The Old Wheel, page 1
part #2 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
THE OLD WHEEL
THE ADVENTURES OF HOLLOWAY HOLMES
BOOK 2
GREGORY ASHE
H&B
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Old Wheel
Copyright © 2023 Gregory Ashe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: contact@hodgkinandblount.com
Published by Hodgkin & Blount
https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/
contact@hodgkinandblount.com
Published 2023
Printed in the United States of America
Version 1.03
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-059-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-058-2
The conversation, which had roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes. The point under discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was due to his ancestry and how far to his own early training.
—“The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
—“The Adventure of the Yellow Face,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The old wheel turns.
—The Valley of Fear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Chapter 1
I Forgot
“How to Break Up,” the title of the article on my phone said, “and Still Be a Gentleman.”
“First thing you’ve got to remember,” Dad said, “is go easy.”
I barely heard him. One of the advantages of having a smartphone again—thank you, Jesus—was that I had access to, you know, everything. At least, most of the time that was an advantage. Times like this? When I’d spent the last four days reading articles titled “The No-Bullshit Break-Up” and “Be a Man and Do It” and even, kind of confusingly, “In Pursuit of the Carbon-Neutral Break-Up: Yes, It’s Possible”? No, not much of an advantage. Not an advantage at all, really.
Dad jabbed me in the knee with an Allen wrench.
“Ow!”
He gave me a level look. People say Dad and I look alike, although I only see it in our jaws, our mouths, maybe a little around our eyes. His hair is gray and buzzed (not like mine), and his skin is closer to bronze (I’m more of a dark olive), and he’s built strong (so far, undetermined, but I think I’ll end up somewhere between him and Mom). He tried to jab me with the wrench again, and I stepped out of reach. “Phone away.” He waved the Allen wrench at the old mountain bike—technically his, although I was the only one who used it anymore. “I’m teaching you how to do this, buddy. I’m not doing it for you.”
Sighing, I pocketed the phone. “How to Break Up and Still Be a Gentleman” had sounded like a lot of bullshit anyway.
Dad pressed the Allen wrench into my hand and pointed to the bike. It sat upside down on the cold concrete slab of the maintenance garage. The nice thing about working at the Walker School (one of the nice things, although to be honest, there weren’t a ton) was that Dad had this huge, heated garage. In December, though, with the glass-block windows frosted over and the wind off Timp screaming against the cinderblock shell, it wasn’t exactly warm. The ceiling heater rattled overhead, struggling to keep up, and the smell of hot dust mixed with the odor of two-stroke engine oil. But it was a hell of a lot better than doing this kind of work outside.
“Step one, get the lower forks off.”
So, I went to work, and for a pair of quiet minutes, I didn’t have to think about anything except disassembling the suspension fork. Dad wheeled over an oil-stained office chair and sat; he was doing so much better since we’d gotten health insurance and he could get all his prescriptions and take them consistently, but he still got tired easily, and his balance got funny sometimes. Almost a year and a half later, we were still dealing with the effects of the car crash and the traumatic brain injury. I guess that’s why they call them long-term symptoms.
“Did you ever break up with Mom?” I asked.
The question popped out before I realized I had formed it in my head. My face heated, and I kept my eyes on the bike as I tugged the lower forks loose. Dad rolled closer, and the sound of the casters on the concrete kept time with the heater’s faint rattle.
“Put these on.” Dad passed me a pair of nitrile gloves. Then he handed me a tiny screwdriver. “We’re improvising here, so you’re going to be careful. See those foam rings? You’re going to get them out—and you’re going to do it without damaging the seals underneath, understand?” He sat back, and his hands curled around the armrests. “And no, I never broke up with your mother. She probably thought about breaking up with me a time or two.”
I nodded and kept my gaze on the bike. It probably would have been easier with a specialized tool, but it wasn’t terribly difficult getting the foam rings out with the screwdriver. They were dark with oil and dirt, and they left smears on the gloves.
“Any reason you’re asking?” Dad said in what I’d started to recognize as his I’m-so-carefully-neutral-I-could-be-Switzerland voice.
I shook my head.
The furnace rattled. The wind snaked against the walls of the garage. I turned the foam rings over in my hand and finally couldn’t stall any longer and looked up at Dad.
He had his Switzerland face on. “Get the rubbing alcohol and a tub—we should replace those, but for today, we’re going to clean them up as best we can.”
So, I jogged over to the workbench, found the rubbing alcohol and an empty plastic tub, and carried it back over to the bike. I poured in enough alcohol to cover the pads, but when I went to strip off the gloves, Dad shook his head.
