14. Odin
CHAPTER 14
ODIN
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Thora chants as she grips the wheel and slams on the brakes. I hear a chorus of horns wailing around us as cars pass while my G Wagon swerves through traffic.
I clench my jaw, helpless, until she brings us to a stop in the bike lane, the bridge shaking and vibrating under the rush of cars and semis continuing to zoom along its span. “Fuck,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair.
And then I look over at her, hands over her face, shoulders shaking. “Hey,” I squeeze her arm. “You did perfect. We’re safe.” A car honks, and Thora shrieks, stabbing at the button for the flashers. “Perfect,” I repeat, catching my breath. What the hell happened here?
Thora’s breathing rapidly in little short puffs and won’t make eye contact. She just keeps saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I will make it up to you.”
“Hey,” I tilt my head to try and find her gaze. “Hey, Thora, I’m not mad.” She snaps her eyes to mine, and she looks terrified. I concentrate on keeping my voice level. “This isn’t your fault. ”
She shakes her head. “I will have to pay you back for the damage. I can pick up a few shifts and get you the money after finals and?—”
“Hey,” I try to rub a thumb along her hand where she’s still white-knuckling the steering wheel. Someone put a huge dose of terror into this woman, and I want to strangle whoever made her react this way to what’s probably just a flat tire. “Thora, I wouldn’t expect you to pay to fix my car, okay? Let’s go see what happened?”
She blinks, like she’s trying to hold back tears, and I see her throat working as she swallows. “You’re not mad?”
“I am not mad. Not even a little bit.” And it’s true. I’m enjoying myself with her a hell of a lot more than I enjoyed that session of PT, where I learned just how little I’m able to do with my right leg and how the fuck long it will be until I can wear a shoe, let alone walk…let alone run.
Thora whispers, “You’re not mad,” like it’s her new mantra, and I watch her puff out a long, relieved breath before she claps her hands and transforms into a different person—the Thora I’m more familiar with. “Okay, so where’s your jack and tire iron?”
She hops out of the car and walks around back before I can maneuver myself out, clinging to the door for balance as I work to keep my bad foot off the pavement. The front passenger tire seems to have exploded, which reminds me that I was supposed to get new tires this spring but kept putting it off because of football practice, and then, well, I thought the car wouldn’t be going anywhere. “Shit, Thora, this is my fault. I was supposed to get these babies changed months ago.”
Thora squats on the ground near the back seat, grunting as she lifts part of the floor, which I didn’t realize was removable. She pulls out the tire iron, dropping it to the ground with a clang. I scratch my chin and reach for my knee roller in the back seat right before Thora flips it up and extracts a jack from beneath it. “How do you know where all this shit is in my car?”
She shrugs. “My uncle works on cars.” She starts walking around to the back and flipping open the cover to the spare tire. “Well,” she adds. “He probably runs a chop shop.”
I flinch. “So, you know how to change a tire, but you were freaking out about doing it?” Cars whiz past us on the bridge, and Thora seems not to notice. She starts lining things up by the passenger side of the car.
“Um,” she mutters, “Poor people don’t usually drive reliable cars. I know my way around a donut.” I notice she doesn’t say anything about the freaking out part.
I stare as she works. “At my house, my dad always deals with spare tires.” I’m not even sure if we’ve ever had a flat before, come to think of it, but Thora’s mention of not having a lot of money makes sense since I’m pretty certain my parents have always kept up with car maintenance until my dumb ass came along.
“Yes, well, some of us have dads in and out of jail rather than keeping up with inspections.” Thora frowns. “I’m not going to be strong enough to loosen the nuts, even if I jump on the tire iron.”
“You’re not jumping on the tire iron on the Birmingham bridge, Thora.” I frown at the situation. Not only can I not play the sport I’ve spent my entire life dominating, but I also can’t even change a fucking tire with my—what is Thora exactly? Anyway, with a woman in the car.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Stag.” She starts to stomp on the wrench, but it doesn’t move. She can’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, and I know she’s strong because she hauled the tire over here, but she’s not “D1 football player strong.” And neither am I—not anymore.
I stare down at my useless foot, resting on a wheeled assistive device. I’m about to pull out my phone and call my parents when Thora says, “I think what we need to do is balance your knee on my leg since I won’t roll away, and then you stomp the lever with your good foot.”
I blink at her. The idea is fucking weird, and the physics of it sounds wild, but I’d rather give it a try than have to call my mom to come get me when I’m out with a woman I want to see naked. “Hmm,” I grumble.
