Chapter Nine
Molly
My alarm goes off at six-thirty, but I’m already awake, sprawled on my side in the narrow slice of bed that never seems to fit my whole body at once, mind running its usual pre-test suicide drill.
The thing about tests — real tests, the kind that decide whether you make it another semester or get sucked back to square zero — they don’t just keep you up late, they colonize your dreams. I’d spent the night drifting in and out of a nightmare where I opened the scantron and the bubbles were filled with gnashing teeth instead of numbers.
I roll out of bed, feet hitting the floor hard, and the ache in my shoulders reminds me I worked yesterday in addition to studying until my eyes felt ready to fall out of their sockets.
The cafe I studied in was peaceful, sure, even with Evan sitting across from me, acting like the world’s most distracting and stupidly handsome study guide, but before that, the Noble Fir was loud, the Devils were louder, and I’m pretty sure Mayhem tried to tip me with a scratch-off lottery ticket and a cigarette lighter shaped like a mermaid.
Accounting test at eight. In-person at the Ironwood Falls Community College. No makeup, no patience, no mercy.
I drag my ass into the bathroom and force my hair into a messy bun, splash cold water on my face, and stare at myself in the mirror like I’m trying to intimidate my reflection.
“Don’t screw this up,” I tell her.
She looks tired. Determined. Mean enough to survive.
Good.
I yank on jeans, a clean shirt, and my battered hoodie. Shove my notebook and pencil case into my backpack. Keys, wallet, phone—check, check, check. I snatch an energy bar off the counter, take one bite, decide my stomach hates me, and toss it back.
I check the clock. 7:18. I’ve got forty-two minutes to make it across town to the community college, find parking, and maybe hyperventilate in a bathroom stall before the test starts at eight sharp.
The professor is a fossil who considers punctuality a moral imperative and once locked a girl out for being fifteen seconds late.
I shoulder my pack, stomp down the stairs in boots that weren’t designed for running but might as well get used to it, and blow past the building’s “quiet hours” sign.
The hallway smells like old carpet and someone’s attempt at cinnamon air freshener.
It’s too quiet. The kind of silence that makes you wonder if you’ve missed the rapture and everyone else has already checked out.
The parking lot is wet from last night’s drizzle; the air cold enough to bite. My truck sits where it always sits — big, dependable, mine.
I hit the key fob. The lights blink.
“Come on,” I mutter, and jog across the lot, nearly slipping on the slick blacktop. Every second is a countdown.
I climb in. The seat’s damp; the windows are streaked with condensation and the ghosts of old band stickers. I shove the key in and twist.
Nothing.
Not even a sad little whine. Just… dead silence.
I blink, then try again — harder this time, as if the truck might sense my urgency and rise to meet it.
The dashboard flickers. The radio coughs, then dies. But the engine doesn’t even try to turn over.
“No,” I say, as if I can will it into existence. “No. Not today, you piece of —”
I catch myself, because I refuse to insult my truck — even though it is pissing me off right now — by calling it an undignified name.
I twist the key again. The starter clicks once, then nothing. The silence is a vacuum, sucking all the air out of the cab.
I turn it again. The starter clicks once — lazy, pathetic — and then nothing.
I sit back, hands gripping the wheel so tight that the cracked vinyl digs into my palms. I try that thing where you breathe through your nose and count to ten, but I make it to two before my brain launches into a full mental spiral.
“Are you kidding me?” I hiss, and the sound fogs the air in front of my face. I turn the key again. “Turn over, you stubborn piece of—”
Nothing.
My throat burns. My brain flips through options like it’s shuffling a deck of worst-case scenarios.
Call a cab? Not in Ironwood Falls, not this early, not reliably.
Call the building manager? The cheap bastard would tell me to “put in a request” and then vanish like a roach.
Call one of the Devils? Half of them are asleep, and the other half will show up like it’s a hostage situation and take ten minutes to argue about who gets to drive me.
And I don’t have ten minutes.
I slam my palm against the steering wheel. Once. Twice.
“Okay,” I snap to myself. “Okay. Think.”
I shove the door open and hop out. My breath comes out sharp.
I pop the hood, because that’s what you do when you’re out of ideas but not hope.
I hop out, boots splashing in a puddle, and prop it open.
The engine looks the way it always does: ancient, greasy, uncaring.
