Divine (13 page)

Jonah tossed the
magazine that he was holding across the counter at him. “Here
you go Uncle Lou.”

He picked it up and
held it away from his face, squinting at the cover. “Hold on,
where's those dang glasses of mine?” His hand patted along the
front pocket of his dark blue coveralls. “They're not in
there,” he mumbled to himself as he stood and looked around the
counter.

Jonah hit me lightly on
the shoulder and motioned for me to look at the back of Lou's head
where the glasses were plainly sitting. I put my hand to my mouth and
stifled a laugh.

“
They’re on
the back of your head,” he told him.

Lou reached around and
took them off. “Well, what an idiot,” he laughed at
himself. Without missing a beat he slid them on up over his pointy
nose and picked up the magazine, scanning over the cover and then
opening it to an article that interested him.

Jonah's fingers lightly
rested against my back. “Let's go find Tommy,” he
proposed, motioning me toward the door that led to the shop. My body
turned warm from his gentle touch.

The shop was clean and
brightly lit, which was a change from the dimly lit office that we
had just come from. Tall red toolboxes lined the gray walls and were
bordered with posters of classic cars. There were three car lifts
along the length of the room, each one hoisted high in the air with a
vehicle positioned on top.

Jonah pointed toward
the other end of the narrow building. I could see the back of a man
with short brown curly hair standing at the last car lift, working
next to a red Suburban. He seemed to be jotting notes down on a
clipboard.

“
There he is,”
Jonah whispered. “What do you want to throw at him?”

I had thought long and
hard about that question. First of all, I didn't know Tommy, so I
didn't want to throw anything at him that would seem like I was being
mean. The best thing I could come up with was flinging a hair tie at
him.

I nodded to Jonah and
stuck my hand in my sweatshirt pocket, pulling out a black scrunchie.

Jonah laughed through
his nose. “Are you serious?” he whispered.

“
Yeah, I don't
want to hurt him.”

“
Don't worry, you
could throw a chainsaw at him and it wouldn't hurt him.”

“
I'll stick with
the hair tie.”

He nodded at my choice
and began walking slowly toward Tommy. I followed his lead and walked
along with him, stopping when we made it up to the second lift. With
a nod of his head, he put his finger in front of his lips and made a
shushing gesture, giving me the okay to throw my item.

I put my pointer finger
through the scrunchie and pulled it back with my other hand, aiming
it at Tommy like a sling shot. Shooting Jonah a sideways glance to
get a second okay, he nodded once, giving me the go ahead to proceed.
I released my black hair tie into the air but I had aimed too high;
it soared above Tommy's head. To my amazement his hand flew above him
and he stuck his finger through the center of my scrunchie, catching
it and leaving it spinning like a ring in a ring toss game.

“
Nice try,”
he said lazily as he turned to face us, still holding it in the air
with his finger through it.

Jonah and I broke out
in laughter. “See, I told you,” Jonah reminded me. “He
can catch anything.”

“
You were right.
Hi, I'm Summer,” I introduced myself.

He handed me back my
hair tie and then extended his hand for a shake. “Nice to meet
you. I'm Tommy, as you well know.” He smiled at me with
friendliness, not at all irritated by my throwing attempt.

“
Yeah. Sorry I
flung that at you. Jonah's been talking about you a lot and I just
had to try my luck at throwing something.”

He let out a quiet
chuckle. “Don't worry about it. You should see the stuff that
the guys in here throw at me.” He pulled a pen out from his
shirt pocket and chucked it teasingly at Jonah.

“
Hey, stop that,”
Jonah laughed as it hit his shoulder and fell to the concrete floor.
“I can't catch like you.”

“
Yeah, we've
already established that that's not your area of expertise.”

Jonah shook his head
with a sarcastic huff of a laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“
So what are you
guys going to do this weekend?” Tommy asked, quickly changing
the subject.

Jonah crossed his arms
and shifted his weight fluidly from leg to leg. “We're going to
see that Divine Intervention concert I was telling you about.”

Tommy shook his head.
“Oh yeah, that's right; I forgot. You ever see them before?”
he asked me.

“
No, but I heard
that they're really good.”

“
Yeah they can
get pretty wild. It's a good thing you've got Strong Jonah here to
protect you.”

I gave Jonah a curious
look. “Strong Jonah, huh?”

He
looked down at the protruding muscles of his crossed arms and laughed
shyly. “I'm not
that
strong,
Tommy,” he retorted back to him with a twinge of irritation in
his voice. “But,” he continued, looking up at me, “I'll
make sure that nothing happens to you.”

His eyes connected with
mine in a moment of tenderness. I held his stare and smiled softly
back at him, aching with the desire to see how strong his body really
was.

“
Awe, how sweet,”
Tommy teased in a high-pitched voice.

“
Shut up, Tommy,”
Jonah chuckled as he bent over and picked the pen up from the ground,
throwing it back at his pestering friend with the fling of his arm.

Without missing a beat,
Tommy stuck his hand up and caught it right before it hit him in his
face. “You'll never hit me,” he smirked.

Jonah smiled and shook
his head in agreement. “Yeah I know, but I'm going to try for
the rest of my life.”

