Chronicles of Nox: 9 O'Clock

"You're quiet."

"I'm concentrating."

"No, this quiet is different." His brother leans on the fender. "Concentrating quiet has a face. That's not it."

He wipes his hands on the rag longer than he needs to.

"I messed up."

"At work?"

"No." He puts the rag down. "She gave me something to do and I didn't do it."

His brother's eyebrows go up, interested in the wrong way. "Oh. Oh, okay. So what'd She do to you?"

"Nothing."

"Come on."

"I'm serious. She didn't raise Her voice, She didn't take anything, She didn't make me do some humiliating thing." He looks at the engine instead of at his brother. "She said, that's not like you."

His brother waits. "And?"

"That's it. That's what She said."

"So you got off easy."

He laughs, short, not amused. "No."

"What am I missing?"

He thinks about how to say it.

"She'd already decided who I was." He picks the rag back up, turns it over. "Like, She'd been watching long enough to have an opinion, and the opinion was good, and I came in under it. You know how long it's been since anybody had a picture of me that I could disappoint?"

His brother doesn't say anything.

"If She'd yelled I could've been mad. If She'd called me a name I could've argued with it. She just sounded like She'd expected better, and the thing is She had. She'd told me exactly what She wanted. Once. Clearly. I'm the one who didn't do it."

"Man, that's rough."

"That's not the rough part." He finally looks up. "The rough part is what She did next."

"Which was?"

"She gave it to me again."

His brother squints. "The same thing?"

"Same thing. New time. Nine o'clock tonight." He says it like it's sitting in his chest. "She didn't drop me. She didn't go find somebody who'd do it right the first time. She just said do it again, and She'll be checking."

"So She let you off."

"No." He shakes his head. "That's what I thought at first too. She didn't let me off anything. She decided I was worth going round twice on."

His brother is quiet for a second, and then, because he's his brother: "That's a lot of feeling about a woman who made you do a chore."

"Yeah." He's already pulling his phone out to check the time. "It is."