Chapter Three
Gavin
“Son of a fucking bitch!”
I jerked up. My mouth was dry and I licked my lips, blinking at Charlie. “What’s wrong?”
“Can’t you feel that? Something happened to the tire.”
He was slowing, and I realized, yes, there was a dragging tug on the right side of the car.
As Charlie pulled onto the shoulder, I peered around.
There was nothing but darkness in any direction, aside from two lonely headlights in the distance on the other side of the road.
And the world was white, but it wasn’t salt this time. I stared at the snow. “Where are we?”
“Wyoming. Shit!” Charlie slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “Guess you don’t have gloves or anything either?”
“No. All my winter gear’s at home. I figured I’d buy some on the way.
” According to the clock, it was three-forty-seven, but I wasn’t sure if that was still on California time.
We’d apparently passed Salt Lake City and all the mountains, and were back on flat land.
At least the highway and shoulder had been plowed, and the foot of snow covering the expanse of land stretching out in every direction didn’t seem fresh.
Charlie’s shoulders hitched as he took a deep breath and pulled up his hood, zipping his hoodie right to the top. “Okay. I’m going to look.” He turned his head to check the road—still empty—and opened the door, leaving the engine running.
The blast of winter air had me shivering in point-two seconds, and I tugged my leather jacket back on before joining him. The bitter wind rasped my ears, and I shoved my hands in my pockets as I leaned over the front tire where Charlie crouched.
“Goddamn it!” He stood and kicked the flattening tire.
My heart sank. There was no way we could drive much farther on that thing, and I didn’t remember seeing a spare in the trunk. I hurried around to double check. “No spare.” I used my phone flashlight to examine the trunk. “Not even a jack. Isn’t that stuff supposed to be in here?”
“I dunno. Never rented a car before. Fuck!”
“It’s okay. We’ll call…” I held my phone up, spinning in a circle. The dreaded words remained on the top of the screen.
No service
“We’ll have to flag someone down.” I peered along the empty highway, my teeth chattering.
“What if we can’t get it fixed?” Charlie stood by the damaged tire, staring at it. “I have to make it back.”
“We still have a few days. It’ll be fine.”
He didn’t seem to really hear me. Shaking his head, he crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself. I barely heard his whisper. “Fuck. If I don’t get there…”
Charlie screwed his eyes shut, and he looked so much younger in that moment as he trembled. I leaned closer, and in the glow of the headlights, I realized a tear had escaped the squeeze of his eyelids. My breath caught in my throat. I froze.
Charlie was crying?
I’d never seen him cry before, and I hated it. It hurt in a way I hadn’t thought possible. I was afraid to say anything, but I had to. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he croaked, shaking his head again, his eyes still shut. Before I could really think about it, I reached out. I felt the hardness of his shoulder bone through the cotton of his hoodie, and he sucked in a breath. “Don’t. Please.”
“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” He shivered violently, and I tentatively rubbed his back, my fingers going numb in the icy bite of the wind. “We’ll get it fixed. You must have driven over something back there, and—”
Charlie spun out of my reach, swiping at his eyes with choppy movements. “So it’s my fault? I didn’t see anything! How am I supposed to see out here?”
I blinked and stepped back. It was like a switch had been flicked and Charlie had slammed a door on his feelings. I hated to see it just as much as the tears. “Of course it’s not your fault. I didn’t say that.”
“But you meant it.” He tugged his phone from his pocket and tapped it on.
I clenched my jaw. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. I was just saying that something must have punctured the tire. It would have happened the same if I’d been driving. Don’t put words in my mouth. Relax. We’ll figure it out.”
His harsh laugh cut through me like the whipping wind. “Relax? We’re in the middle of nowhere with no cell service.”
“We’ll flag someone down eventually.”
“And what? Think they’ll give us a spare tire?” He jabbed his phone again, shaking his head. “I should have known this would be a disaster. Because of course it is. It involves you.”
I crossed my arms tightly. “Oh, so it’s my fault now?” Apparently the cold had frozen my brain and I’d forgotten what a jerk he could be. Why should I feel sorry for him? Hardening myself, I concentrated on the old resentment bubbling up. “What are you going to do? Punch me again?”
Charlie’s head snapped up, his eyes glittering furiously. “Maybe I will. I’m sure Candace will kiss it all better.”
