Chapter 1 #3
“Do you want to use my phone?” I ask. I’m not even going to bother asking if he knows how to change a tire.
“Yes, thank you,” he says, but his dark eyes don’t soften with any kind of real gratitude. He takes it from me, then lets out a frustrated huff. “I don’t know his number.”
“Who?”
“My assistant, Damion.”
“I don’t know it either,” I say and shrug. “Do you want help with the tire?”
“From you?”
“Yes, from me. I’m Dolly,” I say.
He extends a hand. “Stewart.” It’s a hell of a handshake.
“I know,” I say. “You should really learn how to change a tire, Stewart.” He definitely doesn’t recognize me.
He looks away again. “Yes. Batting a thousand today,” he says.
“I just delivered your shrimp.” I gesture down the long leafy street in the direction I came from. This does not jog his memory back to the hundreds of crabcakes I’ve sold him over the years.
“Thank you?” he says.
“Let’s just—” I start. “Come on.” I am a person in service.
To my family, to a bunch of little curious minds during the school year.
To owners of weighted vests and Saturday-night Uber riders.
But changing Stewart Whitfield’s tire less than a mile from his house because his phone’s dead and he can’t reach his servants has got to be the most next-level bottom-of-the-food-chain moment imaginable.
I move my bike to the side of the road and make my way around to the back of his car, where he pops the trunk.
There is a navy-blue blanket, folded by someone in the military, and not a single spot of dust. I wait for him to pull up the floorboard, but he doesn’t move, so I do it myself.
I reach for the spare tire, factory new, and he leans in to help.
I edge a tiny bit closer so I can smell him, because I know Naomi’s going to ask.
I breathe him in. He smells like something I want to wrap myself up in.
Like leather and fresh cut grass. I take in the open collar of his shirt, the lines of his neck under tan skin.
There’s an unfamiliar current of electricity running under my chest, and I risk taking in another breath of him.
Our eyes meet and color rises to my cheeks.
Stewart Whitfield is definitely a person more safely admired from behind the fish counter.
“So how do we do this?” he asks.
For a second, I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then I remember where I am and why I’m here. “Grab the tire,” I say, straightening up and taking a cautionary step away.
He pulls out the tire and places it on the ground.
“What’s next?” And those two words snap me out of it.
This absurdly attractive man is a Whitfield.
He knows all the rules for a polo match and probably has annoying things to say about wine, but he doesn’t know how to change a tire. Classic ridiculous rich guy.
I hold up the jack and tool set and look him directly in his pretty brown eyes. “You’ve never seen a tire changed, have you?”
“Well, no. Not in person.” He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Then on YouTube?” I cock my head to the side and wait. I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired or what, but I am getting a kick out of razzing Stewart Whitfield.
“Okay, never.” He uncrosses his arms and gazes into the open car window. “Listen, I’ve had a pretty brutal day ego-wise. Having a tiny little woman change my tire is the icing on the cake.”
“I’m five-foot-five.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“You called me tiny.”
“You don’t read the Post, do you?” he asks.
“I don’t. And I’m also having a hard time following this conversation.
How ’bout I loosen the lug nuts, and you just keep on with your random thought generating?
” I sit by the flat tire and pull the lug wrench out of the tool kit.
I can feel him watching me, and I can also feel his discomfort.
This man is the heir to one of the largest real estate trusts in North America.
He’s worth more millions of dollars than I can even conceive of and recently had a heliport installed on the top of his Boston office building.
But his face tells me he’s equal parts shocked and humiliated by the way I’ve just jacked up the side of his car to remove his bum tire.
“It’s a nail,” I tell him. “Look.” He bends over to have a look at where a large construction nail has pierced the tire, and a car stops next to us.
“Stewart,” the driver calls, and we both look up just as he snaps a photo and drives away.
Stewart pops up and puts both hands on his head as he watches the car drive away. “This fucking day,” he says.
“Who was that?”
“The press? The Post? Who knows. But someone just got a photo of me standing by while a tiny woman changes my tire.”
“I am not tiny.” I stand up to show him just how huge I am, and the top of my head is level with his chin. I give him another silent sniff.
He reaches through the open car window and pulls out a copy of the New York Post, folded back to Page Six.
“I was served this with my breakfast this morning,” he says.
The headline reads Fever Pitch and there’s a photo of his beautiful chestnut-haired fiancée, Audrey Mills, with her lips on the neck of a guy in a New York Yankees uniform.
“That’s my fiancée. And the relief pitcher for the Yankees. ”
“Ouch,” I say. His expression reads more annoyed than hurt. I decide not to mention striking him out in Little League.
“Yeah, it’s really been a day.”
“So are you breaking up?” It’s the stupidest question. I feel like I’m in high school, comforting a girlfriend. “I mean, it’s none of my business.”
He takes the paper from me and tosses it back into the car. “It’s everyone’s business now.”
I sit back down and start replacing the lug nuts to secure the spare. I lower the car with the jack and then get up, wiping my hands on my shorts and then wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. And I know there’s grease on my forehead; I can feel it before I see his eyes go there.
Stewart Whitfield pulls a handkerchief out of his inside coat pocket the way a sheriff in the old West whips a gun out of his holster.
I take it and wipe my forehead and then my hands. “Thank you,” I say, and try to hand it back to him.
“Keep it,” he says. “So now what?”
“We roll this tire to the trunk. You take it to get fixed. You’re good on this spare for sixty miles, but not too fast.”
When he’s closed the trunk, he says, “Why were you delivering my shrimp?”
I laugh and gesture to my T-shirt. “I’m Dolly Brick. My dad is Freddie Brick of Brick Fish House.”
“Ah, best crabcakes in town.”
“Yep.” I am out of things to say to Stewart Whitfield, so I give a half-hearted wave and say, “Drive carefully,” and make my way back to my bike.
“Wait. How much do I owe you?” he asks.
I get on my bike. “On the house,” I say. “Hope your day turns around.” I pedal off toward town with his handkerchief in my back pocket.