Free Secrets Everybody Knows by Christa Maurice Page A

key to the bus garage and would be there finishing the job that afternoon. George was right: Someone was under the hood of the bus. “Hello,” she called.
    The man standing on the bumper straightened, banging his head into the edge of the hood. “Ow!” He grabbed his head and dropped off the bumper. “Mother–mother–mother.”
    “Oh my God, are you–” Elaine’s breath froze in her throat when she saw his face.
    “Hi, Elaine.”
    Clutching the list, she spun on her heel and ran for the door. Johnny caught her before she made it. “Let me go.” She flailed at him with her list. “Let me go. Let me go. Goddamn you, Johnny McMannus.” Her throat hurt like she’d been screaming, but she hadn’t raised her voice.
    “Elaine, please. You gotta calm down or somebody’s gonna notice.”
    “I don’t care if somebody notices.”
    “Yes, you do.” Johnny pressed his hand against the back of his head and held her arm with the other. “Just let me talk to you for a minute.”
    Her mouth said no, but her feet allowed her to be towed into the parts storage closet at the back of the garage. Her mouth was only putting up bravado anyway. There hadn’t been a request Johnny could have made in the past fifteen years that she wouldn’t have complied with. He closed and locked the door.
    “What are you doing here?” she hissed. His hair wasn’t as shaggy as she remembered, and it was a couple of shades lighter. Otherwise he looked exactly the same as he had all those years ago.
    “I had to come home to take care of my dad’s garage. I thought you knew I was here.”
    “No.” Elaine felt her face tightening into an ugly sob. “Why would anyone tell me? It’s not like you’re important to me.” Her voice squeaked.
    “I didn’t mean to surprise you.” He put out his hands like he meant to take her in his arms and then folded them instead.
    “Not a word. Not a word for fourteen years. I hope all your friends got a good laugh out of you leading me around by the nose.” Elaine dashed tears off her cheeks. She hated to cry, and she hated to be crying because of him more. “You were right. You told me you were bad news.”
    “Who had a good laugh?”
    “Your friends. I saw the looks they were giving me after you left. The Fitzroy boys and Bill Nagy and George Kline. Did you tell them all about how you convinced me not to tell anyone for my own protection and how I would do anything you wanted? How I let you do anything you wanted?”
    “Whoa, where did you dream this up? Do you honestly think George could have kept his mouth shut all these years if I had told him? He’s George.”
    Elaine hesitated. George did have the softest heart in town. If he had known Johnny dumped her and left town, he would have asked her out just to make her feel better. By now he probably would have married her, trying to fix her broken heart. She should have figured that out on her own. “Well, maybe not George, but the others. They were all giving me looks after you left. Snickering behind their hands.”
    “You imagined it.” Johnny looked like she’d taken a gouge out of his chest. “Elaine, I swear to you that I never told a soul.”
    “Then why were they giving me looks?”
    “Were you acting like this? I’d have been giving you looks too.”
    “You bastard.” She grabbed the door handle and started wrestling with the wobbly knob. Johnny put his hands on her arms but backed away when she jerked around. “Don’t touch me.”
    “Sorry. Out of line. I know you don’t like that anymore. My fault. But will you just listen to me? I never told anyone about us. I left town because I was afraid of hurting you. I couldn’t think of any other way to fix things.”
    “Well, let me say I hope you’re better at fixing buses.” Elaine wiped her face and discovered that the list was a crumpled mess. Lily liked felt tip pens and some of the items had smeared. “Fan-fucking-tastic. Look at this.”
    Johnny flinched and she