Secrets Everybody Knows (2 page)

Johnny lay on the couch with his feet up on the back. His hair was dirty blond and shaggy and he needed to shave.

“Johnny?” Elaine whispered.

He didn’t turn. Johnny was only two years older than Elaine. Everybody knew the probation he’d gotten for having sex with Shelly Myers was just because Sheriff Myers hated him. Even the judge said so. He was still the only boy she ever had contact with who had had sex and shaved.

“Johnny?” she said, louder this time.

He turned. “Oh, hey. I think Sue is out back.” He started to go back to his movie.

“Actually, I was looking for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I borrow your bike?”

“My bike?”

Elaine rolled her eyes, pretending cool she didn’t feel. “Sue wants to go to the ice cream stand.”

Johnny sat up. “You want me to drive you?”

The thought of being in a car with him made her heart flutter. Sue wouldn’t let her sit in the front seat with him anyway. “No, if I could borrow your bike that would be great. Is it okay?”

“Sure. I’ll get it for you.” He stood up.

Elaine backed up a step. “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s up in the loft. I don’t think you can reach it. Come on.” Johnny walked past her, out the door.

Elaine trotted after him. She raised an eyebrow at Sue on the way past. Sue sneered back.

The chicken coop, which hadn’t housed chickens in years, was filled with miscellaneous auto parts, toys and a variety of unidentifiables. Johnny reached up, his muscles flexing as he wrestled the bike off the top of the coops. Johnny dropped the ten-speed on its tires. “Let me see if it’s in good shape. I haven’t touched it in a while.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Did you get contacts?” He studied her as he leaned on the bike checking the tire pressure.

Elaine brushed her fingers across her cheek. “For my birthday.”

“Happy birthday. How old are you now?” He tested the brakes, but kept his eyes on her.

“Sixteen.”

“Well, happy birthday.” He looked down at the bike. “It’s in good shape, but be careful.” He rolled it toward her.

Elaine wanted to step back out of the way, but her feet were rooted to the floor.

Johnny stopped inches from her. “You’re a really pretty girl, Elaine.”

“Thanks.” Elaine put her hands on the bike, but didn’t move for a second. She’d never been this close to a man before. He was a man. He’d graduated last month. And he thought she was pretty. This was something to savor.

* * * *

“Mom, please, I can’t understand you.” Johnny stuck his finger in his ear. “What happened to Dad?” He walked into the office. When the door shut behind him, all the garage noise stopped and air-conditioning enveloped him. “Start at the top.”

Joe, the service manager, leaned back in his chair.

“I see. How is he now?”

Kim, the parts runner, lingered at the storeroom window.

“Come home? Mom.” Johnny met Joe’s eyes. He looked thrilled. Kim looked like she might cry. “As soon as I can. Is Sue there?”

Joe smiled. Actually smiled. Sadistic bastard.

“Of course not. Look, the soonest I can be there is tomorrow. Mom, it’s the best I can do.” Johnny looked at the floor.
She
would still be there. She’d only left for four years of college. How much hatred had she accumulated over the past fourteen years? Or did she understand? “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom.” He snapped his phone shut.

“Trouble at home?” Joe asked.

“My father had a heart attack. I need to go home for a couple of weeks.”

“You know I can’t spare you. I can’t let you go.”

Johnny slammed his fists on Joe’s desk. “Let’s just be honest. You hate me, but you don’t have the guts to fire me. I’ll do you a favor. I quit.” He pulled a wad of keys out of his pocket and threw them on the desk. “See ya.” He stalked out the door.

“Johnny!” Kim cried when he was halfway across the parking lot.

Johnny stopped. Kim grabbed his hand. She hadn’t worked up to being more forward than that.

“Are you leaving forever?” Her voice had the devastated tone of a newly minted eighteen-year-old.

“Kim, my dad had a heart attack, and I don’t know when or if he’ll be able to work again. Somebody has to run his garage.”

“But I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m sorry, Kim. Take care and don’t let Joe give you any shit.”

Kim nodded and ran back inside wiping her eyes.

She was too young. Why did he have a gift for attracting the ones who were too young?

Chapter 2

Johnny kept his eyes on his plate. It was the best policy lately. Dad was on the warpath. Mom was lost at the bottom of a bottle. Sue had a dinner guest, Elaine Hammersmith. Life sucked.

He looked at Elaine through his lashes. Overnight she’d gotten really pretty. It wasn’t just the contact lenses, either. Long dark hair, bright blue eyes. If the boys in her class had brains, they’d be all over her next year. Why they hadn’t been last year was anybody’s guess. Cute chick.

Cute
underage
chick.

Johnny studied his dinner. Someday he hoped to eat something that didn’t come directly out of a can. Why did Elaine’s parents let her come here? It wasn’t like the whole town didn’t know. Were they teaching her to do charity work? It was embarrassing to have dinner guests when dinner was nuked Chef Boyardee every day.

“You get Mrs. Bennetti’s car tuned up?” Dad demanded.

“I’ll get it first thing in the morning.”

“I told her it would be done first thing in the morning.”

“Then I’ll go in early,” Johnny muttered.

“I said I wanted you to get it done today.”

Johnny clenched his teeth. “I ran out of time today. I’ll go in early tomorrow and get it taken care of.”

