Wild Card

by Elsie Silver

“New lease on life, maybe? He’s old, not dead.

I don’t think he’s hurting anything except our eyes.

But it’s so much more than that. It’s the realization that she’s everything I want.

I’m terrible at asking for help, but last night, I tried to. And Gwen just knew.

“Coming right up. What my girl wants, she gets.”

“My head’s been in the gutter since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

“What are you doing?” Bash says. “Come sit down. I made you food.” For a moment, I freeze, hand wrapped around the handle of the fridge, then I turn to Bash. “You made me food?”

At that, Clyde bursts out laughing. “He was not making something else. He’s been nervous cooking since he got up.

“That’s weird because you look like hell,” he announces. “Only because I’m tired of your shit,”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says. “No, but I wanted to.”

It turns out that when I care about someone—when I love someone—I’m willing to do anything for them.

saying you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

When I pull up, the first thing I see is an exhausted-looking Ford Grant stepping into his Mercedes G-Wagon.

He has a small plastic box in his hand. I hop out, coffee in hand, squinting to get a better look. I can see a small, gray mouse inside the box.

“Let the record show that I love Rosie enough to spend all night sitting quietly in a shitty little bunkhouse just so I can catch her favorite rodent.”