“I have to deal with my boss,” I explain, reaching for it. He yanks it just out of reach again, the bastard, playing a childish little game with me. I say, as if I’m speaking to an ESL student, “You know, my supervisor? For my job?”
He drops the phone in my waiting palm, still shaking his head, like he’s disappointed in me. And why should he be? Having a job and responsibilities is terrible while going out and drinking all night and screwing conquest after conquest is a great thing?
How did we ever get together?
And then I remember how and why. It was a long time ago and we were just teenagers.
“Now what?” I ask, hardening my voice, and right then I make a resolution. I’m going to do it. I’m going to look into his eyes and prove that Dax Harding doesn’t have any power over me anymore.
I raise my eyes up to that well-muscled chest, past the chiseled jaw, to his perfectly kissable lips. And then I laugh.
His lips are red. Not lipstick red, but the red of a little boy who’s just finished a cherry ice. “Are you still eating those things?” I ask, as his brow furrows.
He realizes what I’m laughing at and quickly wipes at his lips. Scowling, he reaches inside my car, grabs my bag, and shoves it into my arms. “You go and sit your ass in my truck while I get it hitched.”
Caught off guard in these shoes, which don’t mix really well with the terrain, I stumble a little, then take the bag, and heft it onto my shoulder. I take a step toward the cab of the shiny red Harding Garage truck, and nerves creep in.
I have to be alone, in that truck, with him? Oh, hell no.
I stop short. “Wait, what? You didn’t even look under the hood. Maybe it’s something you can—“
“I can what?” He’s staring me, incredulous. “Wave my magic wand over and fix?”
“Well, you’re the Car God.”
He holds up a hand and stalks to the front of the VW. He hefts it open and stares at it for a beat, two, pretending to consider it. Then he crashes it closed. “Nope. I can’t undo the shit that happens when people don’t take care of their cars.”
“Thanks for the lecture, Dad,” I mumble.
“You always did treat Little Blue like trash,” he admonishes. And, car-obsessed freak that he is, he’s back to petting my car. The car has officially gotten more action from him than I ever have. Not that I care. He holds out a finger and preaches, “You love your car . . .”
I roll my eyes. “I know, I know,” I say, finishing the lecture he’s told me about a thousand times. “It’ll love you back. But you obviously love it enough for the both of us. And anyway, I did do regular maintenance. Just like--”
I stop. I can’t say that it’s just like he taught me. I don’t want him to think I actually remember everything he told me all those years ago. After all, he didn’t even care to know what city I’d moved to.
He lets out an exasperated sigh and now he’s looking at my VW as if it’s a terminal patient. “But you obviously used a shit Pep Boys wannabe mechanic for your oil changes and got taken advantage of. Now your lines are all clogged up and I gotta take it in to get it unclogged so the pump’ll work. Got it?”
His face is so serious now, like I personally insulted him. But as far as I can recall, he was the one who screwed me over.
“Fine,” I say, looking at my phone. I thrust my chin into the air and plant my feet. “Forget the ride. Just tow my car. I’ll get a ride with my parents and call the garage in the morning to find out the damage.”
His expression softens. “Come on, Katydid.” He reaches out to put a hand on my arm, but then must think better of it, because he stops. I stare at his hand, frozen mid-way between us. “Look. I was joking. You never could take a joke.”
“Joke? It sounded like you were accusing me of murdering my car.”
“Come on, come on. Don’t bug your parents. Just let me drive you home.”
“That’s not my home,” I remind him.
He nods and his face looks slightly pained. “Right. I know. Figure of speech.”
Part of me feels a fleeting pang of sadness as I see the look in his eyes, and I try my best to brush it off and forge ahead. “Okay, you can drive me, but only if your promise not to keep lecturing me about what a bad job I did with my car.”
“I won’t say a word, seeing as how everything I say gets you pissed.” He zips his lips and holds up his three fingers, scouts’ honor, as if a guy like Dax would ever be caught dead in a Boy Scout uniform. He kicks the tire with the toe of his workman’s boot, and an uncomfortable silence ensues.
I look down at the display of my phone, containing my half-typed apology to Fowler. Just then, the screen goes blank. I jab at it, trying to remember how much charge I had. But my phone is old; even if it was fully charged before I left Boston, with my GPS running, it’s probably lost most of it by now.
Shit. Shit. Shit.