“
Bring it on, my
friend,” he gleefully egged him on.

Jonah laughed and
reached over to pat him on the back. “Alright Tommy, I've had
enough of your shenanigans for one day. We're gonna get going.”

“
Okay, well, have
a nice time at the concert you two.”

“
We will,”
we said in unison.

I reached out and gave
his hand another shake. “It was nice meeting you, Tommy.”

“
You too. See you
next week Jonah.”

“
Okay. Have a
good weekend.”

Jonah smiled at me and
nodded his head toward the exit, silently asking me if I was ready to
go. I nodded, returning the same expression, and walked with him back
to the office where Lou was.

“
Alright Uncle
Lou, we’re outta here. Have a good weekend.”

Lou looked up from his
auto magazine, his glasses low on his nose. “Okay kids, have
fun at the concert. Don't do anything I wouldn't do . . .” he
said, giving me a wink over the thin metal frames.

“
I can't make any
promises,” I said with a chuckle as I followed Jonah outside.

We stopped in our
tracks at the sight of the pouring rain. “Sorry I don't have
anything to hold over your head this time,” he said as we stood
underneath the short metal awning that hung above the door.

I looked over at him
with a smile. “It's okay, I can handle a little rain. You
following me over to my house?”

“
Yep.”

“
Okay,” I
nodded. “See you over there.”

We darted away from the
awning's shelter and hurried through the dropping water to our
vehicles. I pulled out my keys with haste and tried to unlock my
door, but they fell out of my hand and splashed into a puddle at my
feet. “Of course,” I huffed as I bent down and picked
them up, trying another attempt. My second try was successful and I
hopped onto the seat and immediately started the engine to blast the
heater.

My cell phone chimed
with Jonah's ring tone and I took it out of the pocket of my
sweatshirt to answer. “Hello?” I giggled as I looked over
at him in his truck.

“
That was
awesome. Only you would drop your keys in the middle of a downpour.”

I couldn't help but
laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I had the feeling you were going to give me
a hard time about it . . .”

His free hand raised up
in defense. “I'm not giving you a hard time; I'm just making
fun of you . . .”

“
That's the same
thing!”

“
No, it's
not
the same thing, I promise.”

“
Oh yeah?”
I challenged him with a smile. “How so?”

He sighed heavily into
the phone with a mild laugh. “Well, if I were giving you a hard
time I wouldn't be laughing right now. But, since I
am
laughing at you, and quite hysterically, I might add, I'm making fun
of you . . .”

“
Okay, well, get
your laughs out while you can because I'll be waiting for you to do
something for me to laugh hysterically at.”

“
Well,” he
smiled, “I'm sure I'll do something soon.”

“
You always do.”
I shook my head with a grin and hung the phone up, ending our call.
He always knew how to make any negative thing that happened to me
seem better.

Jonah followed closely
behind me as we drove down the crowded street toward my house. At one
point we stopped at a red light and his truck towered behind me, the
bass from his sound system booming so loud that it drowned out the
piddly music that was playing from my mom's factory speakers.

When I pulled into my
driveway he parked behind me and walked over in the drizzle.

“
Jeez, your bass
is super loud,” I noted as I opened my door. “It rattled
the whole car when you pulled up behind me.”

“
Yeah, that's yet
another thing my mom gets on to me about,” he admitted.

I stood up and pulled
my purse on over my shoulder. “At least the rain died down so
you're not standing here getting soaked like I did.”

“
I know,”
he laughed. “I lucked out I guess.”

“
You're a lucky
guy.”

He crossed his arms in
front of him and smiled. “Yeah, I am.”

Everything he said made
me smile, and that last remark was no exception. Yeah, he could have
meant it in a different way. He could have believed that he was lucky
in general. But, I chose to believe what I was hoping he would tell
me someday, that he was lucky because he had me in his life.

“
Well,” I
sighed, “are you ready to meet my parents?”

He gave me a nervous
nod. “Yeah, I'm worried about your dad, though.”

“
Oh, don't worry
about him, he won't be home from work for another hour or so. And as
long as you don't cook better than he does, he'll be fine with you.”
I raised my hand up and patted the strong muscles of his arm; it
surprised me how hard they felt through the thickness of his
sweatshirt.

“
You don't have
to worry about that, I can't cook at all,” he confessed.

“
There's
nothing hard about cooking; if you can read a recipe, you can cook.”
I looked down at the keys in my hand to find the one that belonged to
my front door. “You
can
read,
right?” I teased him, looking up at him with a playful stare.

He gazed back at me
with a smile. “Awe shucks honey pie, I ain't able to read none,
I's just a dumb old mechanic,” he answered back in an
uneducated hillbilly-type accent that was quite convincing.

I roared with laughter
at him. “You do that so well, Jonah.”

“
I know,”
he laughed at himself as he hit me playfully on my arm. “Are
you ready to do this yet? I'm getting anxious here . . .”

“
Okay, okay.
Let's get this over with.”

He followed behind me
as I walked up to the front entrance of my house and released the
deadbolt from its chamber. The door opened with a squeak as I pushed
it open, unveiling a torrent of hot air that pushed past our faces.