Chapter 8
Before I knew it, we were playing a show on Black Friday and the weather had grown cold.
The heat in our apartment didn’t work well, so we used a couple of space heaters, but there were still plenty of cold spots—so much so that I actually looked forward to working at the restaurant where there was plenty of warm (and sometimes hot) air.
All of us had fallen into a rhythm, partly because of our jobs.
We all worked at various times of the day.
I usually worked early mornings, although I was called in for special shifts on occasion.
Sometimes I told them no if we had a show later that day, because I couldn’t predict when they’d cut me loose.
Although Zack was no longer a dishwasher for a pretentious restaurant a couple blocks away from our apartment, he was still doing the same job for a nearby diner for the same amount of pay.
Meanwhile, Braden worked for an electronics store in sales.
It didn’t feel right for Braden, but neither did washing dishes for Zack or cashiering for me.
Cy had the best gig out of all of us—he got a job as a security guard, unarmed, of course, at a government building somewhere nearby on Cap Hill.
He made decent money and was always back at the apartment before six o’clock, Monday through Friday.
Although he didn’t brag about it, he’d mentioned that he got benefits as well—not just insurance, but paid time off.
I tried not to be jealous.
As we suspected, we never heard back from the A we’d gone home for Thanksgiving and Christmas but only those days and she’d had her siblings and dad over for those days as well.
I figured she just wanted Zack all to herself now—but she’d actually had an ulterior motive we didn’t learn about until later.
The night she was there, she took Zack out to dinner, leaving the three of us behind.
We didn’t take issue with it, knowing how much his mom loved him—but the way she asked made it quite obvious that she didn’t want us tagging along, even if we’d agreed to pay for our own meals.
Braden even mentioned it after they’d left. “Did you guys get a strange feeling from all that?”
Cy shook his head. “No.”
“I did,” I said. “What was up with that?”
“I dunno. Me and his mom have always gotten along, and I was hoping to spend more time with her.”