Chapter 6
Chapter Six
K AYLA
Yesterday evening Marina made good on her word to give me a lift home and promised to pick me up this morning.
Today I need to deal with my Jeep, but I don’t know how to go about fixing the problem.
I don’t know how much I owe, but considering there’s been quite a few tickets I haven’t paid over a decent chunk of time, the penalties will be embarrassingly huge, and I can’t afford that. Big surprise there.
I’m just finishing my coffee when Marina’s car pulls up.
I shove my arms into my jacket as I head outside; it’s seven in the morning, and the air is frosty.
When the hell will this never-ending cold go away?
I don’t remember it ever lingering for so long—it’s like this year, it sunk its teeth into spring and won’t let go.
Yes, we’re higher up on the mountain than most, and the weather is unpredictable here, but still. The end of May should be much warmer.
I shiver as I run to Marina’s SUV and hop inside, letting out an embarrassing moan of pleasure when I hit the seat.
“Heated seats. Oh, heated seats, how much I missed you!” I cry, patting my cold thighs.
Marina arches a perfectly manicured brow. “How can you miss something you’ve never had?”
“Oh, sheesh, aren’t you a party pooper? Let me enjoy my fantasy.” She’s right, though, I’ve never had a fancy car with fancy features, and heated seats are very fancy in my book.
“Take my car until you know what to do with yours,” she offers again.
“Nah, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, sure you will. How are you planning on getting to work from here? I can’t make it up here every morning, unfortunately.
Unless you want to park your home behind mine?
” She addresses a very valid point—I could have parked my trailer behind her house and been good until I knew what to do.
It doesn’t escape me either that she called my trailer my ‘home,’ warming my prickly self this cold, early morning.
People who have actual houses rarely treat trailers as real homes, even though they are.
“That’s an option. But let’s see how much it’ll cost to get my old beast back first.”
Marina nods quietly; she’ll support me no matter what, and I love her for that. She suddenly looks around with hawk-like attention. “I feel like someone’s watching us.” Her voice is suspicious.
“Oh.” I look around and see the bushes move. “It’s probably Frank.”
She looks at me in wonder. “He’s still coming here? ”
“Of course. Why would he stop?” Despite us being like family, she could never understand my relationship with Frank.
“Why would he indeed.” She hums and puts the car into drive.
She drops me off by the DMV. A sad building that only ever has one employee working. Today, that employee sits behind the counter reading Fifty Shades of Grey . She doesn’t seem terribly thrilled to see me walk in. I guess I’m cockblocking Christian Grey.
“Hi, Doris!” I cheerfully greet the middle-aged lady with square black glasses matching the cover of the book she’s clenching in her hands. Her forehead is sweating. She must be at the good part.
“Hi, Kayla. What can I do for you?” She sets the book on the counter face-down, like she doesn’t want me to know she’s been reading smut. I’m with you there, lady—the more smut, the better, but that doesn’t mean I want everyone knowing what I’m into.
“My Jeep got towed yesterday,” I announce, trying to keep up the contented tone, despite how inaccurate it represents my state of mind.
She puckers her painted pink lips in disappointment. “Oh, they finally got it. Sorry, honey.”
“They did. Can you check how much I need to pay to get it back, please?” I force a friendly smile on my face. Even though Doris is very nice, my situation doesn’t help my mood to be less sour.
“Sure, gimme a minute.” She pulls on her collar, fanning herself. Oh yeah, Doris, you do need a minute . Mr. Grey got you there.
When she eventually gets her wits together, she takes my license and types it into the computer.
I watch her face as she scans the information, trying to figure out how screwed I am.
When her lips form an o , I start to sweat too.
That can’t be good. “Oh, honey, you need to pay $1,981.12 plus towing fees for Bobby when you take your car.” She bites her lip like it’s her fault the number is so high.
“What?” That can’t be right. Did she just say that I need to pay almost two thousand dollars? “W-why so much?”
“You haven’t paid quite… ahem… a few tickets in the last year and a half, honey. That comes with some hefty fees,” she explains apologetically, eyeing the screen.
I’m outraged. “I paid a ton of tickets!”
“You obviously had more.” She has the decency to look a little embarrassed at the system.
“Let me see!” I nearly yell.
She glances around nervously as if somebody will clock her for acting naughty—it’s only myself and her, mind you, and I’ve already seen her fantasizing about Mr. Grey—and turns the screen toward me.