The chair creaked when he rocked slightly. “Do you miss her? That’s a dumb question; I know you miss her. But…did something happen?”
“No.”
The chair creaked again. “You happened to be wondering if I ever broke up with your mom?”
“I guess.”
He rubbed a hand over his hair, and it made a soft sound.
“How do you know if something is serious?” I blurted this question like the last one. I heard myself, and I made a firm decision to get a lobotomy. “Like, if you should stick it out when you have a rough patch, or if that means you’re not, you know, supposed to be together?”
Dad was silent for a long time. “Did you get her pregnant?”
“Dad!”
“Did you?”
“No!”
“Are you using condoms? Because I don’t care if she tells you she’s on birth control—you use a condom every time.”
I blew out a breath and fished one of the foam pads out of the alcohol.
“Jack.”
“Yes, oh my God. Can we please stop talking about this?”
He didn’t say anything to that, which was kind of an answer. He sat there, staring at me, legs spread, hands tight around the arms of the chair. I squeezed the pads to get the oil out, rinsed, and repeated.
Finally, he said, “That’s enough.”
He stood and walked over to the utility sink. His first few steps were unsteady, but then he evened out. Water ran. When he came back, he had a bucket and a sponge. He worked the sponge around in the soapy water, and then, using the chair for balance, got down on his knees and started to clean the bike’s frame.
“I’m supposed to be doing that,” I said.
“You’re sixteen, buddy.” His voice was softer, and he kept his eyes on the sponge. “Why are you worried about sticking it out?”
“I don’t know.”
He moved the sponge in slow, careful swipes, and clumps of dirt fell away. Muddy water ran down to the concrete slab, and trickles of it curled inward along his wrist.
“It’s just—” I hooked my arms around my knees. “There’s a lot going on right now. And, I don’t know.” There wasn’t a good way to tell my dad that I was feeling a little conflicted because of a gray-eyed boy who had made it painfully clear that he had no interest in me. “I don’t know.”
He paused, the sponge halfway up the bike’s frame. “Do you like her?”
“This is the worst conversation of my life.”
That got a tiny smile out of him, and he started scrubbing again.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Yes, I mean, obviously. Ariana is great. But sometimes I think maybe I—I rushed into this.”
Dad made a noise that could have meant anything.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Come on.”
“Nothing.” He smiled and tossed the sponge in the bucket. “I remember what it’s like to be sixteen. You think you have to dip your wick into everything.”
“Dad!”
He laughed. “It’s not like you’re the first teenage boy in the history of the world, buddy.”
“That’s not—it’s not like that.”
“Ok.”
“It’s not.”
I groaned, but when he waited, I nodded.
“Well, why don’t you see what happens? Take her to that dance. Winter—what is it?”
I squinted a dirty look up at him. “You know it’s Wintersmash. And it’s not a dance. And I can’t go; it’s invite only.”
Dad frowned at that. “I’m sure you’ll get an invitation.”
Responding to that—telling him the truth—would only hurt him, so I didn’t say anything.
After a moment, Dad cleared his throat. “It doesn’t have to be the Winter thing. I’m just saying slow down. You feel like you rushed into this? Well, as an outside observer, I’m telling you I think you’re rushing again. You’ve been dating—what? A couple of months?”
“But we’ve been hanging out longer than that.”
“Well, it’s a free country. You can break up with her whenever you want. But this is your first serious relationship; why don’t you give it a little time and see how it develops?”
I thought about that. Then I looked up at Dad. “Do you like her?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
I made a face.
“I like her,” he said with a laugh. “She’s good for you.”
I made a different face.
Dad tried to flick me with a shop towel he pulled from his back pocket, and I barely dodged in time.
After that, it was easier to work than to talk. Everything Dad said had made sense. It had been—well, it had been what I’d been hoping he’d say, actually. And now he’d said it, and I hadn’t died of embarrassment, and somehow…somehow I felt worse. Because what I wanted to say was, But it doesn’t feel right. Or maybe, But what if there’s someone else, and even though I don’t have a shot with him, I feel totally different when I’m around him? Or maybe, if I were going to get agonizingly specific, I know what love feels like, and this isn’t it. But, of course, all of those things were a fuck-ton scarier to say out loud, and sometimes, Jack Moreno was a coward.
With Dad watching to make sure I did it right, I replaced the rings, oiled them, and ran suspension grease around the inside of the upper forks. I was reaching for the lower forks when he said, “Run home and wash up. I’ll finish here.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You’re going to be late.” This time, he did get me with the towel, and even through my jeans, it stung. He grinned when I yelped. “Ass on fire, buddy. Run.”
