Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
RILEY
“Do you want something other than ice cream?”
I’m about to answer Nat.
But then he takes his giant, tree-trunk of an arm and holds the back of my head rest while he reverses.
I used to think driving like this was lame.
Turns out, Nathan Campbell is the exception to that rule.
With his hand so close, I can’t help but notice the veins running up his arm. The shirt he’s wearing is soft cotton and it drapes over his chest like a princely robe. He has some kind of woven bracelet on his wrist. Who gave that to him? A woman?
None of your business, Riley.
I swallow hard.
His thumb is a millimeter away from my nose. The bruise on it looks fresh. Did he get hurt during training today?
I shouldn’t worry.
I shouldn’t care.
But I do.
My teeth saw into my bottom lip as I stare at the bruise.
Nathan waves in my face. “Riley?”
“What?” I startle.
“You with me?”
I blink and repeat, “What?”
I sound like an idiot.
This is what I was afraid of. I thought I could be tough and firm around Nat, the way I am around the guys in my trade. And, for a brief moment, I succeeded. This morning, I felt empowered to push him completely out of my life.
But then he showed up after that awful encounter with the angry customer.
He was Nat. My Nat. A big, charming, goofy, good-natured teddybear who makes everything in the world seem bright and golden.
I lost all the ground I gained this morning.
“Are you still bothered by what happened earlier?” Nat asks, a grim expression on his face. “With the crazy old man in the car?”
My eyelashes flutter. “No.”
And I genuinely mean that.
Just a few minutes in Nat’s presence and the ‘sky is falling’ feeling I had after the customer cursed me out totally evaporated.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you comfy? Do you need me to turn up the AC?”
I shake my head. “No.”
Oh my goodness. Why can’t I speak in more than one-word sentences anymore?
I turn to the window and remind myself that I’m a grown woman who can control herself.
Just because I used to like Nat doesn’t mean I have to go galivanting down the road of being obsessed with him.
As an adult, I can acknowledge that I have a soft spot for someone and not let it go further than that.
Nat sees me gazing out the window and says, “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.” One word answer again. “Just… about everything that happened today.”
“Put all the bad thoughts out of your mind. Pretend that customer never existed.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
I massage the bridge of my nose. “Because what happened today is a symptom of a bigger problem. A me problem.”
“How is that guy yelling at you a you problem?”
“He was rude, but he kind of had a point. I over-analyzed his car and stuck him with a huge estimate when all he came in for was one problem. Of course he thought I was a scammer.”
“I know you, Riles,” Nat says confidently. “You’re not a scammer. Even though I have no clue about fixing cars, I know one thing. It wasn’t easy graduating from airplane-fixing school…”
“It’s ‘AMT’ school.”
“… you know what I mean.” He shakes his head. “I’m confident you were doing your job and doing it well.”
“Maybe not.” I wrap my arms around my middle.
“I accepted this job thinking that I could layer my airplane maintenance training on top of auto-mechanics. Since planes are so much more complicated than cars, I thought it would be easy. Like going from riding a bike with two wheels to riding one with training wheels.”
“It’s just the beginning. You can’t beat yourself up before the game’s even begun.”
“The game already started, Nat. The first round is over.”
“It was one customer. There will be others.”
“It’s not just that. I was cocky.” My chest heaves with a deep, soul-stirring sigh.
“I thought I knew everything, or at least, like I had to appear like I know everything. But it turns out, for a vehicle that doesn’t lift off the ground, cars can still be complicated and customers…
” I blow out a breath. “It was so much easier when all I had to do was report to the lead technician after a repair or maintenance check.”
“If you love repairing planes so much, why did you switch to fixing cars?” Nat asks curiously.
My gaze slides down to my hands. The dirt that I never managed to scrub out of my fingernails stares back at me. Curling my fingers inward, I hide them against my tank top.
“I just… wanted a change of pace.”
Nat shoots me a quick look and I can tell he doesn’t buy it.
I tack on. “But auto mechanics is its own beast. Forget riding with two wheels. It’s only after I crashed that I realized I had training wheels on the entire time.”
