Epilogue
Norah
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" I keen through clenched teeth, banging on the steering wheel. "Not now, come on!"
I twist the key, but all the damn thing does is chug—-errrrURRRRRerrrr…errrURRRerrr. It has gas, I know that much, but that's it. It won’t start.
Dead on the side of the highway…
Just like my life.
I pop the hood and get out, lift the hood and peer at the engine.
"Yup,' I say out loud. "That there sure is an engine.
" Because I’m crazy, I keep talking out loud.
"Now, Car, can you please reveal your secrets?
" I wave my hands and wiggle my fingers over the hunk of metal in a hopefully magical way, but since there are no sparks of magic, I'm not hopeful it worked.
"Fuck."
I pace away from the car, raking my hands through my hair. "If there are any white knights out there, I could really use some saving right now!" I shout this at the sky.
No dashing knights on white chargers appear out of the sky, so clearly that's not a valid solution, either.
Oh, you want a recap of my life and how I got here?
It's a short, stupid, story.
I was a promising young athlete bound for a Big Ten University on a full-ride athletic scholarship—softball and basketball. I had good grades. I had friends. I had a family who supported me.
And then I tweaked my knee my senior year, a month before basketball state finals. It should have been a nothingburger. Ice and rest, no biggie.
But it never quite healed, and we didn't have the time for a long rehab, and I was the star forward, so I played hurt. Pounded Ibuprofen. Pretended I was fine.
I ruined the knee during the game.
Cue the downward spiral. Depression. Drugs. Bad friends and worse decisions. No college, because without the scholarship, there was no college.
You've heard the story before, I'm sure.
Dead-end jobs.
Addictions I couldn't ever quite quit. Family got sick of my bullshit and stopped talking to me.
Lost my job, and the only one I could find that wasn’t me on my back was a state away, working for a distant cousin.
That job fizzled out not long after and…well… more bad choices and more hard years of drifting aimlessly across the country and through life, struggling to make ends meet. I managed to kick the addiction on my own, which is a big deal since opioids are a real bitch.
And then I got a call out of the blue from an old teammate from high school, up in Mackinaw City. Did I want to come up and work on the ferry for the summer?
Being stuck behind the counter at McDonald’s sucks ass, so yes, I did.
I'm due up there tomorrow morning or I lose the job, and this fucking car—this fucking goddamn car keeps dying on me.
I spent two days and $400 in Imlay City replacing…I don't know what. And then the battery died yesterday, and I had to walk ten miles one way to the nearest auto store, carry the damn thing back, beg tools off a random dude, and put in the new battery.
And now this.
Alternator? Starter? Solenoid? What the fuck is a solenoid? Is that a car part? I don’t know.
I look around. Where even am I, anyway? West coast of Michigan, somewhere—that’s all I know.
Beach on my left, glittering water, and squeaky-looking sand. People swimming and playing and enjoying such carefree lives, goddammit.
I'm hot. I haven't eaten anything that didn't come out of a gas station in days. I need a shower, badly.
And I've been fending off a good cry for…well…years.
And it's about to come due, that cry.
I can feel it.
I'm at my wits' end with everything. with life. With myself and my shitty decisions. With bad luck and bad people.
Fucking Donny.
Fuck you, Donny.
I check over my shoulder out of fear, but there's no way Donny knows where I am. Shit, I don't even know where I am.
There's a town on the right, low-roofed, quaint, cute. The sort of place where everything goes right for everyone, all the time, probably. Can I live there, please?
I hear a car approach from behind, but no one ever goes out of their way to help me because I clearly have some sort of cosmic sign over my head that I can’t see that everyone else can, which says, "Don't help this dumb bitch!"
I just mean I don't expect assistance.
To my surprise, the tires do crunch to a stop behind my car, and I hear feet approach.
"Car trouble, sweetheart?" The voice is masculine, deep, rough.
"Don't call me sweetheart, toots," I snap, not looking around the hood; I'm still not expecting help. He'll probably hit on me and then fuck off.
He laughs, and the sound is catchy, genuine, and not at all offended by my snark.
Challenge accepted.
"Mind if I take a look?" The voice is closer.
“Knock yourself out,” I say, and I step aside.
A big male body fills the space in front of the engine bay.
I look at him.
Oh.
Ohhh.
Wow.
He's…
Fuck. He’s gorgeous.
I stand there like a tongue-tied numbskull, staring at him.
Tall, at least six-two. Broad shoulders, a hard chest, and burly arms bulging inside a pair of gray mechanic's overalls.
He even has a dirty blue rag hanging from his back pocket.
