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a bit as she seemed to suddenly remember. “Oh, did you hear—”
    Adam caught her gaze and shook his head sharply. There was no sense in spoiling Daisy’s engagement announcement. Plus, he didn't really want to get into it. Daisy was a bright spot of sunshine and he wasn't about to cloud her day. No one wanted to hear about that kind of shit, anyway.
    “Hear what?” Daisy asked.
    “Summer weddings are best,” Jeannie blurted out as she shot Adam a sheepish look.
    Daisy grinned and nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Thanks for this,” Adam said, indicating the envelope. “And congratulations. Send me an invite.”
    As he watched her walk away, he waved goodbye and smiled a smile that he didn’t really feel.

Chapter Six
     
    Adam angled his Harley into one of the visitors’ parking spaces near the front of the high school. As he slid off the bike, he scanned the lot. It was packed with sensible Toyotas and the occasional minivan—the typical rides of the employees of an American high school. He couldn’t recall ever having parked in the front lot. Behind the school was the student lot which, if memory served, would be filled with cheap beaters, rusted out trucks, and compact cars with various scrapes and dings. At times, Adam was grateful he’d never gone mainstream. He almost felt sorry for the kids who eventually grew up to trade their shitty Ford for a sparkly Camry in a trendy color. He may not have been rolling in dough, but he preferred his ink, his bike, his muscle car, hell his life , to anything else a college degree could have gotten him.
    He headed toward the front doors of the two-story building and stepped inside. The walls had been painted in the years since he’d graduated. They were now bright red and accented with steel gray, an upgrade from the dingy, institutional white he remembered. No one roamed the halls. Then again, class was in session. Adam’s boots echoed on the title floor as he made his way toward the office. He didn’t need anyone to tell him how to find it.
    Ms. Calla Winslow’s office was across the hall from the main office, at least according to her directions. Adam had never had occasion to visit the school’s guidance counselor. With no money for art school and no point in college, he’d flown under the radar here—at least as far as academics had been concerned, an average student with an average future. He rapped on the closed wooden door, over a poster warning kids about the dangers of underage drinking. Adam knew all about it. He and Dalton had once split a six-pack and climbed a water tower. Dalton had gotten dizzy halfway up the ladder and stomped on Adam’s hand, not his drawing hand, but he still broke a finger. That sort of thing should really be on the list, he noted.
    She was definitely no blue-haired biddy with bifocals and a beak nose, perfect for pecking where it didn’t really belong. Adam came face-to-face with a woman whose hair was not blue, but a deep, chestnut brown. And her chest… well… it wasn’t polite to look for any longer than the split second he already had, but Calla Winslow was no old biddy. She was a young biddy, though probably only a few years younger than Adam himself, which put her—he guessed—in her early thirties.
    No glasses hid her soft, brown eyes. She was wearing the sort of muted skirt, blouse, and blazer that he’d assumed a guidance counselor would wear, but it didn’t fit her. Not that it was too big or too small; far from unflattering, it hinted at long legs and a slight curve of hip, but her hair was kinky-curly and falling to her shoulders in an unruly spray. She gave off the scent of barely-restrained wildness, like Jeannie in her black office-temp trousers. The only suit Calla Winslow should appear in was a birthday suit. Under different circumstances, Adam wouldn’t have minded a game of “Hot for Teacher.”
    He wondered with mild curiosity what she thought of him, standing before her in steel-toed Martens and a black