I had no idea. Didn’t what? Get his hands dirty? “Right.”
Erin walked briskly by the row where Asher and I stood and then was gone.
“That’s my boss.” I rushed after her, Asher followed. “Erin!” I called out as she reached the door to the medical room.
She turned around, but I couldn’t read her expression.
“How did it go with the customer?”
“She was mad. I told her she’d be the first call if we received a similar dog in the future.”
“Sorry I couldn’t calm her down,” I said.
Erin smiled. “It’s okay. I think you like animals more than people sometimes.”
“Most of the time,” I assured her.
“Some customers are unreasonable. I wouldn’t have held a dog for two weeks without a deposit and paperwork either.” Her gaze turned to Asher. “Are you the famous volunteer?”
“I’ve only been here an hour, so probably not,” Asher said.
“If Bean likes you, you gain renown pretty quick around here,” she said.
“Oh, then yes, my picture should be up on the wall by end of day.”
Erin laughed. “You should become a regular volunteer. We need someone Thursday afternoons.”
“Did Bean just hire me?”
“It doesn’t pay anything,” she said.
“Same as my last job. I’m in.” Just like that. Asher accepted just like that. Impulsive.
Erin chuckled as she let herself into the medical room.
“Are you trying to make everyone around here like you more than they like me?” I asked.
“That’s impossible.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. He didn’t know me. He knew Gemma or someone pretending to be her. Not me.
“What next?” he asked.
“I need to take pics of the new dogs to post on the Instagram page.” I headed for kennel C again.
“Sounds fun.” As we walked, the backs of our hands brushed. Neither of us widened the distance to prevent it from happening over and over again the entire length of the hall. Dogs barked and our footsteps echoed and I looked up at Asher and he smiled and I thought, Good thing I’m cutting this boy loose in an hour, because he breaks too many rules. I need rules. I need control.
Rule: Rebounds are only good in basketball.
What do you mean you’re in a car with him?! You know nothing about him! This is how people get murdered! Kamala texted in response to the report I’d made to her from the back seat of Asher’s Toyota. He and Dale sat in the front. We were on our way to pick up a little brother whose name Gemma probably knew but I didn’t.
He filled out the volunteer paperwork. I read over it. I was right, he doesn’t go to our school, he goes to Dalton.
Dalton was the private school in town, serving the rich or ultrasmart.
And, I continued to type, there was a copy of his license. He’s seventeen. I know more about him than any Uber driver who’s given me a ride. I had thought this through. I really needed to talk to Asher, tell him who I was, but Dale was his permanent sidekick, it seemed. Riding with Asher felt like a good way to get him alone so we could finally have a real conversation.
The company knows about the Uber drivers!! They do background checks!
Okay, maybe I hadn’t thought it through. Probably true. But Bean liked him. Bean doesn’t even like you.
Bean likes you! That dog is no judge of character.
I laughed. Asher’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. I averted my gaze. “What are the videos for?” I asked Dale, who was once again recording.
“TikTok,” he said. “Are you on TikTok?”
“No.” I had been on TikTok at one point but found myself sucked into the black hole of short clips for hours at a time. I knew I would either graduate from high school with decent grades or become one with the TikTok algorithm, so I deleted it from my phone. “You’re trying to go viral with videos of car rides?”
“It’s this bug.” He pointed to the window and a bug I couldn’t see from where I sat. “It’s been hanging on for the last five minutes. It will get an amazing voice-over and some killer music. Random things like this go viral all the time. Right, Asher?”
“Bugs are big right now,” Asher deadpanned. He flipped on the blinker and then turned into the parking lot of the local car wash. A guy in uniform was sitting on the curb and he stood as Asher pulled up alongside him. He looked a little like Asher: auburn hair, freckles across his nose.
“You’re late,” he said when he opened the back door.
“Sorry, dog photo shoot,” Asher said.
“I don’t even want to know what that means.” He started to climb in and paused when he saw me.
“Brett, this is Gemma…I mean Wren. Wren, this is my little brother, Brett.”
He didn’t look so little. Unlike Asher, he was bulky and well over six feet tall. His legs barely fit behind the passenger seat as he slid inside. “Hey.” He nodded my way.
“Hi. You work at Squeaky Clean?”
“No, I just like to wear the uniform. The cut is very flattering.”
I smiled. “A stupid question deserves a stupid answer.”
“Yes, it does.” He finally cracked a smile. Much like their looks, Brett’s and Asher’s personalities seemed opposite as well. Where Asher was open and happy, Brett seemed somber and sarcastic.
“Don’t be mean, Brett,” Asher said.
Dale held up his fist to Brett, who bumped it.
“Missing your real driver again today?” Brett asked.
Dale ran a hand through his hair. “The only reason my butt would be sitting on fake leather.”
I laughed but nobody else in the car did. Wait, did Dale have an actual driver?
“I think it’s called pleather,” Asher said.
Brett sized me up. “So you’re my brother’s online girlfriend? We all thought you were fake and that my brother had become desperate in his post-breakup depression.”
“We still could be right,” Dale said. “Are you fake, Wren?”
“Are you?” I asked. I wondered what the real Gemma was like. Warm? Genuine? Someone who matched up better with Asher’s sweet nature, for sure.
“Ouch,” Brett said. “She fires back.”
“Anyone want food?” Asher asked, perhaps to change the subject, or maybe because we were passing a McDonald’s.