Read Online The Favor by Megan Hart - Free Book Online Page A

Everyone helped do most of it.” She nodded firmly. “And when they left, I just did the rest.”
    “Oh. Nan.” Janelle sighed and opened the dishwasher again. “I think you’re going to need a new one.”
    “They’re expensive.” Nan sounded worried.
    “You don’t need to worry about that.” Though of course, she would. And it would require some discussion with her uncles, since this was an expense that fell under improving the house, and Janelle was only approved to handle the daily household needs.
    “Maybe we can just get it fixed,” Nan offered hopefully.
    Before they could say anything else, the back door opened. Nan didn’t seem surprised, but Janelle was still in the California mind-set—nobody left their doors unlocked, and anyone who came in uninvited and unannounced might as well have a target painted on their chest.
    It was Andy. Today he wore a striped, long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, his feet in socks, not slippers. He’d probably kicked his shoes off on the back porch. He looked totally put-together, and if you ignored the thick white stripe in his slicked-back hair, hardly different than he had as a teen. He gave her that grin.
    “Janelle! Hi!” He remembered her name this time, at least.
    “Hi, Andy.” She gave him a cautious smile. “What are you doing here?”
    “Oh, he came over to play cards with me. Get me warmed up for the club.” Nan gestured. “Come on in, honey. Janelle, bring those cinnamon rolls in here to the table.”
    “Your Nan makes them the best,” Andy confided. “I missed ’em.”
    “You could’ve come over anytime, honey, you know that,” Nan said.
    He hesitated, looking a little guilty. “Gabe said not to bother you. I sent flowers, though, when you were in the hospital. Did you get them?”
    “They were lovely. And you’re never a bother. Sit down, honey. Sit.”
    “Andy, do you come over to play cards a lot?” They’d spent hours, back in the day, playing poker for M&M’s or pennies. Andy had had an amazing poker face. They’d played other games, too. Bullshit had been a favorite. Blackjack. She smiled, remembering.
    “Sure, whenever I can. When Dad’s napping and Gabe’s at work, and if I don’t have to work.” He opened the corner cabinet and pulled out the worn box filled with multiple decks of cards that had been around since Janelle’s childhood. “You wanna play?”
    “No, thanks. I need to figure out what to do with the dishwasher.” She eyed him. “Where do you work?”
    He named the town’s bigger grocery store. “I work in the stockroom. Or I help bring the carts in. They don’t really like me to bag the groceries because of my bum hand. I drop too many jars.”
    She’d assumed he couldn’t work. Somehow knowing he had a job made Janelle feel better. Like you have the right to feel good about anything that happened, she thought. “Oh, that’s good.”
    Andy’s laugh had always been as sweet as his smile. “It’s okay. Gabe says I should try for something else, maybe. But I like what I do.”
    “Something else?”
    Andy dealt out the cards, solicitously moving the pile close enough to Nan so she didn’t have to stretch for it. “Yeah. Like school or something. Maybe. But it’s okay. Mikey went to college. I don’t need to go.”
    Janelle leaned in the doorway. If she was thirty-eight, Andrew would be thirty-four, or close to it. “Gabe thinks you should go to school now?”
    Andrew shrugged. “He thought I should go before. But now, I don’t know. I can’t drive because of the seizures. Can’t remember stuff. School seems like a waste of time.”
    Janelle kept her voice neutral. Gabe had always talked about leaving St. Marys. Becoming something.
    “I’m getting out of here,” he says as the smoke curls out of his mouth. “Never coming back.”
    She’s feeling lazy and hazy and has no idea what she’s going to do when school’s over, when she has to enter the real world. “What do you want to do with