Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

telling me—and showing me—he wanted me and now Nick offering not just to hire me as a tech but also to help me go back to school for the official degree, I wondered if I was dreaming. Next thing I knew I’d be winning the Curb Appeal contest. This wasn’t my life. Things like this didn’t happen to me.
And yet, it appeared that at least for now, they did.
“Okay,” I said at last, and Nick clapped me on the back.
“Great. Put out an ad for a new receptionist, and as soon as we get you a replacement, we can start your technician training in earnest. Meanwhile, put in your application for the fall semester at East Centennial, and we can talk about how you want to pay for it over lunch.”

    I told El about my new job when he came over to my house after closing up the shop for the night. It seemed a little early to me for him to be closing, but we were so focused on the job thing, I forgot to ask why.
    “He acted like he’d been waiting for me to volunteer for the job,” I told El as we maneuvered Detroit Daisy to the back of the house. He’d told me he’d be over in a few days to pick it up with his friend’s truck. He seemed oddly happy about it, too. MoJo was also filled with joy, but it seemed to be more about a pair of butterflies that kept dancing around her head while she wrapped her lead chain round the tree we’d tied her to.
    “Probably he figured out that waiting for you to realize he wanted you would mean waiting until Doomsday. Shit, this is crazy heavy.”
I stopped, peering around the sculpture at El. “What do you mean, he’d wait until Doomsday for me to figure it out?”
    “Because that’s how you are, Paul. The last one to know when someone wants you.” When I opened my mouth to protest, he rode over my objection, nodding to Bill’s yard. “That girl over there is the same one you went to lunch with the other day, right?”
    How did he know I’d been to lunch with Lorraine? “Yeah, why?”
“She keeps casting these longing looks your way, but they don’t seem to register with you at all. I bet she thinks you’re not interested, but I’m betting you don’t even have a clue that she is interested, do you?”
My eyes widened as I glanced over to where Lorraine huddled with Bill over a flat of annuals. “Lorraine is interested? In me?” I frowned. “No. She’s picking favorites for the contest, is all.”
“Like I said. Doomsday.” He slid a hand around my waist and brushed a kiss on my cheek.
I glanced over at Lorraine a lot after that, trying to decide if El was right. We were doing some more work together on my yard, taking out Stacey’s edging and putting in a few things El had found at the shop, some of them actual lawn ornaments, some of them nothing more than interesting items he seemed to believe would help my cause. The jewelcolored, glass-studded birdbath was great, but I wasn’t sure about the old bicycle until he had it propped up against the side of the house in front of an old window, with, of all things, some broken pots. But once it was all arranged, it didn’t look too bad.
“It’ll be better with a few plants in front of it, and maybe some pea gravel. My abuela has some plants that need thinning, and my sister has a pile of rocks on a slab in her backyard from some project that never got finished. She needs those gone anyway, so I’ll bring them over tomorrow night. Hey. That reminds me.” He tucked a hand in his pocket, looking almost nervous. “What are you doing on the Fourth?”
“My mom will be in town. She’ll be here on Wednesday, actually. Why?”
“No reason,” El said, sounding relieved, and turned away.
I didn’t press him because I was too busy realizing I’d have to tell my mother I was gay. Or did I? Maybe I could do it the next time she visited. Unless El kissed me or something in front of her. Would he do that, though?
What were we doing, anyway? Dating? We weren’t boyfriends, we’d said, but . . . I thought of what we’d done together the night before, and blood pooled in my groin.
How would we be able to do anything at all with my mother here?
“Slow down, tiger,” El said, laughter in his voice. “You’re going to short your brain out with all that thinking.”
“Sorry.” I relaxed from the crouch I’d been holding in front of a flowerbed and sat hard on the ground, my brain still moving as fast as ever. “This is all just . . . overwhelming.”
“This what?”
“This.” I gestured between the two of