4. Skylar
Chapter Four
SKYLAR
Arms akimbo, I stared up at the empty cargo container on top of my car.
I idly kicked the toe of my boot against a tire.
This was the car Emily and I had bought together and shared for several years.
I still had the registration from California with both of our names on it.
It didn’t matter that it was expired, and I had Alaska plates now.
That battered slip of paper represented a piece of our friendship.
Because of the life I’d had, I couldn’t help but wonder if someday somebody would show up and tell me I wasn’t allowed to have the car.
Growing up and bouncing around the foster care system, I was accustomed to everything getting taken away.
Nothing was ever really yours. The one thing in life that had been a stabilizing force and steady through it all was my friendship with Emily. But she was gone.
That was why I drove around with an empty cargo container on top of the car.
We had planned to fill it for our trip. Instead, I drove here alone.
It had been empty for months. I ignored the tears stinging at the backs of my eyes and gulped in a breath of air.
I opened one of the back passenger doors, standing on the inside edge to undo the latches.
A short while later, I carefully hefted the lightweight compartment off the car racks all by myself.
I laughed as I set it gently on the ground. “There you are.” I smiled down at it.
That was how bad it was. I talked to inanimate objects.
I wasn’t great at making friends. I wasn’t great at making connections, period.
That had been Emily’s role in our life. Grief washed through me, and I took a breath to steady myself.
I’d gone on this trip thinking I could somehow muster up some of her energy, that carefree quality where she had the boldness to walk up and say hi to strangers and somehow end up being friends with them. That really wasn’t me, not me at all.
I contemplated what to do with this cargo container.
Small problem: I tended to charge ahead without thinking about the next steps.
I glanced back when I heard my name to see Tucker approaching.
I silently sighed. He would probably think I was an idiot.
I was going to ask him to help me put this right back on top of my car because I had nowhere to store it.
“How’s it going?” he asked when he stopped beside me. He looked down at the empty cargo container with me. “What are you doing with that?”
“That’s a good question,” I said, casting him a rueful smile.
“What do you mean?” His lips twitched at the corners.
I felt tingly all over. Tucker didn’t smile too often.
“You helped me tighten up the latches last week, but it’s empty. I really don’t need to carry it around, so I took it off. I don’t know where to put it, though, and I can’t take it home with me because I don’t have any storage there. My apartment is small.”
Tucker looked at me, and a slow smile stretched across his face. My belly swooped.
“That is a problem. You can probably leave it in one of our hangars,” he offered.
“Really? Is that okay?”
“There’s plenty of storage. I’ll let Flynn and Nora know.”
“Are you sure?” I asked doubtfully.
“I’m positive. They won’t care.”
He reached down and lifted the container easily, somehow managing to put the whole thing on one shoulder with his hand propped up on the outer edge.
“You’re carrying that by yourself?” I squeaked.
He was already walking ahead of me. “Yep, that’s the plan, Sky,” he called over his shoulder.
I came to a dead stop, my heart stuttering and a wave of emotion hitting me so hard and fast I was grateful Tucker wasn’t looking at me. Only one other person ever called me Sky—Emily. I gave my head a shake and swallowed, shoving my emotions down inside as I hurried to catch up with him.
“Are you really sure?” I asked again as he stopped and punched in a code on the keypad by the plane hangar door.
“I’m positive. Really. You can ask them yourself. Also, if you haven’t seen Daphne lately, she wants to invite you out to the lodge for dinner.”
“Daphne?” I repeated numbly because I couldn’t absorb much of what he was saying.
“Yeah, you know, Flynn’s fiancée?”
“Oh. Really?”
Tucker was already walking through the now open bay door into the hangar as he replied, “Really.”
His voice echoed in the cavernous space.
He walked over to one side and lowered the empty cargo container to the ground.
It looked tiny in this space. When he turned back to me, he swung his arm in an arc.
“See, there’s plenty of room.” He paused, a slight smile curving his lips.
“Actually, you know what? I don’t want you to say anything to Flynn or anybody about this. ”
“Um, why?”
That worried me. I didn’t want to keep a secret.
“Because I want to see how long it takes them to notice. I bet they won’t.”
I felt my eyes go wide as I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. You wanna bet?”
“No, I do not want to bet,” I said firmly. “I’m already feeling a little weird about this.”
“Relax, Skylar. It’s not a big deal, I promise.”
“But—”
“We’re not going to argue about it. Come on.”
He turned and started walking out. His footsteps echoed in the space. Once again, I had to hurry to catch up to him. I was on the short side, another joke between Emily and me. She’d been tall and willowy to my short and not-so-willowy. In another moment, we were back outside the plane hangar.
Tucker tapped a button, and the garage bay door closed. “So you won’t say anything, right?” he prompted.
“I feel weird about it, but okay. You promise I won’t get in trouble?”
Tucker made the sign of the cross in front of his chest. “If anyone cares about the cargo container, which isn’t going to happen, I will take all the blame.”
But it’s?—”
“It’s just for fun, Skylar.”
“Okay.” I took a breath and let it out slowly as I nodded.
