Taylor knew she should probably be uncomfortable that they were talking about sex and relationships so early in their friendship, but instead, Skylar’s honesty made Taylor like her all the more. “I love that for you,” she said.
“Thanks. Me too. All I’m saying is that Eagle telling you about Silverstone means something. It’s big. So I was just wondering if you were content to be his friend or if you wanted more.”
“You wanted to see if I was in this for the long haul, didn’t you?” Taylor asked with a small smile.
“Well . . . sorta. I like Eagle and the other guys. I don’t want to see them hurt.”
“I like them too,” Taylor said. “If Eagle asked me tomorrow to be his girlfriend and wear his letterman jacket, I’d be thrilled.”
“Awesome,” Skylar said.
“And . . . I have to say . . . I like you too,” Taylor continued, determined to get through this, even though it felt awkward. “It’s hard for me to make friends, and I appreciate what you did with the name tags. It really makes things easier when I’m at the garage. But more than that, you didn’t ask me a million annoying questions about my condition, and you didn’t make things awkward today. Not many people are so understanding right off the bat.”
“Which is stupid,” Skylar said, a hint of irritation in her tone. “I mean, seriously. If you were blind, I’d help you get around. If you were deaf, I’d do what I could to help you understand what people were saying.”
“But my condition is different. It’s harder to understand because so many people have never heard of it. Most think I’m making it up.”
“I’ve worked with a lot of children with a ton of different disabilities over the years,” Skylar said. “And the biggest thing I’ve learned is to never underestimate them. All they want is to be given a chance to do the same things all the other kids are doing. Society has a long way to go with regard to discrimination and treating everyone equally.”
Taylor nodded. “I agree.”
The two women smiled at each other. Then Skylar lifted her glass. “To friends.”
“Friends,” Taylor echoed and clinked her glass with Skylar’s.
“Except when it comes to our men,” Skylar added.
Taylor laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”
The conversation during the rest of the meal was easy and light, and Taylor had never felt more comfortable with another woman in her life. When Skylar asked a few questions about her condition, it didn’t feel as if she was fishing for juicy details, just honestly wanted to understand it. They talked about Silverstone Towing and what a great job the four men had done in making it one of the best businesses in the Indianapolis region, for customers and employees alike.
They finished eating, and when Skylar asked for the bill, the waitress informed them that it had already been taken care of. “A man who was here earlier paid for your lunch already.”
Skylar looked confused. “Who was he?”
“I don’t know,” the waitress admitted. “I’ve never seen him before. But he got here not long after you guys. He had a couple cups of coffee, then asked to pay for your lunches.”
“Wow, that’s awesome. He didn’t tell you to tell us anything?” Skylar asked.
“Nope. Just paid and left.”
“Well, all right. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Stay as long as you want—we aren’t that busy, so you’re not keeping a table from someone else,” the waitress told them.
“Thanks,” Skylar said with a smile. When the waitress had left, she turned to Taylor. “I’m not sure that’s ever happened to me before.”
“I’d normally agree, but the other day when I went to get a hamburger, the guy in the car ahead of me paid for my lunch. I’ve read about things like that happening to other people, but I’d never experienced it before.”
“Cool,” Skylar said.
“Yeah . . .” But Taylor felt oddly anxious now.
Why would a stranger choose to pay for their meals? There were other people in the diner eating. Why them? And what were the chances she’d have someone pay for her meal twice in such a short period of time, especially when it had never happened before?
And of course, that made her think about the guy at the dementia care center . . .
So many weird things had been happening to her recently, and it was beginning to make her feel uneasy.
She and Skylar chitchatted for a while longer before Skylar said, “Thanks for coming out with me. I took a day off work—a mental health day, if you will—and I didn’t want to spend it just sitting in my apartment being sad.”
“How often does Silverstone go on missions?” Taylor asked.
“Not a lot,” Skylar told her. “I mean, thankfully there aren’t that many tens in the world.”
“Tens?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah. Bull explained what Silverstone does this way: out of one to ten on the ‘bad guy’ scale, they only go after the nines and tens. They leave the rest to the police and other law enforcement.”
“What constitutes a nine or a ten?” Taylor asked.
“Well, I thought the guy who kidnapped me and Sandra had to be an eleven. He was a pedophile who’d been in jail for assaulting someone else before. And he’d been watching Sandra for who knows how long before he snatched her.”
Taylor leaned forward, fascinated. She’d heard about Skylar being kidnapped, but didn’t know all the details and hadn’t wanted to ask. “Were you scared?” Taylor asked.
“Terrified out of my mind,” Skylar admitted. “But I knew without a doubt that Bull wouldn’t rest until he either discovered where I was or, if I was killed before he could get to me, made sure the man paid.”
Taylor shivered. “Holy crap.”
“Yeah. Luckily for me, he got home from his mission and rallied the troops. But Sandra was the real hero in my rescue. If she hadn’t been brave enough to run away from the house on her own, I know Jay Ricketts would’ve killed me. But back to the subject at hand. I considered my kidnapper to be a ten. But Bull told me that in actuality, he was more like a three or a four on the bad-guy scale.”
“Wow,” Taylor said, her eyes wide.
“Yeah, I was shocked too. Bull explained that Silverstone doesn’t bother with threes and fours. If they did, they’d never be at home and would constantly be on missions.”
“That’s a pretty good explanation. And reasonable—otherwise they’d attract too much attention and open themselves up to lawsuits, and be accused of being vigilantes or something,” Taylor mused.
“I guess. Does it make me a bad person to admit that I’m glad my kidnapper was killed when he was in prison awaiting trial?”
“He was?” Taylor asked in surprise.
“Yup. I had no problem testifying against him, even though it would’ve sucked. But we got word not too long ago that he was shanked one day while in the recreation yard. The guards had been doing their best to keep him away from the general population, but one day a fight broke out, and in the ensuing riot, he was stabbed. No one has admitted to doing it, and the video surveillance was no help because of the complete chaos that was happening in the yard. A large group of men were all clumped together, and when the dust cleared, Jay was dead in the dirt,” Skylar said. “So Silverstone didn’t kill him, but someone else took it upon himself to make sure a sicko like Jay would never be free to stalk and hurt another kid.”