Page 6 of Sunburned

He shrugged. “Fine.”

“Fine?” I asked. “That’s all?”

“I just wonder how much you can learn in a school environment, you know?”

“I’m sure your parents would be thrilled to hear that with the amount they’re spending on tuition,” Ryan ribbed.

“Spending the money makes them feel better about how little they’re involved in my life,” Tyson said bitterly.

“How long are you here for?” Rosa asked.

“Two, three months? I’m watching the house for the summer while they do whatever it is they do.”

“That’s very nice of you,” I said. “What’s the real story?”

“I had an internship lined up in New York, but the company went under and it was too late to get anything else,” he admitted. “So here I am. All by myself in that big house.” He focused on me. “I’m gonna get lonely.”

“You could get a job like the rest of us,” Rosa suggested.

“Do you have a job?” Tyson asked, his eyes still on me.

I nodded. Taking care of my mom was really my full-time job, but as her disability insurance paid barely enough for us to scrape by on, I’d had to find some way of making money that would allow me to make my own hours. Fortunately, my skill set was suited to that kind of arrangement. “I’m working for a DevOps company.”

“What does that mean?” Ryan asked. Tyson laughed and Ryan held up his hands. “Pre-law over here. I have no idea what you smart people do with computers.”

“I analyze systems software and engineer automation maintenance and virtual services,” I explained.

Ryan and Rosa exchanged a glance. “Yeah,” Rosa said. “I don’t get it, either.”

The song changed, and Ryan stood up, offering Rosa his hand. “Wanna dance?”

“But you’re going back to school in the fall,” Tyson said once they’d gone.

I swirled the ice in my drink with my straw. “We’ll see.”

“What do you mean, you’ll see?” Tyson asked. He’d never known when to leave well enough alone. “You need to be registered already if you intend to go back.”

“I can’t go back in the fall, okay?” I snapped. “I have to take care of my mom.”

“Can’t you—” he started, but I cut him off.

“There’s no one else.”

“But you’ll lose your scholarship if you—”

“I already did.” I took a long draw of my drink. “I couldn’t keep my grades up with driving back and forth all the time.”

He stared at me. “But can’t they make some kind of exception for your situation?”

I shook my head. “Believe me, I tried.”

He nodded, and I could see the wheels turning in his brain as his eyes swept the room. He focused on Ian, who was now sitting at the edge of a crowded booth, his head bent in what looked like serious conversation with a guy in his thirties. “Great,” he said dryly.

“What?”

“Just—Ian. He’s renting that trailer on the land behind our house. He came around to see if I wanted to go out tonight, and I said I was too tired.”

“Is he not in school anymore?”

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