“Now, you’ll get better gas mileage.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those aren’t the most aerodynamic, even the ones that are designed to be somewhat aerodynamic.”
“Oh, I never thought about that.”
I just stood there after that, not sure what to say next.
“So, will you come out to the lodge?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“For dinner. Daphne would love that.”
“Um, when?”
“Tomorrow is usually our staff night.”
I hesitated. I wanted to go because I really wanted friends. But I had a teeny tiny bit of social anxiety. It’s possible that anxiety ruins my life sometimes.
Tucker cocked his head to the side. “Come on, say yes. If you say no, then Daphne will get on my case, and you’ll probably hear about it from her. Gemma too. Daphne asked me to invite you if I happened to see you. She asked all of us to, so don’t be surprised if someone else mentions it.”
I snorted a laugh. “Okay, okay, I’ll be there. How do I get there?”
He slipped his phone out of his jeans pocket. “What’s your number? I’ll text you the directions.”
I quickly recited my number, and he entered it into his phone. A second later, I felt my own phone vibrate in my pocket and slipped it out to see that he had texted, It’s Tucker .
“You can just give me the address,” I said, glancing up.
“It’s not that straightforward. There is an address, but it’s off the beaten path. I gotta run. I have a flight.”
“Oh, okay.”
“See you tomorrow,” he called as he jogged off toward a different hangar.
I realized I’d been standing there too long when he stopped and turned around, calling, “I hope someone is monitoring the transport channel.”
I laughed. “I’m at lunch!”
Shaking my head, I hopped in my car and aimed it toward Misty Mountain Café.
The parking lot was full when I pulled in.
Pocketing my keys, I jogged inside and stopped at the back of the line.
Although this place was always hopping, the line moved quickly.
Cammi, the owner, also owned Red Truck Coffee, a beloved coffee truck near the harbor.
When I got to the front of the line, she smiled warmly at me.
Cammi was pregnant with twins, which I only knew because there was a countdown written in chalk on the corner of the menu board.
Well, that, and she looked very pregnant.
Cammi was one of those people who was easy to be around.
I grinned back, offering, “I never know if I’m going to see you here or at Red Truck. ”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s guaranteed to be one or the other. What will it be for you today?”
“I’ll take a chai tea, and…” I looked up at the chalkboard menu. “How about the turkey sandwich with pesto and goat cheese? I haven’t had that one yet.”
“I love that about you,” Cammi said as she rang me up.
“What?”
“Some people find their favorite, and that’s all they ever get. I don’t think you’ve ever gotten the same thing twice when you come in.”
I shrugged. “Probably not. I like to try new things. You have specials all the time, so the menu never really runs out.”
She grinned. “It’s people like you who keep me on my toes. If the menu starts getting stale, just let me know.”
“Cammi, the menu won’t get stale. Everything you make is amazing,” I insisted because it was true.
“Thank you.” She passed my change over the counter with my chai tea.
I dropped the change in the tip jar and slipped over to the end of the counter to wait for my sandwich. While she was prepping the next order of coffees, she commented, “You’re staying above Midnight Sun Arts Gallery, right?”
I finished a swallow of my tea as I nodded. “I love it there.”
“Well, then you know Risa.”
“Of course. She’s my landlady. She’s really nice,” I added.
“She’s so nice you could probably get away with not paying rent,” Cammi teased.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Cammi quickly passed over two coffee drinks to the next set of customers, pausing to ring them up. When she returned to the espresso machine to make the next round, she added, “Sometimes Risa, me, and some other women get together in the evening. Maybe you could come.”
I didn’t even know what to do with this. Twice in a single day, other human beings invited me to do things socially with them. I stood there and blinked for a long minute before Cammi prompted, “Skylar?”
“Sure, I’d love that,” I said slowly, almost having to sound the words out in my mouth.
Emily flashed in my thoughts—my one and only close friend. If I was ever going to have another friend, even just one, I would have to actually try to get over myself.
“Great. What’s your number?” she asked.
For the second time today, I recited my phone number to someone who texted me in return to confirm.
I replied with a smiley face. I felt a little braver with Cammi than Tucker.
She didn’t send butterflies tickling through my belly and make my pulse race.
She was just a really nice, sweet person and easy to be around.
My only encounters with her had been here or at Red Truck Coffee, which she’d only recently re-opened for the spring, but I came to one or the other almost every day.
“I’ll text you the next time we schedule one, maybe sometime next week,” she said, all normal and oblivious to what a huge deal this was for me.
“Oh, okay. That’d be awesome.”
“Sweet.”
Someone called out my order just then, and Cammi snagged it from the window into the kitchen and passed it over.
“Thank you!” I called as she moved on to wait on the next customers in line.
I was smiling to myself as I walked out to my car. I’d promised myself I’d try to make another friend, maybe even more than one. The world was kind of lonely on your own. I’d taken this trip, telling myself I was doing it for Emily. I’d hoped it would give me the fresh start I craved.
I didn’t have roots anywhere. The only thing I could count on from my days in foster care was I stayed in the same town, just like Emily. That was how we stayed connected for all those years.