The rest of the day was a lifetime. I met Chance, and we played pinball at the 7-Eleven, then sat on the curb and ate sandwiches sold cold for twenty-five cents.

“What’d you get?”

“Pimento cheese. You?”

“Egg salad.”

That’s how the conversation had been all day. It’s not that we couldn’t run deep, but that Chance understood the way our friendship worked. If he was down, my job was to be there and be cool. Same thing in reverse.

“I’m thinking something cold and wet.” Chance dunked his trash in the can, went back inside, and came out with a six-pack under his arm. I looked up with sun in my eyes, and he passed me a can. “This will help.”

“I guess you heard, huh?”

“That Jason killed a girl? Yeah, pretty much everybody’s talking about it.”

“That’s not all.” I told Chance about the guns and cash, and the biker Jason shot in the foot and leg. “Darius something or other. I was there. I saw it.”

“An actual shoot-out?”

“I guess. They arrested him right after. I was basically with him.”

“Okay, time-out. Back up.”

Chance wanted specifics, so I gave him the story in detail. “He was going to run, start a new life. He asked me to go with him.”

“You said no, of course. Please, God, tell me you did.”

I didn’t answer right away. Cars passed on the street. “I saw Becky in church today.”

It was a hard right turn, but Chance gave it to me. “Was she hot?”

“Sundress. Pretty hot.”

“Becky freaking Collins…”

“She wants to meet me this afternoon.”

“Be still my heart.”

He was trying to lighten the mood, but I felt cheap, like I shouldn’t have mentioned Becky at all. “Listen, I’m going to get out of here.”

“Something I said?”

I stood, shaking my head. “No, brother. We’re good.”

“Well, damn…” Chance stood, too, looking unhappy. “I know you’re upset about this—your brother and all—but we could go to the movies or the mall, take your mind off things.”

“I need to think this through.”

“One for the road?” He offered another beer. In response, I handed back the one I’d not yet opened. “Okay, all right. But call me later, yeah. Tell me what happens with Becky.”

I said I’d try, but doubted it would happen. Something had changed in the church. Maybe it was the way blood had risen in her cheeks at the moment she’d first seen me, or the curve of her neck, the vulnerability of that pale, smooth skin and the small hairs that brushed it like lashes. I knew only that something was different between us, like I was on the mountain once again, and too high above the world to breathe.