I figure that is a three hours spent one way for you and Joe. Round trip makes that six hours. So that’s eight hours of work so far. You’ve got to... pay for gas for two trucks, I figure that’s about fifteen or twenty bucks. So let us say, twenty. That means you actually have thirty dollars for eight hours of work. You just made less than four dollars an hour.”Shocked, Manuel looked at Ed and said, “Four dollars an hour?”Turning into the drive at the high school, Ed answered, “Yes. Of course, it’s. He hadn’t delved into this subject with Emily. Emily’s face was fully flushed as her anger level grew. “WHAT? No he didn’t tell me! What the hell Nate?” she exclaimed. “It’s OK Emily. We have not been together since the two of you met. I was his first and only lover before you. I spent time teaching him how to please a woman and not just get his rocks off. I hope he is a patient lover with you.” Emily’s anger level diminished upon hearing that Nate and Ariana were no longer lovers, but she. I felt totally bad ass perhaps because I was. We didn’t have a destination in mind. Not even sure if we planned on getting out of that shit hole of a city, but we knew what we were looking for; escape. Roaring through the night, the big engine purring like a tiger on meth between my legs, I clung to Red. Before we even hit the end of the street I was grinding myself on the seat, sinking my teeth into the leather of his jacket, my arms around his waist. I’d let one hand wander between his. And I do not see how it is possible to live when not only is this difference lost in the mind but the mind makes its own shadow and believes it to be the now.It is when the guards of whom Maggie tells me come that I learn how deep is their shad­ow and how it overtakes their lives. One of them speaks with me, and at first I do not find him foolish; for a time he speaks as Maggie does, and he listens when I speak and replies sensibly, and I am pleased.But then he begins to talk to me of strange.