The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(44)

Bastien nodded. He figured he could manage if he worked for Josie and not good ol’ Dickie. “Sounds fine.” But it was more than fine. It was a relief. Now he wouldn’t have to go back to that house his mother forced him to call home. He could stay away, far away, forever.

“Great!” Josie chirped, her face brightening. Bastien knew what she thought. Knew she saw him as a troubled, homeless boy who needed a handout. But that was only half true. He picked up his shirt from the beach where he’d rolled it up as a pillow, shook it out as best he could, though you never could really free yourself from the tiny grains that seeped like lazy stowaways into even the smallest nook.

But Bastien wasn’t homeless—not by the true definition of the word. He’d chosen to leave. And all that money and fine food and the fancy cars and grand estate—they were all waiting back there behind him, stretched out like a shadow.

“Richie will get you an official Team Member shirt and will show you the ropes.” She turned to Richie and, lowering her voice, said, “I’m going to go open up. Don’t be…” she sighed. “Just give him a chance. We really need the help.” She jogged back to the straw-roofed hut and disappeared inside the open doorway.

As soon as Josie slipped inside, Richie crossed his arms over his chest. “My sister has this thing about strays. A few times a year, she’ll pick one up, give it some food, shelter, a place to work, but it never lasts. They always fuck it up.” He buried his foot in the sand as if to say, I’m here to stay, and you’re only temporary. Part of Bastien wondered if he’d whip it out and piss all over the side of the hut just to prove his point. “And you’re no different, just another beach bum preying on good, sweet-hearted people like my sister.”

Bastien’s stomach swelled with anger, and he did what years of hearing accusations and insults much more cutting than any skinny Dickie could hurl his way had trained him to do: he affixed his gaze on a point just to the side of Dickie’s right ear. Any farther and the person he was trying not to hear would notice, and quick. A slap in the face had taught him that. It had branded the message along with so many others along his left cheek. He absentmindedly rubbed his cheek, sand scraping across his face as his eyes settled on the ocean. The waves seemed to surge in time with the anger churning in his gut. He breathed deeply. He couldn’t release his anger, not on this fool. It’d been with him, simmering for so long, that if he let it erupt now, he’d probably send Dickie to the hospital.

A seagull braved the roiling waves, splashing into the water, disappearing for a moment, and then reemerging, soaring up, up, up triumphantly.

The truth of it was, all that anger scared him. That’s why he’d left. At first he thought putting distance between himself and his parents would be enough to quell the heat building in his belly, but he’d discovered after only a few hours outside of Acadiana that he was just running from himself.



And all that running only made him tired.

“You don’t have to worry about me, no,” Bastien said, unsure whether or not Dickie had finished proving the point he seemed to so enjoy making.

“God, you talk funny.”

Bastien nodded, tucking his board under his arm. “That’s for true,” he said, leaving Dickie behind him, cross-armed and pinch-faced, as he walked to the hut.





14


TATE


“Tate! Damn, boy, it’s good to hear your voice again. How’s it going up there at your, wait, what are you calling it?”

“Our Fortress of Sauvietude!” Tate said, laughing at his own joke.

“That’s it. Damn queer name if you ask me, but if you and Foster like it, that’s all that counts,” grumbled Tate’s grandpa.

“G-pa, queer doesn’t mean weird anymore. You know that, right?” Tate said, leaning against the cool glass side of the phone booth and grinning into the ancient black rotary dial dinosaur.

“Old dog. No new tricks,” G-pa said. “But we’re not talkin’ ’bout me. How’s the air wrangling goin’?”

Tate blew out a long, frustrated breath. “We’ve been working on it for two weeks now, and let me tell ya, G-pa, Foster’s a lot better at it than I am.”

“Well, boy, get used to that. Women are better at everything that counts. All we can do is hitch ourselves to a good one and try to keep up. Your mama was the best of the best, and your daddy had the good sense to hitch himself to her.” G-pa had to pause and clear his throat before he could go on. “Your Foster sounds like she’s a good one, too.”

“She is. Or at least she is sometimes. It’s hard to get close to her, G-pa.”

“From what you tell me she rightfully has trust issues. Give it time, son. You’ll win her over—if that’s what you want to do. Is it?”

Tate shuffled his feet, kicking at the pea gravel that littered the little concrete slab on which the phone booth sat. “Yes. No. I dunno.”

“Better make up your mind. The good ones don’t have much patience for yes, no, and maybes.”

“She’d freak if she knew I call you,” Tate admitted.

“Boy! You haven’t told her?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell Foster. And fast. Didn’t you say she has air cannon hands?”