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I also knew that I couldn’t call Mom I’d never had to bail Evan out of jail before Show up to a huge house party with vandalisers with Evan in a police car? Sure Twice, they’d been nice enough to release him to ain he’d be arrested Had he finally crossed the line? What if it was so worse? How bad was this? What the hell had he done? And as a bond? How do you bail someone out? I don’t have that kind of money Should I call my mom? My mind started to race, and h shit going on inout of a reality TV series Who do you call when your baby brother is in jail and you need to get hirandparents didn’t live in the area No dad No fa about this kind of activity Fuck I could feel ht actually start to hyperventilate until it occurred toabout how this all worked

Darla

Sa a rerun of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which was new to Darla Her cackling at soreat to watch It was always interesting to see soh another person’s eyes as they experienced it for the first ti hishis brother, Rick, and Darla was cuddled next to Trevor, laughing her head off I felt an emptiness in the space next to er I could wait before texting A

Ten ht

My nap had been fitful, two hours too full of ht-have-beens and should-do-nows to be restorative

Darla’s phone rang and she thrust her hand into her back pocket and dug around, finally pulling it out and flipping it open "Yeah?" she said "Okay, yeah Aht nohen she wasn’t answering any ofbut

I looked pointedly at Darla, raising lanced atrooainst her head and using a finger to cover her spare ear "You okay?" she said "Yeah What? Why do you assuot louder as her tone becary This was not a happy conversation

I turned, throwing one ar tense Whatever was going on wasn’t good

Trevor caught ed "What’s up?" he mouthed

"Don’t know," I said in a low voice

"You just assu tone, "would be able to help you with this?" I could hear Darla’s heavy breathing, her outrage taking over the roo Charlie in ht" Darla said, her voice progressively more compassionate It was a tone that very few people could pull off, si, and we’ll figure this out" She flipped the phone shut, avoided eye contact with o We’ll have to watch the rest of this later"

"What’s wrong?" I asked "Is Amy okay?"

"She’s fine, she’s fine," Darla said, but the fact that she wouldn’t look atbut fine My ed herout to Darla? "What do you mean," I said to Darla "Why are you so upset that Amy called you?"

Darla opened and closed her mouth so many times she started to look like one of those fish that you put on the wall and that sings when you walk by "I can’t explain, Sam," she said, "I’oing with you," I said as Darla grabbed a lightweight sweater to go out the front door

She halted and turned to er and determination in her eyes stopped"Sometimes people have business that they don’t want other people to know about," she said slowly "Ao and help her because I’o in and clean up the crime scene"

"There was a cri her words, the expression on her face almost comical "I don’t want to say whether there was a crime or not, but let’s just say A on?" Trevor asked, folding his arms across his chest He was just as pissed as I was, except it wasn’t hiswhatever, girlfriend, as in trouble

"Look," Darla said, "she’s not pregnant, she’s not physically injured, she’s notit’s not as if she lost her phone up her hoohaw"

Trevor and I looked blankly at each other So

Darla waved her hand, exasperated "What I mean is, it’s not as if she’s har to extend her hurt I’ll make sure she calls you" Darla reached out and touchedit with assurance "I promise"

And with that she walked out the door, leavingpiece of shit," I hissed in Evan’s ear

"Ooh, your girlfriend’s pissed," said one of the guys in the waiting rooers up to his lips and wagged his tongue between theust and turned away Darla aiting in yet another rooh the bond process

It turned out Evan’s bail was 7,500 which meant that somehow I needed to con over so I had with that kind of value was my car Once I realized I didn’t need it in the Fenway, I stored it back home at Mom’s--with strict instructions NOT to let Evan use it It was paid for, and the blue book value was just over 7,000 Between nextaccount and the title of my car, I was able to bail him out I didn’t worry that the entitled little son-of-a-bitch would skip out Evan wasn’t the type to forge out on his own in the big bad world

I had to hand it to Darla--she rand mental leap that she was the one person insoht

She was Keeper of secrets and finder of smartphone extractors, she also was the only person in , or, at least, that I knew had any experience with this kind of thing Darla knehat to say to the judicial clerks, she knehat to say e called a bail bondss