He was exaggerating; I had plenty of time before Holmes came over to help me study, and even if I were late, he wouldn’t mind. Well, he would because he had this uncanny clockwork precision to everything he did, but he was nice enough that he wouldn’t say anything. Going back to school had been awesome, an opportunity I’d never thought I’d get, but it had also meant coming face to face with the reality that teachers, unlike YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles, actually expected you to do something with what you were learning, and sometimes that was a hell of a lot harder than remembering the odd bit of internet trivia.
Outside, the Wasatch Mountains were blisteringly white with snow—so much snow that even at night, the canyon seemed bright. It furred the bare branches of scrub oaks and aspens, and it glazed the dark green of the pines. The wind bit at my ears and stole my breath in long steaming coils as I jogged home. It wasn’t far from the maintenance building, but I thought maybe Dad was right, and I should have worn a coat.
I let myself into the cottage—we didn’t bother locking the doors, not all the way on the ass-end of Timp—and turned on the lights. It was warm, which was one good thing you could say about it. It wasn’t falling down; that was another. It was small, and when you first stepped inside, the thing you noticed was the smell from the three-quarters fridge, like something was burning. But it was ours, at least, as long as Dad stayed on at Walker, and that was enough.
I kicked off my Nikes by the door and was hopping toward the bathroom, peeling off my socks, when a knock startled me.
When I opened the door, Holmes was standing there. There’s no good way to describe him: you start with one piece, like his eyes the color of starlight, and then you have to talk about the perfection of cheekbone, mouth, jaw, and then you’re on to his neck, the breadth of his shoulders fanning out as he turned, the curve and line of arm until you reach that one knobby knuckle. The whole reason people started carving sculptures was because of guys like Holmes, where everything about him had the look of cold-chiseled perfection. He was wearing his usual getup: a wool driving coat, a pale oxford, dark chinos, chukkas wet with snow. He was gripping his school bag, and when he saw me, his hands relaxed. I noticed things like that with him; I liked noticing things like that, liked what they said.
“You left your socks on the floor,” he said.
I shut the door behind him.
“Your dad has asked you several times not to leave them in the common areas of the house.”
“Hi, H.”
“It’s eleven degrees outside. You shouldn’t be barefoot in the winter.”
“How was your day?”
He studied me, eyes like mercury beads. “My day was normal.”
“You can do better than that.”
Grimacing, Holmes passed me his bag and began working his way out of his coat. “I ate turkey sausage and scrambled eggs for breakfast. And I had a protein shake.”
“But you didn’t eat dinner.”
“I had the protein shake late in the afternoon.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It most certainly does.”
“Uh huh. One good thing?”
“I learned about a useful backdoor on a popular brand of doorbell camera, and I completed all my schoolwork.”
“And one bad thing?”
“I already told you about the turkey sausage.”
“Oh my God, ladies and gentlemen. A joke.”
Holmes yanked the bag back. “You’re a bad influence. We’re beginning with chemistry tonight.”
“No, please, I’ll give you anything you want.”
You couldn’t tell, but Holmes ate this stuff up like candy. At least, that’s what I chose to believe.
“I’ll tell you where I hid the Nazi codebook. You can have my firstborn!”
“Your firstborn would doubtless leave socks everywhere.”
“H!”
“Your room—”
“My room is fine! And for the record, I don’t want to catch you sneaking in there to clean up again. If you find your present, I’m not going to give it to you. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
You had to learn to read the microexpressions: the subtleties of mouth and eyes. He pretended to be busy hanging up his coat.
“If we are going to continue our arrangement—” H began.
The knock at the door stopped him. He glanced at me.
I shrugged and opened the door.
Ariana stood there. She looked cute. Scratch that. She looked fantastic, done up in a belted jumper dress that showed off her legs—and her curves—with her hair in perfect curls and boots she knew I liked on her. She smiled at me, gave Holmes a curious look, and leaned in. I kissed her automatically.
“Ready?” She glanced at me in my work clothes and bare feet and smiled uncertainly. “What’s up? Are we still on for dinner?”
Dinner, my brain said.
“No, yeah, I just—”
Holmes ripped his coat from the hook. “It’s my fault,” he said, the words clipped and emotionless. “I’m sorry for keeping him.”
“H, wait. I forgot—”
But he plunged out into the night, and the door clicked shut behind him.
Chapter 2
On the Outside
“Look,” I said. “Do you want them or not?”
His name was Travis something, and he was one of those short, chubby kids who hadn’t really hit puberty yet. He’d said he wanted Roblox Robux cards, the physical ones that included an exclusive virtual item, and so I’d gone to Target, Walmart, and finally Best Buy, burning up half a Saturday to get them for him.
He made a face, staring at the gift cards.
