or because you’re tight with Andy? Or…?”