Special Delivery: Special Delivery, Book 1 by Heidi Cullinan Page A

work.”
    “Yeah. For them . Half of what I get goes for room and board, and the rest I need for books and gas and clothes and sanity. It took me forever to save for my phone, and it’s killing me to pay for the plan.” He realized without a job it was going to be impossible. What would the phone company do, he wondered, when he couldn’t keep his contract?
    “That’s a shit deal. They owe you better.”
    Sam shrugged and resumed picking at his shoe. “They paid my mom’s bills. They took me in.”
    “Sounds like that’s what they owe your mom.” He shook his head. “Well, you’re rid of them.”
    Sam rested his cheek on his knees and looked out the window. “All I can think of is how I would have been better off working the full three years until I could be declared independent and would have qualified for aid on my own.” He hesitated before letting his darkest regrets come out. “Maybe if I’d taken the time, I might have realized I didn’t want to be in nursing.”
    “You don’t?”
    Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think I got into it out of guilt because I wanted to help people, same as other people helped my mom. I thought I’d enjoy it, but it’s mostly a lot of horrible grunt work. I don’t want to wipe ass in a hospital. I don’t want to work insane crazy overnight hours for years until I can get into a decent schedule. Health care is good, and it’s a steady job, but—” He sighed. “I don’t know.”
    “You’re young. You got time to figure this stuff out.”
    Sam bristled. “I’m not that young. Anyway, how old are you? Eighty?”
    Mitch lifted an amused eyebrow. “Thirty-three.”
    Okay, that was a lot older. “I suppose you think I’m some stupid, whiny kid.”
    “You’re attached to that word, aren’t you? Stupid. Is this a gift from your aunt, or did you take it on yourself?”
    Sam didn’t answer, not knowing what to say.
    When Mitch spoke again, his voice was softer. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re stupid, and I don’t think of you as a kid. If anything, you’re too damn old for your age. I know middle-aged men who fuss less than you. How about you give yourself a break, Sunshine? You took a pretty big leap, coming away with me. Yeah, there are a lot of unknowns, but you’re smart, and you don’t have anything to lose. Let yourself live a little.”
    Sam let this sink in as much as it could. “I do have some money saved.” Guilt backwashed, though, and he had to add, “I should save it for fall tuition.”
    “You don’t know yet where you’re going this fall,” Mitch reminded him. “If you’re going anywhere at all.”
    “This economy is so bad. It’s stupid to goof my way through the summer when I could be working, even if it is for Delia. It’s stupid. I’m stupid.”
    “If you say that word one more time, I will pull this rig over and paddle your ass.”
    Mitch sounded serious, and Sam wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. He chose his next words carefully. “It’s not smart to waste money or time.”
    “But if you’re headed down the wrong road, you’re wasting more time and energy than if you stand still awhile and try to sort yourself out. Except in your case, heading down the road is what counts as standing still. You said yourself you’ve never traveled, not really. Well, there isn’t anything like changing your environment to change your mind, or at least to give you some decent perspective. You don’t know something until you’ve stood outside it and looked at it objectively. Come see a sliver of the world with me, and I promise you a few months on the road will change your life completely.”
    Sam couldn’t decide if changing his life completely was exciting or terrifying. “I can’t go with you for months.”
    “Then come for whatever time is right for you. How much money you got saved, Sunshine? You got enough to buy yourself a one-way plane ticket home?”
    “I do.”
    “Good. Then you keep