He finally cleared his throat. "Well, huh."
"Yeah," I said. "What now?"
"Well"—he cleared his throat again—"I guess you and I go. I mean, unless you really don't want to."
Why put it on me to bail out?
"Do you want to?" I asked.
"Yeah. I really do. I had to talk Dad into giving me the afternoon off. And since I don't usually go to a lot of trouble to fix lunch, it seems a shame to waste the effort. Besides, there's the thing I want you to see."
He said all of this while staring at the door like he was talking to it. I almost expected it to respond.

Autore: Rachel Hawthorne