“It’s called a job.”

“Oh.” I didn’t realize Dad had high school students working for him, but then, why would he tell me who works for him?

Dad jogs down the hill and pats me on the back. “You okay, bud? This terrain is awful. You should have called. I would have come down the hill to pick you up.”

“I’m fine,” I tell him, deepening my voice, like that will somehow help me fit in here. “Dinner is not.”

The three of us consider the trail of spilled containers leading down the hill, and after we pick them up, Dad tosses me the keys to his truck. “You and Tucker go get some Chicken Express for the crew. Dinner’s on me tonight.”

I pocket the keys. “I can get it by myself.”

“Actually,” says Tucker, “we have a school project to discuss, so that would be great. Thank you, sir.”

“No problem, Tuck.”

Tuck? Tuck? Not only did my dad give him a nickname, but it also has a double meaning in very specific circles. So many things wrong with this situation.

I march up to Dad’s huge, honking beast of a truck and take off down the hill before Tucker even shuts his door.

“Buckle up, Tuck.”

We rumble down the hill, and not until we pull back into town do I say, “You never told me you work for my dad.”

“I didn’t know I needed to.”

“Isn’t it kind of weird that I see you every day in class and you never thought to mention it?”

“I guess neither of us say very much of anything to each other.” His voice is low and gravelly.

And whose fault is that? I make a wide turn into the parking lot of Chicken Express. This truck is the size of a boat, and not in a cute welcome-aboard-my-yacht way. “Well, I guess we should talk about prom court.”

In the drive-through, I order enough fried chicken and sides to feed a football team and then some. After paying with Dad’s card, we wait in what feels like a fragile silence for our food to be ready, the staff behind the window obviously annoyed by the size of our order.

“I know that neither of us are really thrilled by this partnership,” I say. “Who knows? Maybe you wanted to end up with Melissa. Rekindle the flame or whatever.”

The window opens and the woman on the other side begins to hand me bags of food, which I pile up in between Tucker and myself. If we’re going to be in the same breathing space, at least I can separate us with a barrier of fried chicken.

Once we’ve pulled back out onto the road, Tucker says, “How do you know what I want?”