“I get it, Riles. I know a thing or two about crashing.”
My eyes linger on him, and I notice that the smile is missing from his handsome face. But when Nat sees me looking, the biggest, most plastic-looking grin I’ve ever seen replaces the frown.
“I’m not talking about the accident.” He laughs, but it’s wooden and shallow and sounds nothing like the laughter we shared in the garage. “I had a little scuffle on the ice at training.”
My eyes bug. That explains the bruise on his finger. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it was fine. I didn’t get badly hurt.” He barks out another tight laugh. “But everyone else acted like I was gushing blood from an open wound.”
My eyes slide to his leg. It’s covered up beneath his sweatpants, but I can imagine the scars his road to recovery imprinted on him.
“That must have sucked,” I say softly.
Nat jolts as if he didn’t expect me to say that. “It was fine. It gave me a chance to… to see what everyone’s thinking.”
His tone is nonchalant, but I notice him adjusting his fingers on the steering wheel as his eyes dart back and forth.
Jimmy’s predictions about Nat’s future wiggles through my brain. Maybe the accident really is affecting his ability to return to hockey.
“Do you want me to beat them up?” I ask.
“Who?”
“All the people who are underestimating you.”
Nat’s head swings to me, his eyes wide. This time, when he laughs, it seems more genuine. “What?”
“You can beat up my problematic customers and I’ll beat up your haters. It can be mutually beneficial.”
Nat’s eyes slide over my body, and I feel a tingle of warmth. “You don’t look like you can do much damage.”
“You’d be surprised how many dangerous tools are in a mechanic shop.”
Nat covers his mouth in an exaggerated show of horror. “I never knew you were so violent.”
“You’re the one who started it.”
He drops his hand back to the gear shift. “When?”
“You wanted to go after my customer earlier,” I point out. “You asked for his phone number and address.”
“That…” Nat’s mouth opens and then shuts. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Yeah right.” I hunker lower in my seat. “The threat was insinuated.”
“Violence is never the answer,” he lectures.
“Says the guy who spent his entire senior year in the sin bin.”
A flush spreads on Nat’s face and he shakes his head. “You are something else, Riley Carter.”
He pulls the car into the parking lot of the ice cream shop but, instead of getting out, he looks across at me with an amused expression.
“What are you going to do now? Are you going back to being an airplane mechanic?”
I can’t, no matter how much I want to.
Rather than expose that bag of worms, I turn the question back on him. “Are you going to give up hockey?”
He inhales deeply, scrubbing his chin as he considers. “It would be easier to just give up, wouldn’t it?” Nat’s voice gets a quiet, thoughtful quality. “It would be easy, but it would also be the hardest thing in the world to do.”
“Then don’t,” I challenge.
His green eyes flick to me. “Back at yah.”
I smile.
Nat extends his fist. “Let’s make a pact.”
I glance at his fist and then at him.
His lips curl up in a boyishly-handsome grin. “No matter how hard it gets and no matter what we face, I won’t give up on hockey and you won’t give up on fixing airplanes.” He pauses. “And also, you won’t murder anyone in your auto shop.”
I chuckle and shake my head.
“Come on.” Nat wiggles his fist from side to side.
My eyes land on his knuckles. Is it just me or are his knuckles kind of… hot?
Hot knuckles?
I must be losing my mind.
Turning away, I reach for the door. “Are you planning on sitting here all night? I was promised ice cream.”
Before I can open the door, I feel a presence hovering over me. It’s Nat, reaching across the console. His hands cup mine. With the gentlest touch, he closes my fingers until they form a fist and then he guides my knuckles against his.
“It’s a deal,” he says softly.
My eyes drop to where his hand is supporting my wrist and, for a brief moment, I feel his thumb brush my skin.
My heart flutters.
But then Nat drops my hand and ruffles my hair like he did when I was younger.
And I come back to my senses.
There will never be a day when Nathan Campbell sees me as anything more than Chris’s little sister.
That’s the plain, hard truth.
Unless I plan on falling into my old, cringy patterns, I have to be okay with that.