I jiggle the battery cables, which must be what Dad did whenever he fixed it, and stare at the block like I’ll suddenly remember enough mechanical knowledge to Frankenstein this truck back from the dead.
A door slams somewhere behind me. A dog barks. The world goes on, not even noticing that I’m on the brink of total annihilation.
I check my phone. 7:31.
My test starts at eight.
I can’t be late. If I miss this test… My stomach twists so hard it feels like I swallowed a fist. I slam the hood down and pivot, scanning the lot like I’m looking for a miracle.
And there it is, inconspicuous as a ghost: Evan’s car. Parked three spaces away like it’s always been there, silent, beige, and entirely unremarkable. I’d seen it last night, but it hadn’t registered through the fog of exhaustion. Now it looks like a lifeline and a trap at once.
He’s home.
My chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with the truck.
Because asking for help is one thing.
Asking him is another.
Evan Wilder — quiet eyes, calm voice, that irritatingly composed body like he doesn’t know what stress is. The same man whose mouth tasted like trouble in a way I’m trying to forget, and every time I think about it to remind myself to forget, I end up replaying every damn second of that kiss.
The same man I told myself I don’t have time for.
The same man my brain insists is “normal,” which is somehow worse than dangerous.
I stare at his car as if it can answer me. Like that boring beige hood will pop open and the car will babble at me like it’s some character in a kid’s TV show and give me an answer about how to get to class without bothering the hot guy next door.
My phone buzzes — an automated reminder for my exam time and location.
Like I could forget.
I squeeze my eyes shut, inhale, and exhale.
“Failure costs more,” I say to myself, and it comes out like a growl.
I lock my truck, because of course I do — because control is the one thing I can still pretend I have — and march back into the building.
The hallway seems longer than it did five minutes ago.
My boots echo with each step and I feel like I’m in my own funeral march.
My nerves buzz beneath my skin. I pass my door and keep going because my pride is already dead in the parking lot.
I stop in front of Evan’s door and lift my hand.
Then I hesitate.
Because this is the part where my brain offers me a dozen ridiculous alternatives; maybe I can drive the truck with sheer willpower; maybe I can bribe the professor and he’ll let me take the test next semester; maybe I can fake my death and move to Canada.
I knock anyway.
Once. Twice. Hard enough that my knuckles sting.
Silence.
I knock again, sharper. “Evan!”
Footsteps. A pause. Then the sound of a lock turning.
The door swings open.
And my brain empties as if someone pulled the plug.
He’s shirtless.
Shirtless, wearing only checkered boxers slung low on his hips. Hair messy, as if he dragged his hand through it in his sleep. There’s a sleepy crease on his cheek like he was face-down on a pillow two seconds ago.
And he is — unfairly — built like a man carved out of trouble and granite.
For a heartbeat, I forget my name. I forget my test. I forget oxygen.
Evan blinks at me, eyes scanning my face like he’s trying to figure out if I’m on fire.
“Morning,” he says, then he looks me up and down. “Molly, are you okay?”
I open my mouth and nothing comes out. Why the fuck did he have to answer the door shirtless and scramble my brain half an hour before my accounting test?
He leans a thick shoulder against the doorframe, still half-asleep, still somehow too calm. “It’s early. Did something happen?”
I stare at his chest as if it has personally offended me. Then I remember my manners and just how much I hate it when men stare at my tits, and I force my eyes up to his.
“Yeah,” I manage, and my voice sounds strangled. “Something happened.”
His brow lifts. “Okay…?”
I swallow hard and make myself speak before I lose my nerve completely.
“My truck won’t start.”
Evan shakes his head and blinks. He looks awake now, almost alert, with concern cutting through the sleep. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” I snap, because panic makes me mean. “My fucking truck won’t start and my test is in thirty minutes, and I—”
He pushes off the frame like he’s about to move, then pauses, eyes flicking down the hall. “You want me to look at it?”
I should say no. I should say I’ll figure it out later and have one of the many mechanically inclined bikers I work with fix it for me. I should say I’d rather walk barefoot across broken glass than ask him for anything.
But the clock is a knife at my throat.
So I take a breath, lift my chin, and feel my pride die somewhere inside my sternum. I’ve got no time for dignity.
“Yes, maybe later. But what I really need is a favor. Can I get a ride to school?”