Chapter 16 Roadside Rescue #3
“Fuck,” he said with feeling. “Dad's going to kill me. This was supposed to be a simple grocery run. In and out, twenty minutes tops. Instead, I've managed to strand myself on the side of the road like some kind of incompetent city boy who doesn't know the first thing about cars.”
“Hey.” I caught his attention before the spiral of self-recrimination could really pick up steam. “Shit happens. Hoses burst. It's not like you drove it into a tree.”
“Yet,” he muttered, but some of the tension left his shoulders.
“Come on. I'll give you a ride back to town, we can grab whatever's on your dad's list, and I'll come back tomorrow with the parts to fix this.”
Nate blinked at me like I'd just offered to perform actual magic. “You'd do that?”
Something about his surprise made my chest tighten uncomfortably.
Like he'd genuinely expected me to drive past, to leave him stranded because helping wasn't my problem.
It made me wonder what his six years away had been like, whether the city had taught him that kindness came with a price tag attached.
“It's a radiator hose, Nate. Not rocket surgery.”
“Rocket surgery?”
“You know what I meant.”
That earned me a laugh. The sound went straight to my chest, settling into places that had been cold for longer than I cared to admit.
“Okay,” he said, grabbing a notebook and what looked like a shopping list from the passenger seat. “But I'm buying you coffee or lunch or something. Hazard pay for dealing with my automotive incompetence.”
“Deal.”
We transferred his stuff to my truck, and I tried not to notice how his scent filled the cab immediately—pine and rain and something indefinably warm that my wolf recognized on a molecular level.
Tried not to think about how right it felt to have him in my space again, even if it was just because his car had decided to stage a mechanical rebellion.
“So,” Nate said as we pulled back onto the road, “what's the verdict? Am I looking at massive repair bills that'll force me to sell a kidney?”
“Radiator hose runs about fifteen bucks. Labor's free if you don't mind me doing it in Gideon's garage instead of taking it to the official shop.”
“Free?”
“Friends help friends,” I said, the words coming out more careful than I'd intended. Because that's what we were doing, wasn't it? Figuring out how to be friends again, how to exist in the same space without the weight of history crushing us both.
“Friends,” Nate repeated, like he was testing the word. “Yeah. I'd like that.”
The simplicity of it hit me sideways. No demands, no expectations, just the acknowledgment that maybe we could build something new from the wreckage of what we'd lost. Maybe friendship was enough, even if my wolf whined softly at the limitations that word implied.
“Your dad give you a long list?” I asked, because talking about grocery shopping was safer than examining the warmth spreading through my chest.
“The usual suspects. Milk, bread, the fancy coffee Mom likes that costs twice as much as the regular stuff but apparently makes her happy enough that it's worth Dad's grumbling about the price.” He consulted his notebook.
“Oh, and something called 'good cheese' with no further specifications, which I'm pretty sure is a test designed to prove I'm still the same clueless kid who left town six years ago.”
“Good cheese is whatever Martha's pushing at the deli counter this week. She's got opinions about cheese that border on religious fervor.”
“See? This is why I need a local guide. Six years in Chicago and I've apparently forgotten how to navigate small-town social dynamics.”
“It's like riding a bike. Except the bike is made of gossip and everyone's watching to see if you crash.”
That got me another laugh, and I found myself driving just a little slower than necessary, stretching out the time before we'd have to return to being careful around each other.
Because this was easy, this casual conversation that felt like slipping into clothes that fit perfectly.
This felt like coming home to something I'd forgotten I was missing.
The grocery store was busier than usual for a weekday afternoon, full of people stocking up before the weather turned and made even short trips into town feel like expeditions. Nate grabbed a cart and consulted his list like he was planning a military operation.
“Okay, standard stuff first, then we tackle the mysterious cheese situation,” he said, and there was something endearing about the way he approached grocery shopping like a puzzle to be solved rather than a chore to be endured.
