Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
APRIL
May grills me about the date with Chance as soon as I get home, but I’m too exhausted to do a blow-by-blow of the night’s events. Honestly, I’m not sure what happened in that library.
At first, Chance and I were arguing…
And then we were kissing…
And then he was whisking me into a transformed gazebo ripped straight out of some magical wonderland…
And then… he… threatened me?
What exactly have you set your mind to do?
You’ll see .
Those cryptic words haunted me even in my dreams.
Now I’m awake, the sun is pouring through my window and I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, totally puzzled.
Chance McLanely is a determined man. No one gets that good at a sport—at anything really—without a single-minded dedication, bordering on obsession.
As someone equally obsessed with her career, I’m well aware of the downfalls of that kind of mindset. When I encounter a problem with a car, I don’t sleep or eat until it’s solved.
I can’t imagine what Chance has up his sleeve, but I know it will be just as intense as his playing on the ice. It was hard enough resisting him before he made liking me his primary objective. I don’t know how I’ll survive this.
Suddenly, my bedroom door bursts open and May barges in. Her ponytail swishes behind her as she marches around my bed.
“April, you need to get up now !” My sister bounces to the windows and throws the curtains back.
I wince at the dangerously bright sunshine. Groggily, I demand, “Unless someone’s dead or something’s on fire, close that window and let me go back to sleep.”
“Get. Up.”
“What time is it?”’
“It’s seven thirty.”
“What? It’s so early!”
“You need to get dressed and go to the garage. Rebel’s already down there doing the intake process, but she’ll need help.”
“Why is Rebel at the garage? We don’t open until nine.”
A sheepish look crosses her face. “The thing is, I made a mistake with the schedule. Customers brought their cars at five thirty this morning?—”
Sitting straight up, I stare at May. “Did you say… customers actually brought their cars in?”
“Yes!”
“This early?”
“Mmhm!”
“This isn’t like all the other times when we got tons of new followers but no actual clients?” My fingers scrunch in my dark blue comforters. “People actually showed up?”
“Yes! Now get up! I’m serious. Rebel called me in a panic when she wasn’t getting through to you. It sounds like it’s chaos out there.”
I launch out of bed, take a quick shower and see May following me through the door.
“I can’t give you a ride to the bus stop, May. I need to go straight to the garage.”
“I know. I’m coming with you.”
I check my watch. “Don’t you have a class in twenty minutes?”
“I’ll skip it.”
“Absolutely not.” I shake my head.
“But this is partly my fault. I should at least go help.” My sister’s mournful eyes hit me right between my chest.
“You know what dad would have said. Education comes first.”
“But—”
“You’re going to be late as it is. Here.” I reach into my pocket and drop some bills into her palm. “Take a taxi. It’ll be faster than your bike.”
“At least eat something before you go.”
I gratefully accept the banana May flings at me on my way out the door.
“Have a good day!” she yells, waving at my back. “I’ll come help after my morning class.”
“Thanks!” I yell back.
On the way to the garage, I call Rebel.
She answers with a harried, “Finally! I thought my brain was going to explode.”
“Why didn’t you call May sooner?”
“I thought I could handle it. Plus, I figured you’d be tired from your date with Chance, which I’m totally getting all the details for later. If I survive till later, I mean.”
“I promise. I’ll leave nothing out.” I eye the road carefully as I remove one of my hands from the steering wheel to peel the banana.
Main Street is stirring to life. The florist’s shop, manned by Ms. Shirley and her wheel-chair bound son, Sterling, is already open. So is the bakery run by three generations of Canoughays. And as I pass by, the smell of fresh sourdough bread fills my nostrils.
“How many cars are in the shop right now?” I ask, taking a bite of the banana.
“Twelve.”
“ Twelve? ” I squawk and the banana rolls right out of my mouth and plops into my lap. I fish around my overalls for it. “You’re joking. Our garage only has the capacity for six cars, and that’s if we park three on the street.”
“I know! I managed to get three in the bay but the rest of the vehicles are still waiting outside. It’s like a parade in the road. I’ve been praying for tons of customers since the day we opened, but not all at the same time .”
“Is this really all because I wore a stupid dress last night?” I grumble.
“That and I think May forgot that we don’t actually have twenty-four hours in a day. On the form, our business hours started from twelve am to twelve pm rather than from eight o’clock to five. People started showing up at five this morning.”