Thora kneels on the ground like she’s about to propose and pats her thigh. “Put the boot-knee here. You can hold onto the roof since you’re a thousand feet tall.” She’s right about all of it, and when I finally get myself lined up and take an experimental stomp on the tire iron, we both hoot in celebration as the nut loosens with a screech. “I can’t believe that worked.” She grins, bending to move the tools to the next nut on the tire.
We work our way around, me grunting with effort and nearly falling, her stoically bearing the pressure of my awkward body, and then I stand by like an asshole while she jacks up my car and changes the rest of the tire. I snap a picture of her with my phone since she looks hot as fuck, with her face streaked with dirt as she tightens a lug nut on a six-figure car.
Which she shouldn’t have to do when she’s out with me. I realize she wouldn’t even be here with me right now if I weren’t broken, and I slide my phone back in my shorts pocket without looking at the pic.
A slamming sound shakes me out of my drama, and Thora walks back toward me, wiping her hands on her jeans. “I think I got it on there. Do you want to check the tire before I put the tools back?”
I grimace. “Why would I want to check?”
Her face tightens, and I can tell that she is not only used to people yelling at her, but she also somehow doesn’t have confidence that her work is suitable, which means someone probably spent a lot of years screaming at her that she’s not good enough.
What’s my mom always saying about emotional regulation? Thora clearly didn’t grow up with a lot of it around. “Right,” she says, tipping her head toward the driver’s side. “Well, let’s get back in, I guess.”
It takes just a few snaps and thumps for Thora to get the car put back together while I climb inside, fishing around the console for hand sanitizer and napkins. I present these to her, and she smiles like I just got her roses, so I decide I should definitely do that later to thank her for putting my car back in working order. “That was incredible,” I tell her, turning in my seat and draping an arm behind hers. “You were amazing, you know that?”
She shakes her head. “I was a mess.” I swallow a retort because now doesn’t seem like the time to dive into her trauma.
“Hey, will you let me buy your outfit or whatever? I owe you big time for changing the tire.”
She puffs out a laugh. “You owe me? I probably drove over a piece of glass or something stupid.”
“Don’t talk that way.” I let my voice get stern and realize that’s probably not the best way to talk to someone who is obviously upset. “I told you,” I say with much more intentional calm. “I was supposed to get new tires, but I kept putting them off, and then I got hurt. This is on me. And no offense, but you’d have to have driven over a long stretch of razor wire to blow performance tires, baby.”
“Hey.” She snaps her eyes to me as she turns over the engine. “Do not call me baby. I know I’m small, but I am not diminutive.”
No, you’re fucking not, I think, but what I say is, “Don’t pout like one, and I won’t call it as I see it, Janssen.” She seems to be sliding back into her usual self.
She snorts and turns off the four-ways, easing back onto the bridge toward Oakland. “Oh,” she looks at me. “Where should we go? I guess we have to find a tire place?”
“The Mercedes place is on Baum. Weren’t you going to some store on Liberty Ave? We can just do your errand first and drop the car after. I assume you won’t go over—what’s the speed limit for the spare tire?”
Thora pats my leg. “Now, who’s a baby? We’ll drive the speed limit and be just fine. But are you sure you don’t want to go right to the dealer? I don’t want you?—”
“We are running your errand, and that’s final,” I bark. She nods and heads toward the Bloomfield Bridge. If I squint, I can probably find her house from up here, and I consider rolling up there with my brothers and cousins to scream in her father’s face and see how he likes it. Between her mentioning prison and her obvious fear that I was going to berate her for a normal flat tire, he seems like he’s probably a real piece of shit.
But my time is better spent building Thora up than worrying about someone who is not worth that kind of effort, especially since I can’t physically intimidate anyone at the moment.
“I’m buying you an outfit,” I say again, impressed as Thora parallel parks along Liberty near a row of shops. I point to a fancy clothing store I’ve heard my mom mention. “Let’s go find you something in there.”
She huffs at me, and I ignore her, rolling up to the boutique…where I discover I can’t even get in the fucking store because it’s got stairs outside.
“Hey,” Thora places a warm hand on my arm. “You don’t have to buy me anything, Odin. And I’m pretty sure the thrift store has an accessible ramp.”
I flip the bird at the bullshit shop and scowl when a store worker sees me, eyes wide through the window. Whatever.
“I better fit inside the dressing room with you,” I mutter to Thora, who laughs and shakes her head. We walk a block to the thrift store that does indeed have a ramp to enter.
“You wish, Stag.” But her cheeks flush as she pushes open the door to the crowded shop, waiting for me to wheel inside with her.