Fuck! There are at least two dozen unpaid tickets, and I didn’t even know about them.
How? Some of them are for parking, while others are for weird violations that I didn’t even know I made—if I even did, which I doubt, knowing Jake.
Well, fuck that, and fuck Jake and his harassment. I’m so over this.
“Are you going to pay now, honey?” Doris asks quietly, already knowing the answer.
“No, I don’t have the money for that. Thanks, Doris.” My anger deflates—there’s nothing I can do, furious or not.
“Sure thing. I hope you get it sorted, Kayla.” Her smile is genuinely supportive.
“Thanks,” I mumble and walk outside. Yeah, not many options left for me here.
It’s either take a loan from Freya or Marina (the latter has limited funds now, so she’s out of the question even though she’d be my first pick) or move my trailer to Marina’s property.
I don’t know which one would be a less catastrophic hit to my pride.
Once outside, I pick up the phone and make the dreaded call. She picks up on the second ring, and I mumble before I lose my nerve, “Hey, Caroline. I’m afraid I have to skip this month’s payment.”
“Why?” she asks in her sour, cigarette-roughened voice.
“Car troubles—I need the money to pay it off.”
“Car, huh? What, not enough you can walk on two legs, now you need a car to drive you around too?”
I clench my jaw, biting back a snarky answer. “Yes, I need the car. I can’t get around without it.”
“Not my problem. Some people don’t have the luxury of walking around at all. We need the money, so make it happen.” Sudden silence tells me she hasn’t bothered to wait for a response before hanging up.
Oh hell. What fantasy world was I living in when I thought she’d be understanding?
She’s used that line before when I’ve needed to skip a payment.
Every single time—which isn’t often because I try my best to ‘make it happen,’ as she put it.
I long gave up on asking, but today’s situation called for trying one last time, hoping she’d grow a conscience.
And it’s not like I can blame her, because I can’t.
No matter how hard I try to hate her for draining my bank account every single month, for keeping my wings clipped, I can’t—because she’s drowning in the circumstances of the same evil actions that I am.
I’ll make it work. I always find a way to land on my feet, like a cat with nine lives… though I feel like I’m running low on those by now.
I’m slowly walking to the diner where Marina will hopefully make me the fattiest breakfast in the history of breakfast so I can eat away my sorrows when a car slows down to roll along beside me. I hear the sound of the window lowering and tense all over.
“When are you taking your shit back?” an annoying voice jeers. I choose to ignore it and keep on walking. “Did you hear me?” he squawks. “When are you taking your car back?”
How dare he even speak to me? I whip around to look at the asshole who’s made my life miserable for years and snarl at him, “What the hell do you need, Jake ?”
His megawatt smile dims a few notches. “I asked you when you plan to pick up your junker.”
“I don’t,” I snap and keep walking.
“What do you mean, you don’t?” He presses on the gas to keep up with my pace, which is close to a jog at this point. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”
“And I’m ignoring you.” I keep going, looking straight ahead.
He lets out a loud huff. “You can’t ignore me.”
“Watch me, asshole.” It didn’t come out quiet, but I didn’t mean for it to. Let him hear it.
“What did you just call me?” His voice drops an octave.
“You heard me,” I say louder so he can hear this time, since apparently his ears are filled with wax.
“I’m the officer of the law.” His voice rises to nearly a screech.
“You’re a shithead.”
“The fuck did you just say?” He slams on the brakes, making his shiny cop car visibly stutter.
I stop, turn toward him, and plant my hands on my hips. “You heard me: you’re a shithead and an asshole, you abuse your position of power, and oh—you’re a shitty fucking cop too. ”
“That’s it,” he barks, hauling himself out of the cruiser. “You’re coming to the station.”
I snort. “In your dreams.”
“Get in the car, or I’ll cuff you and put you in there by force,” his voice booms over the quiet street.
I notice a couple onlookers and know that in a few short minutes, the whole town will have heard that local trailer trash Kayla Adams was resisting arrest by the brave Officer Attleborough on the Main Street of our fine town.
“Fuck off, Jake. Last time I checked, calling someone a shithead isn’t illegal,” I point out, my voice pitched with shock and indignation at the realization that he’s serious. “I haven’t done anything to justify you arresting me.”
“Alright, then.” With that, he swiftly spins me around and snaps his pair of handcuffs over my wrists in one smooth movement. I didn’t even know he had it in him. I’d be impressed if I didn’t hate his guts.