He repeated the sound for a couple of minutes, taking breaths in between his buzzing. He drove the car up onto Aria’s legs and back down again into the dirt.

It was sad to Aria how in his own world his play was, even when he had someone to play with. She began copying him. A bright smile lit up his face and he stared at Aria with a playful, innocent look, which was uncommon to him. She showed him how to drive the car up and over the actual cars in the lot, pretending that they were huge mountains to climb, until Ciarra showed up, having been gone all night, and called him over.

Ciarra ushered him into the purple van and Aston continued the game that they had been playing across the inside of the car, while Ciarra climbed into the bed of the van and fell asleep. It was enough to break Aria’s heart.

She sat down again beside the Land Cruiser. Luke waved at her on his way out of the lot with Palin. She smiled and waved back. Aria had come to find that just like Taylor, Luke had a tendency to imagine a rapport that didn’t actually exist between himself and others, including the people who were currently inhabiting the car lot with them. In fact, Aria and Taylor were now more generally accepted than he was.

Despite Luke’s friendliness, Mike, Robert, Darren and Anthony barely tolerated him. To be voluntarily homeless was an insult to those who had no other choice. Aria read between the lines of their obvious annoyance when he was around. They saw him as both irresponsible and pathetic. Though tolerance was a long way away from friendship, it seemed to be enough for Luke to set up camp and imagine himself to be welcome there.

Still, she couldn’t help but like him. Her original dislike of him had been replaced by fondness. She felt that fondness when she watched him and Palin leave the lot to walk together toward the heart of the city.