He couldn’t afford to fuck this delivery up today. His power bill was coming due, and his hours at Kamaboko had been cut because tourism traffic was always terrible when breathing in summer weather was like swimming through hot swamp water.
When the guy wandered off to find paper to write on, Logan leaned over the counter and began to drum his fingers on the top, hoping it was loud enough to get someone else’s attention. He huffed, but he had no idea if that made noise either. When the space in front of him remained empty, he gave up and quickly pulled out his phone to send a text.
Logan: Guy take too long @ shop, sorry. Late.
Smokey: No worries, man. I’m not at the shop right now, and there’s a squall coming in.
Logan glanced out and saw the clouds moving, the lower ones racing just beneath the heavy, fat, dark-grey storm that was going to ruin the rest of his day. He contemplated just walking out, but he couldn’t leave Smokey hanging.
“Come on,” he tried aloud, forming stale shapes with his lips, his voice buzzing in the back of his throat.
Like magic, the weedy little man with his pale, freckled cheeks appeared and offered him an anxious smile. ‘Sorry,’ he mouthed, the motion exaggerated, then he pushed the paper toward Logan who snatched it up with the offered pen and scribbled as legible as he could manage right then.
‘Order #2435 Aaron Foster. Please. In hurry.’
The man took the paper with nimble fingers like if he touched it, he might catch Logan’s deaf, and he tried not to roll his eyes as the guy scuttled off to grab the boxes. It was absurd and a damn waste of time. In his periphery, he saw a flash of lightning, and he pressed his hand to the counter just in time to feel the ripple of thunder rush up toward his shoulder, pounding away at the same rate as his racing pulse.
With his luck that day, he’d end up fried in an electrical storm on his way over to the shop.
The guy behind the counter returned with a small dolly and one large box, the sweat on his upper lip indicating it wasn’t light. Logan decided not to give the guy any more passes, and he pointed to the door, then marched out and forced him to follow, stopping at the curb where he had his little carrying rack.
The guy was saying something, probably like, that hipster little Vespa isn’t going to be able to support all this weight, but he decided the guy had taken up enough of his time. Logan pushed past his hands, then lifted it with a grunt. It weighed the moped down, but it held steady as he tied the strap.
It would be a slow ride, and probably a wet one, but it was good enough. He saluted the man a goodbye with the flick of two fingers, then started up the engine and rolled back. The added weight made him feel unstable, but he figured it would be fine. It was only a handful of miles and a mostly maintained little county road, and then he’d be done for the day.
Logan managed to take the turn that would lead to the shop just before the skies opened up, and because it was Florida, and because his luck was what it was, it was an immediate deluge. No gentle warning mist, just buckets pouring down, obscuring his goggles, and it forced him to make the trip to the garage almost entirely on muscle memory.
He rolled to a stop, pulling down the goggles and flinging his helmet off, and he eased off the seat just as a couple of the guys came out to help. They were in greasy t-shirts with stained nails and smelled faintly sharp like motor oil and petrol.
At their apologetic smiles, he waved them off, and ran a hand over the top of his hair as he stomped up the steps into the trailer that served as the front office. Grabbing the hem of his shirt, he lifted it up toward his face and mopped up some of the water, then set eyes on the guy in the seat up front. He recognized him vaguely—his dark hair and broad shoulders, but he couldn’t remember if he ever knew his name.
Logan didn’t often interact with any of them beyond Smokey, and even that was usually through a few quick miming gestures, notepads, and truncated texts. He didn’t mind so much—these people weren’t his friends. He didn’t understand them, and what little he did know about motorcycle clubs and their business fronts, he didn’t want more than this.
‘Hi,’ the guy behind the desk said, and that was all Logan managed to catch before he lost the thread. His lips kept moving, and his face looked like he was asking a question, so Logan pulled out his phone and began to type.
‘Delivery. Need pay, maybe towel?’
The guy’s lips moved over the words he read, then he looked up and there was faint pink in his cheeks as he held up a hand. Logan nodded just once, sharply. His hair felt soaked, and he wanted to wring it out and retie it back behind his head, but he figured it was rude enough that he was dripping all over the lobby floor from the ends of his shirt.
He tapped his foot, hoping it wasn’t too loud, and feeling grateful he hadn’t bothered with his hearing aids because the torrent of rain would have ruined them. He pressed his hand to the counter again, and there was an almost violent rush of thunder that hit at the same second as the lightning struck.
In a flash, everything went dark. Logan felt his heart rise into his throat for a second as his world was narrowed down to touch and the sharp scent of petrichor before his eyes adjusted to the faint sliver of light that came in through the lobby’s fogged window. He took a breath, then shuffled his feet toward the door with his hand out.
Before he could reach the doorknob, something slammed into his thighs, and he let out a sharp oomph as tiny hands wrapped around his legs. He only panicked for a second before his brain caught up with itself and told him it was a child. His hands reached down, brushing over a loose, messy braid and thin shoulders that were trembling with fear.
He wanted to say something—anything—to offer words of comfort, but he didn’t trust himself to sound intelligible, and he didn’t want to scare the poor thing. He shuffled back again, toward the door, then got it cracked open enough that he could see.
Rain pooled at the front, but he ignored the puddle as he knelt down and stared into huge, familiar, terrified eyes.
‘Mr. B.’ Her little fingers trembled as she signed his name, and he let out a sigh of relief.
He knew this kid—and her dad. The unfairly attractive man who was always breaking the rule of dance class and watching through the window. Logan and Colette normally chased those parents off, but Colette once caught Logan staring back, and now she was relentless in her mockery.
‘I think he’s single,’ she said once, and Logan had flipped her off because there wasn’t a chance in hell for them. The guy was hearing, he was part of a motorcycle club, and he had a kid. His life existed in an entirely different universe, and Logan had relegated him to nothing more than willing eye-candy.
Regaining his composure, Logan reached up a hand for her to calm down, and he saw relief in her eyes. ‘It’s okay,’ he signed. Maddie was one of the hearing kids in his class picking up the signs he used with more accuracy than most, and even in the dark, she seemed to understand.
She didn’t have the vocabulary for what she needed to say, that was obvious, but she was good at improvisation, because she pointed to the window where the storm was raging, then pouted her lower lip. She was scared.
Logan nodded. ‘It’s okay,’ he repeated, because it was.
Madeline relaxed a fraction, and after a beat, she threw her arms around his neck, and he lifted her like it was automatic. Another crash of thunder hit, vibrating the walls. He felt her whimper under his fingers, felt her cling harder. A second later, tears brushed along the side of his neck, mingled with the water that was still dripping from the ends of his hair.