“You should do what I tell you to do.”

“May I be excused?” Elaine asked.

“Yeah, me too.” Sue stood up. She’d left half of her meal uneaten. If Dad kept yelling at him at dinner, his little sister was going to develop an eating disorder.

Dad grunted at them. They both ran out the kitchen door. “You have a full load of work tomorrow.”

“I always have a full load.” Johnny speared the last ravioli and shoved it in his mouth. Having Elaine and Sue in the room wouldn’t stop Dad, but it might have curbed him. “May I be excused?”

“No. You are slacking off lately. You’re lucky to have a job. You think anyone else would hire you with your record?”

“It’s not a record. It’s one probation.”

“It’s a criminal record.”

“Okay, we’re done now.” Johnny stood up.

“We are not. Sit down.”

Johnny slammed the kitchen door behind him. The girls were sitting on the patio. Sue kicked rocks into the drive. Elaine pressed herself into a deck chair watching for flying objects.

“You get back here. We’re not done,” Dad bellowed from the door.

Johnny lengthened his stride past the garage to the old barn, a holdover from when this had been a working farm. Stepping through the man door, he breathed the comforting scent of grease and old straw. He found his way to the light switch by feel. The cream and orange Packard Caribbean hardtop rested on blocks. It had belonged to his grandfather and been parked here to rot when the old man moved to Florida. This Johnny understood. He could take it apart, fix it and put it back together. Make it run.

He didn’t know how long he’d been working when he heard the door creak. It had been a while. Through the wall slats he could see darker blue climbing the sky. Grabbing a rag, he wiped his hands in case Dad was coming out for a head to head. It didn’t seem likely. Dad didn’t usually venture into the barn.

“Johnny?” The high female voice didn’t sound like Sue and certainly not like Mom.

“Yeah?”

Elaine stepped into the circle of the fluorescent work light. She blinked as her eyes adjusted. “Are you all right?”

Jesus, just what he needed. Pity from the little girl. He threw the rag back on the table behind him and grabbed a wrench to loosen the bolts holding the hood to the body. “I’m fine.”

“I just–that fight sounded pretty bad.” She sidled to the front fender. “Your dad was pretty mad.”

“My dad is always pretty mad.” Johnny started unbolting the hood.

“He does have a bad temper, doesn’t he?” Elaine laced her fingers together resting them on the fender. “Everybody knows what happened wasn’t all your fault.”

“Poor judgment and impulse control,” Johnny muttered.

“What?”

“My probation officer said it was poor judgment and impulse control.” He walked to the other side of the car. Elaine was standing right where he needed to be. She wasn’t such a girl anymore. At some point in the last year, his little sister’s little friend had gotten a good start on a woman’s body. “Can you move?”

“Oh, sorry.” Elaine shifted to the nose of the car, twisting the end of her ponytail around her finger. It was such a cute gesture, he couldn’t look at her.

“Put your hands on that hood. I’m going to have it loose in a minute. Don’t want it falling on your head.”

Elaine reached up to hold the hood in place. That was much worse than her girly fidget. Now he had her womanly torso stretched out in the corner of his eye. Sixteen, he reminded himself. Sixteen.

The wrench slipped, and his knuckles bashed into the engine. “Son of a–” Johnny jammed his fingers in his mouth before the rest of the expletive could come out.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” Elaine let go of the hood and it crashed down as she hurried to his side. “Let me see.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing.” She grabbed his wrist and he lost the ability to fight her. “You’re cut.”

“It’s fine. Happens all the time.”

Elaine straightened his fingers over her palm, assessing the damage. She gently brushed blood and dirt away with her thumb. “You should get this cleaned out and bandaged.”

Cleaned out and bandaged meant going in the house where Elaine wasn’t and Dad was. This smacked of poor judgment, but he didn’t want first aid at that price. “Bandage would just get dirty.”

“At least let me wash it off for you.” She took a tissue from her pocket and started cleaning the wound. “It looked a lot worse than it was. It’s already stopping bleeding.”

“Thanks.”

She wadded the tissue up and tucked it back in her pocket. “I dropped your hood.”

“Didn’t hurt it.” Johnny lifted the hood over her head and propped it against the back wall. “It’s getting pretty dark out. Gonna be even darker in the woods.”

Elaine peeked through the wall. “I didn’t realize it was that late.” Worry creased her eyes. “I better get home.”

“You want me to walk you?” Johnny offered. Immediately, he wished he wasn’t such an idiot. Elaine Hammersmith was exactly the type of girl he needed to stay far, far away from. Just a whiff of impropriety and Myers would be all over him. He was still pissed off the judge hadn’t sent Johnny to prison.

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a stray cat out there.” Elaine’s voice held just the slightest quaver.

“Bats,” Johnny suggested. Poor impulse control. He couldn’t resist needling her.

“Bats!” Elaine wrapped her arms over her head.

“Come on, I used to walk you home all the time. It’ll be just like old times.”

Elaine smiled and rolled her eyes. “You mean last summer?”

Last summer it had been a pain in the neck. This summer it looked like it was going to be a pain somewhere else. Johnny wiped off his hands. His knuckles had stopped bleeding. That was a plus. He flexed his hand as he pushed open the door for her.