He wears a battered, torn, faded, and stained Tigers cap backward on his head, thick glossy black hair hanging shaggy and messy under the curved brim. His jaw is shadowed with the thick stubble of a man who shaves if he feels like it, which isn’t often, but he’s not ready to commit to a beard.
Or maybe I’m guessing.
He’s hot as fuck, is what he is. Bad boy is written all over him, until he turns big slate gray eyes onto me, and they’re…kind.
Soft.
Sweet.
Concerned.
He leans into the engine bay and fiddles with this, pokes that, wiggles the other, and then just peers and scans.
"So?" I say.
He grins at me. "Well, toots," he says, and his grin widens as he teases me with the word I used, and fuck me, if I were wearing panties, they'd be melty, but I ran out of clean laundry a week ago, so I'm commando under these sweet cutoff jorts I’m rocking. "I've got good news and bad news."
I groan, covering my face with my hands and spinning away. "Fucking fuck me. You can’t just tell me you have only good news? Like you can fix it right now and have me on my way in a jiff?"
He chuckles. "Why yes, I can."
I don't let hope swell. “You're lying."
"Yes, I am. Well, sort of. Yes, I can fix it, and it shouldn't be more'n…a buck fiddy." He says it in a funny, fake drawl; clearly he means a hundred and fifty dollars.
"Is the price the bad news?" I say hopefully.
"Ahh, no. The bad news is I don't have the part on hand, and this fine ass machine—” He pats my car, a baby blue 1989 Datsun 280Z, and the only thing I own, not that there’s much, that I actually care about, “—Aint’ easy to find parts for. I mean, they don't just stock 'em up at AutoZone, y'know?"
I fight the sob I feel bubbling up in my throat. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
"Got somewhere to be?" he asks, his voice soft. “Six fucks. Means you’re not too happy."
"I'm supposed to be in Mackinaw City tomorrow morning for a job that I really, really need."
He winces. "Ah, six fucks indeed. That ain't happenin', toots. Not in this, at least."
I hiss, trying and failing to keep the sob down. "Goddammit."
"What was the job?"
"Ferry," I whisper.
He frowns, confused. "You need that job that bad?"
I just nod—I’m not getting into that. Not now, not with Stud Muffin, here.
"Well, I…" he seems at a loss. He glances down at me. "Can you do office stuff?"
I turn to look at him. "Office…stuff?"
"My receptionist just quit. Need someone to do the office…stuff."
"Like answer phones and make copies?"
A shrug. “Ehhh…ish?”
“Ish?" I ask.
"Ish,” he confirms.
"Are you…offering me a job?" I ask.
He winks at me. My stomach does not flip. Butterflies do not flutter in my belly. My nonexistent panties do not melt further. No sir.
"Yes, ma'am, I am." He frowns. "One stipulation, though."
I brace myself for the demand. Suck his dick? Ten bucks says he asks me to suck his dick.
"You gotta tell me your name."
Oh.
"Norah," I whisper. "My name is Norah."
He grimaces. "You ain't gonna cry, are you?"
I swallow hard. "Nope."
He laughs. “Keep tellin' yourself that, toots." A big thumb swipes under my eye, and things happen both in my girly parts and in my emoting parts.
The big wonder is that I don’t flinch. Why didn't I flinch? Men reach, I flinch—two plus two equals four.
Except with this guy, apparently. "Who…who are you? And why are you helping me?"
That damn grin, that damn wink. "Nyx, at your service. And I'm helping you because you need it and I can." That grin widens, becomes just a touch flirty. "And because I couldn't leave a gorgeous girl like you alone on the side of the road."
I cackle. "Gorgeous? Dude, you need glasses."
He just laughs. "Got twenty-twenty vision, toots. But if you don't like compliments, I'll save 'em, for now."
"I…I mean I don't dislike them."
He laughs again, and this time I almost laugh with him. Almost. That would be really weird if I did. “Well then, I'll try another one later." He jerks a thumb back the way he came. "C'mon. I can hear that tummy rumbling, and I've got a hell of a stew on."
"Stew?"
He eyes me. "Yes. Stew."
"It's July."
He shrugs. "I like stew." He shuts my hood, and I see his car—a giant white pickup with a bed cap and a lift kit.
Macho mobile. "C'mon. I don't bite, I promise.
I'll get my wrecker to come get your Two-Eighty, and we'll fix her up.
Get you situated." He claps me on the back like I’m his bro.
It almost knocks me over, and I'm not a small woman. "It's gonna be alright, Norah."
Weirdly, when this big dude with the weird name and the soft, sexy, humor-filled brown eyes says it…
I almost believe him.
Almost.