I found myself falling into step beside him, offering commentary on local preferences and steering him away from the bread that looked good but went stale in twelve hours.
It felt domestic in ways that made my chest tight, like we were just two people doing normal couple things instead of. .. whatever we actually were.
“Well, if it isn't two of my former star pupils!”
Mr. Daniels' voice carried across the produce section, and I turned to find our old English teacher approaching with a shopping basket and the same enthusiastic smile that had made Shakespeare tolerable for hormone-addled teenagers.
“Mr. Daniels,” I said, because good manners had been drilled into me since birth. “How are you?”
“Can't complain. Retirement's been treating me well—more time for fishing, less time grading essays about why Hamlet was 'totally emo.
'” His eyes twinkled as they landed on Nate.
“And look who the wind blew back to town.
Nathaniel Harrington, in the flesh. How's that photography career treating you?”
“Still working on it,” Nate said with a self-deprecating smile that didn't quite hide the wince. “Turns out the world has a lot of photographers and not quite as many people willing to pay them.”
“Ah, the artist's dilemma. Well, you always had talent. Sometimes timing is just as important as skill.” Mr. Daniels shifted his attention between us with the shrewd observation skills that had made him legendary for catching cheating students.
“You know, it's funny seeing you two together again.
I always wondered if you'd keep in touch after graduation.”
“Life got complicated,” I said, which was both true and completely inadequate.
“It has a way of doing that. But here you are, back where it all started.” Mr. Daniels' smile was knowing without being intrusive. “Sometimes the best stories are the ones that circle back to their beginning.”
Before either of us could figure out how to respond to that loaded observation, he was checking his watch and making apologetic noises about dinner plans. We escaped toward the dairy section with our faces probably red enough to power the store's lighting.
“Does everyone in this town moonlight as a fortune cookie writer?” Nate muttered once we were out of earshot.
“That's just Mr. Daniels. He thinks everything is a metaphor for something else. Occupational hazard of teaching literature for thirty years.”
“Right. And here I thought Martha was the town's designated keeper of everyone's business.”
“Oh, she is. But Mr. Daniels is more subtle about it. He prefers literary analysis to direct interrogation.”
We finished the shopping in comfortable efficiency, Nate checking items off his list with the satisfaction of someone who enjoyed completing tasks.
The mysterious good cheese turned out to be a sharp cheddar that the deli counter clerk recommended with religious fervor.
By the time we loaded everything into my truck, the sun was starting to sink toward
“Thanks,” Nate said as we pulled into his parents' driveway. “For the rescue, the local guidance, the protection from Martha's interrogation techniques. I owe you one.”
“You don't owe me anything,” I said, and meant it. “Just... maybe next time check the fluid levels before you borrow your dad's car?”
“Next time I'm walking,” he said with a grin that made my chest do stupid things. “Or investing in a really good pair of hiking boots.”
He gathered his groceries and paused with his hand on the door handle, like he was working up the courage to say something that mattered.
“I meant what I said earlier,” he said finally. “About being friends. I know things are... complicated. Between us. But I'd like to try, if you're willing.”
The honesty in his voice made my throat tight with emotions I wasn't ready to name.
Because friendship wasn't what my wolf wanted, wasn't what the human part of me craved either.
But maybe it was what we needed, at least for now.
Maybe it was a place to start rebuilding something that could survive whatever came next.
“Yeah,” I said, voice rougher than I'd intended. “I'd like that too.”
His smile was soft around the edges, warm and hopeful and exactly like the one I'd been carrying in my memory for six years.
“I'll see you tomorrow then? For the great radiator hose installation?”
“Bright and early. Try not to break anything else between now and then.”
“No promises,” he said, and climbed out of the truck with his arms full of groceries and his face bright with something that looked like happiness.
I sat in the driveway for a long moment after he disappeared into the house, my wolf content in ways he hadn't been since Nate had walked back into our lives. Because this was good, this easy warmth between us. This felt like something we could build on, something that might actually last.