Free Asking for Trouble by Rosalind James Page A

and it was one reason he knew how to fight. Because
when you were fourteen and skinny and in foster care, you learned how to fight.
    “No.” His teacher looked straight at him. “It’s not about sex.
And I can promise you that it’ll never be about sex. I have sexual partners,
yes, but they’re adults. I’m not interested in children, and I’m not interested
in you, not like that. But I need to know that you’ll go to counseling, and
that you’ll stay clean. I’m not having anyone in my house who’s doing anything
illegal. That’s a deal-breaker.”
    A man always keeps his
word. Joe could see his dad as if he were standing there, frowning down at
him when Joe had asked if he could skip the Boy Scout service project he’d
promised to help out with. And about a hundred other times, too. A man always keeps his word.
    He straightened up in his chair, looked Mr. Wilson in the
eye, and answered. “I can stay clean.”

 
 
 
     

 
 

New City, Same Old Me
    Alyssa stood shivering in a piercing mid-January wind,
looking across a broad stretch of asphalt at the unlovely sight of Burlingame’s
Auto Row, where she and Joe were spending a winter Sunday on what had to rank
high on the list of life’s least-fun experiences: used-car shopping. They were
standing outside, instead of in the nice toasty dealership, because Joe had
just made her walk out.
    She hadn’t planned on buying a car, that was for sure. That
had been no part of her new frugal life plan. But once again, life—and
her bossy brother—had forced her hand.
    Alec had frowned when he’d felt the jerk and shudder her
little car had given as she’d reversed out of her parking spot in her Santa
Monica apartment complex for the last time, exactly one week earlier.
    “What the hell is that?” he complained when it happened again as she turned out of the lot.
    “Oh,” she said, tensing a bit through the next stoplight, then
relaxing as they got through the moment, “it does that. It’ll be fine once we
get to cruising speed on the freeway. It’s just when it starts out, cold or
something.”
    “Cars do not just ‘do’ that. It’s not cold. It has to be in
the sixties out there.”
    “You know.” She took a hand off the wheel and waved it
airily. “When the engine’s cold. When it’s starting up.”
    “Did you take it to the shop?” he persisted. “What did they
say?”
    “Not yet.” She merged onto the freeway, thankfully moving
much faster than usual at all of seven-thirty on a Sunday morning. Alec—and
Joe—had flown down the previous morning. The two most overpriced movers
in America, but when Alec had heard about her plans to tow a U-Haul trailer up
I-5, he’d barely bothered to insist, he’d just told her he’d be showing up. And
even though it galled Alyssa that her brother still thought she was that
helpless, she’d been grateful for his help, and Joe’s, too. Because, she’d
thought privately, she really had been
nervous about the trailer thing, and moving vans were expensive.
    “Not yet?” Alec reminded her when she didn’t go on. “What do
you mean, not yet?”
    “I mean not yet. Because it’s fine now, see?” Which it was,
now that they were doing 65. And besides, she hadn’t wanted to hear what the
mechanic would say. Anyway, all cars got quirks when they got old, didn’t they?
Just like people.
    Two hours later, though, after a delay for some road
construction that had had the car jerking again, Alec told her, “Pull into the
rest stop up there.”
    “Men,” she sighed, putting on her blinker so Joe, following
in the truck, could see. “You should have gone before we left the house.”
    Alec wasn’t listening. As soon as she’d pulled into a spot in
front of the restrooms, he was out of the car and motioning to Joe, just jumping
down from the cab of the truck.
    “You know cars a lot better than I do,” Alec told him. “Come
drive this, tell me what you think.”
    Joe raised an eyebrow, but