Our breath huffed out in angry clouds in the frigid air. “Don’t talk about her. I don’t know what she ever did to you—”
“Are you serious right now?” Incredulous, he stared at me. “You know exactly what she did. What you did.”
I shook my head. “None of it was her fault. I know… I know it was crappy how things went down back in ninth grade, but it’s no excuse for treating her like that.
And I fucked up, but that doesn’t give you the right to break my nose!
You’re just lucky I told my parents I got hit with a lacrosse stick.
I could have had you arrested for that sucker punch. ”
He pressed his lips together in a thin line. “You shouldn’t have done me any favors, Saint Gavin.”
“Don’t call me that!” Exhaust fumes from the car blew around my knees, and I wanted to scream. “I know I’ve made mistakes, but that day in the pizza place I never even said a word to you.”
“You laughed!” His words rang out sharply.
“So? You dropped your slice and spilled your soda all over the floor. Everyone laughed! It was no big deal!”
“Everyone wasn’t the first guy I ever kissed! Everyone didn’t break my fucking heart.”
Standing there by the side of the deserted road with dawn and home feeling like a lifetime away, we stared at each other, our chests heaving and fists clenched. Regret collided with a burst of sticky shame, and I wished so much that I could go back and be brave.
Charlie hunched his shoulders, his head dropping. I could barely hear him now. “There you were with your perfect girlfriend and all your popular friends, and you hadn’t even looked at me in years. But you were looking at me then. Laughing at me.”
My anger was lost in the wind, carried away across the vast emptiness surrounding us. I shivered. “I didn’t mean…” I shook my head. “Charlie…”
He was already circling the car and climbing in. I got in the passenger side, glad of the warmth if nothing else. We both held our hands to the air vents as I tried to find the right words.
“You’re right. It was a dick thing to do. It was. I’m sorry. If I could take it back, I would. But please don’t blame Candace. I know you hate me, but she never did anything wrong. She never…she doesn’t know about us, Charlie. I never told her.”
The rush of the hot air blasting from the vents was the only sound aside from our shallow breathing.
After a few heartbeats, Charlie spoke quietly, his gaze on the steering wheel.
“I shouldn’t have hit you or said those epically shitty things to her.
I know that. I’m sorry I did it. I owe her an apology.
I wanted to tell her a bunch of times, but I let myself be bitter instead.
It was easier to just hate the world than deal. ”
“Yeah.” The words grated out of my throat. “I know something about being afraid to deal.”
His voice was barely a whisper. “You shouldn’t have dumped me like that.
You didn’t know anyone when you moved to Norwalk, and I was your friend.
But then you got in with Candace and the popular kids, and overnight I was nothing to you.
I know you’re not…even if you didn’t like me the same way, you were still my friend.
” He took a shaky breath. “You were the best friend I ever had. No one got me the way you did.”
My throat was too tight to say anything, and blood rushed in my ears. I reached out, my fingers grazing his by the vent, the hot air giving me pins and needles. “Charlie, I…”
A honk made us both jump, and I jerked my hand back.
Red taillights appeared as a pickup truck passed by and then backed up on the shoulder.
All the things I needed to say were breaking loose, but Charlie was already out of the car again, jogging over to the truck before I could form a sentence. I followed.
“You boys need a hand?” An older man climbed out of the cab.
“We’ve got a flat. Don’t suppose you have a spare?” Charlie asked. “We’d call triple-A, but there’s no signal.”
The man whistled. “Oh, you’d be waiting an awful long time for them to show up, even if you could call.
” He squinted at the Jetta. “I’ve got a spare, but it’d be too big.
I have a hitch on the back, so I can tow you a ways down the track to Little America.
There’s a garage there that should be able to fix you up come morning. ”
“Little America?” I asked.
“Yep. It’s named after the hotel. Old Earl Holding built the first one out here in the middle of nowhere decades ago.
Now there are about seventy of us who live around the hotel.
It’s a bit of an oasis for travelers like yourselves.
We were the world’s biggest gas station for a while—fifty-five pumps.
But now there’s a Buc-ee’s down in Texas with sixty.
” He chuckled. “There’s talk we might go to sixty-one, just for the hell of it.
All right, let’s get you hitched up. Oh, and I’m Bill. ”