Free Halos by Kristen Heitzmann Page B

stashed it somewhere until she had swindled all she could. He said, “I’ll drive you.”
    “You will?” The bite stopped just outside her mouth.
    “I’m not always a jerk.”
    She did a fair job hiding her incredulity. All right, so he hadn’t shown his best side. She took the bite and dabbed with her napkin. “This is really good. Moll’s a great cook.”
    “How about you? Do you cook?”
    She sipped her root beer. “Well, I flip a mean burger. Fries too. But I haven’t had an actual kitchen—”
    “No, of course not. You probably lived in your car, this mysterious, disappearing Mustang.”
    She set down the root beer. “Is there a bathroom?”
    He pointed toward the doors next to the counter. She stood up and walked away with the same stiffness he’d seen before. He’d hurt her again. What was it about her that made him strike with both fangs?

Nine
    A LESSI CLOSED HERSELF INTO THE STALL. It didn’t matter. People judged by what they saw or thought they saw. Steve must have serious abandonment issues if his mother left him before he was three and his fiancée left him for someone else. Of course he wouldn’t trust her. She just wished he wouldn’t call her a liar every time they talked.
    Didn’t he see all she wanted was to get her car back and leave? A twinge stung inside. Was that what she wanted? Wasn’t she tired of roaming, trying to get by, trying to find someplace she belonged? That was the whole point of this trip, this pilgrimage. To find the place she was meant to be, to know she could stay.
    She remembered the first time she’d been asked to leave. She wasn’t sure how old she was, but it wasn’t long after Daddy’s accident. Two men had come to the door and Mom let them in. They sat a long while in the small living room of their apartment; Mom cried. The men had looked very uncomfortable, but when they left, Mom told her they had to find a new home.
    It had never been an apartment again. The cost of living was too high on the coast, but Mom was afraid to leave it. Alessi guessed now that she’d been hoping her family would look for her and she didn’t want to be far. So it had been motel rooms for them, up along the coast, and nothing like a Marriott.
    Years later Alessi had learned that they lost their first place because Daddy had borrowed heavily for the boat and was underinsured. With that debt and no offsetting income from charters, Mom could not make the rent. Any time Alessi needed a doctor or something extra for school or the time someone ran into their car, they’d been set back so far they’d have to change motels. There was always a new adventure to go with it, but Alessi was tired of that life.
    Yes, she’d spent some nights in her car. Not by choice, but things didn’t always happen the way you wanted. She wasn’t complaining, so why should he criticize? She’d had great hopes for Charity, but now she was living with strangers and begging a ride to Wal-Mart. Did he think she liked it that way?
    She left the stall and washed her hands, immersing them in the warm water until she found the courage to return to the booth. She looked into the mirror. Mom might not have been Barbie, but she’d had the greatest smile.
    Alessi mostly took after her dad, but she had her mom’s smile. She practiced until she could make it look real, then straightened. If Mom could smile through it all, she could too. She toweled her hands and went back to the table. Steve’s plate was nearly empty; hers was covered with a plastic lid.
    He lifted it and set it aside. “I had Moll cover it so it wouldn’t get cold.”
    He must have thought she’d fallen in. “I’ll just take it in a box.”
    “I thought you were hungry enough to eat with Hannibal Lecter.”
    She had been; he just couldn’t tell that he’d eaten her alive. “I’ve had enough, and you probably need to get back to the store.”
    He didn’t argue, just commandeered a box and waited while she shoveled it in. It would