Jordan won the competition.
Eight thousand dollars . I watched him come downstairs the next morning looking exactly the same as he always looks. Like the money was just a thing that happened. Like he already knew it was coming and had already figured out where it was going.
* * *
I woke up and checked the main phone first. Eight thousand dollars. Competition payout, direct deposit, already sitting there. I looked at it for a second and then I put the phone down.
Then I opened the nightstand and pulled the burner.
Two messages from Zen. First one was the pay. Twenty thousand. Second was two locations: one for the truck, a black F-150, and one for where I needed to be at 3am. I read them both twice, put the burner back, and lay there looking at the ceiling.
Twenty thousand from Zen. Eight from the competition. Two different kinds of money landing on the same morning.
I thought about that for a second. What it meant that both of those things existed in the same life. Then I stopped thinking about it because thinking about it too long doesn't get you anywhere useful. I got up.
* * *
Rue was downstairs when I came down. Sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal she wasn't really eating, just moving around. I said morning. She said it back.
Then she slid over and sat next to me, which was odd. Rue keeps her distance by default. Not cold, just the way she moves. So when she sat close I noticed.
She grabbed my face with both hands and turned it toward her.
You good?
Of course, I said.
She kept looking. Not scanning, just sitting in it, the way she does when she's already decided something and wants to see if she's right. Then she let go.
She probably didn't believe me. She shouldn't. But Rue knows when to push and when to leave something alone, and this was a leave it alone morning. She'd already said what she needed to say by asking.
I got up to make coffee.
She said, almost like she was changing the subject: I think Maddy has a crush on you.
I laughed. Not forced. Genuinely.
Maddy doesn't get crushes, I said.
Rue looked at me like I'd said something slow. That's what it seems like. But she's still a teenage girl.
I didn't say anything back. I poured my coffee and held that thought for a second and then set it down. I didn't have anywhere to put it yet.
* * *
I went outside after and worked on the bike.
Hands busy, head quiet. That's always been the formula. Something mechanical, something with clear steps, and whatever's sitting in the back of my mind gets a chance to sort itself out without me forcing it. The thinking that happens when I'm working is the only kind I actually trust.
I thought about the morning. The eight thousand and the twenty thousand sitting in two different phones. One I could tell people about. One I couldn't. One I worked for on camera in front of a chat full of strangers. One I'd be working for at 3am in the dark with a location I'd never been to before.
What did I want from life.
Honestly. Actually honestly. To get rich or die trying. Not the way people say it when they mean they want to be comfortable. The way where those are the real two options on the table and you've looked at both of them and you've made your peace and you're moving.
I thought about Maddy.
Not just because of what Rue said. I'd been thinking about her before that. There's something about Maddy I've never been able to fully put away and I've spent some time trying to figure out what it is.
When I first met her she knew who she was. That's the thing I keep coming back to. Not in the way people say it when they mean they've picked a personality. I mean she had a read on herself that's genuinely rare. She knew what she wanted. She never pretended to be something she wasn't, not really. She did sometimes but the thing she pretended to be wasn't far off from the actual thing. You could see the real version underneath the whole time if you were paying attention.
I've met a lot of people. That's rare.
I put that thought down and kept working.
* * *
Savannah texted around noon.
Come over.
Then, right after: Seven's home but in her room.
I drove over.
She answered the door already smiling. She kissed me before I was all the way inside. I kissed her back. Then she pulled away and looked at me and said I loved your song.
I said thank you.
She took my hand and walked me down the hall to her room and pushed the door closed behind us and dropped to her knees and every single time I think I've gotten used to Savannah I realize I haven't.
I stood there and I was thinking about the song.
Whether it was about her. Whether she thought it was about her. Whether any of that mattered when the end result was the same.
Was this for the song.
Was the song even about her.
Fuck. I don't know