“They’ve been waiting since five a.m?” I parrot.
“That’s what the one-star review on our business page says. And another customer who decided to wait until I came to open the shop said the same.”
“Excuse me, when is it my turn? ” a voice booms in the background.
Rebel answers distractedly. “Just a minute, sir!” Then with a more frantic tone, she whispers, “April, are you on your way over here?”
The truck roars as I push it even harder. “I’ll be there in ten.”
“Oh goodness. Ten minutes to forever.”
I hang up with Rebel and tear it down Main Street, glad that it’s too early for the sheriff to be about or I’d surely get a ticket.
When I arrive at the garage, I notice several cars already parked on the grass and a few out on the street. There’s also a short line of vehicles idling on the road. I count five of them before squeezing into a parking spot between two trucks.
Rebel runs out with a clipboard. She’s still wearing pink shorts and a white tank top. She must have been too busy to even change into her jumpsuit.
“What should we do?” Rebel grabs my shoulder. “We’re at capacity here. We simply can’t accept any more jobs right now.” She checks her pink-gemstone wrist watch. “It’ll be time for another few customers in the next hour. I’m drowning, April.”
“First, take a deep breath.” I inhale and exhale.
Rebel follows me. “Now what?”
“Let’s shut it down.” I twirl my hand in a circle. “We can only do what we can do.”
Her eyes double in size. “We can’t send them away!”
“Why not?”
“We’re already getting bad press because we weren’t here at five.” Rebel fumbles with her phone as if she wants to show me and then gives up halfway. “April, we don’t have a choice but to make this work. If we accepted people’s money and didn’t deliver, this will turn into a nightmare. All the effort you put in to get clients?—”
“It’s fine. We can recover.”
“Reputations don’t ‘recover’. The bad reviews will ruin us.”
I scrub my forehead and turn in a slow circle. So many cars.
Rebel studies me with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
I push out a breath. “Okay, let’s...” I massage the bridge of my nose and then an idea hits. “The lifts! Let’s put a car on the two lifts and then raise them high enough that two more cars can fit underneath.”
“That means we can fit four cars in the bays.” Rebel’s eyes brighten. “April, you genius! ” Her smile dims. “But that leaves seven more.”
“I’ll drive another three cars around back.” The backyard is where we usually park cars that won’t move for a while because the parts they need are being shipped in from a warehouse. “It’ll be tight, but I think I can make it work.”
Rebel bobs her head, the color returning to her pale cheeks. “Three can stay outside, so that leaves…”
“One.” I smile. “And if you can point out which car has the easiest problem to fix, I can get it out of the shop in about thirty minutes.”
“That sounds—” Rebel’s words are cut off by the sound of a car honking. Two more cars have joined the lineup of waiting vehicles in front of our garage.
I cringe and check my smartwatch. “It’s time already?”
“They’re early.” She groans.
“How many more is that?” I count silently in my head. Three more cars.
We do not have the space to accommodate three more vehicles either in front of, behind or beside the garage.
Rebel swallows loudly. “Uh… let’s get someone to park the cars at the mart. We can explain it to Maddy. He’s sweet on my mom and I think he’d turn a blind eye. We could even ask one of the bag boys to drive for a few extra bucks.”
“I’m not asking a bag boy to drive someone’s car from our garage to the mart. If they crash it, that won’t be good for business either. We need someone we can trust.”
“I’ll see if any one of my cousins are free,” Rebel says.
“I’ll call Bobby.”
I hurry to phone Bobby, but he doesn’t answer.
Rebel returns to me, her mouth twisted in a frown.
“No luck?” I ask.
“The bag boys are looking like a great option.”
“We can’t, Rebel.”
“Then who do we call? We don’t have a lot of options.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I’ll handle that part. You can get started on the forklift.”
She runs to park the cars.
My heart starts pounding as I lift my phone. Despite being under immense pressure, I take two seconds before I dial his number.
Chance answers as if he’d been waiting for my call. “Hello?”
I say nothing.
“Tink?” Chance’s voice is full of amusement, but it quickly spirals into panic the longer I stay silent. “April?”
“I… need your help.”
Without a beat of hesitation, without a single question, Chance answers, “I’ll be right there.”