Goodnight Moon

23- Oh Well

Lake is serious about this car stuff. For the past two weeks, Lake has spent his after school hours working with Nolan’s dad as he teaches him not only how to fix cars and work with them, but he’s also teaching him how to run the business, which is really cool too.

“He’s really excited that I’m into cars,” Lake explains to me on Thursday after school. Today is the only day this week that we get time to hang out after school so this has to be a good one. It’s not like we never see each other or anything, we still have lunch and in between classes and everything, so I’m not complaining. I’m glad that he found something that he’s happy with. “Because Nolan never was, so he never really got to talk cars with him.”

“So you like it?” I ask him as we walk to Lake’s car together with my hand in his. He picks me up in the mornings now so that we can drive to school together and he’ll either drop me off at my house or we’ll hang out there before he goes back to Nolan’s house.

He nods. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. He said that I’m learning pretty quickly so I’ll be able to start working at the garage in a few weeks.”

“It’s really nice of him to do that for you,” I state. “Giving you a job and everything.”

“It is. He’s a really cool guy,” Lake informs me. “I’ll be working a lot though, so we won’t be able to hang out after school too much but I’ll get Fridays and Saturdays off no matter what.”

“Good, as long as I have you for Saturdays, I’m happy,” I chirp as we get into his car and start driving towards my house. “Speaking of Saturdays, the pool party is on Saturday so don’t forget.”

“Wasn’t that supposed to happen weeks ago?” Lake wonders quizzically.

I nod. “Yeah, but Leda and Dana had a lot of work to catch up on after missing a week and a half of school when Dana was sick, so I said that we’d wait a little while longer.”

“How does Leda’s parents let her skip a week and a half of school just because her girlfriend is sick?” Lake wonders curiously.

“She’s eighteen, so she doesn’t need their consent,” I remind him. “And her parents are pretty lenient anyway. Have you ever met them?”

“Just a few times. They seemed nice but a week and a half? They have to draw the line somewhere, right?”

I shrug. “I guess, I’m not really sure. It seems like poor judgment on Leda’s part though, with all of the homework she’s having to make up now.”

“That’s her problem now,” He shrugs indifferently. “Not going to lie though, I didn’t miss all of those ‘I told you so’s while she was gone.”

With a soft groan, I agree with him. “You’re right. That’ll get really annoying really quickly but it’ll go away eventually… I hope.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Lake nods but we both know that it will be a very long time before Leda will let this go. She told us so. She was right. We must bow down to the almighty always-right Leda Spade. Yeah, this will definitely get old incredibly quickly. She’s too stubborn to listen though, so we just have to wait it out.

“It’s kind of your fault though,” I tease him.

He’s driving, but he still manages to shoot me an incredulous glance. “How is Leda’s stubbornness my fault?”

“Because back then, when Leda was giving us her predictions or whatever, I called her crazy because you were a total ass. It’s not my fault- in fact, it is your fault- that it turns out, you’re actually not that bad.”