Chapter 3 #2
Despite spending an entire day feeling like I belonged, it’s times like this that remind me more often than not, people you can depend on are hard to come by.
If I think about it too long, it fills me with a sadness I can’t quite describe.
But sad is not a word I like to associate with myself.
So I push past it. Regardless of how dark the night, there’s always morning, right?
My eyes dart back to the shadowy figure. I prop open my door and yell to him, “You can go! They’re on their way.”
His wry chuckle echoes across the lot. “Good. I’ll wait with you.”
Now I can’t help but laugh. “Thanks, but really, it’s okay. I don’t want to keep you from your plans.”
“What plans?”
Ugh. Wrong excuse. “Whatever your plans are.”
“You’re in luck. I don’t have any.”
I groan at his resistance to leave me here, remembering all the times my family told me I wasn’t built for the city.
That I was too sweet, too naive. That it would chew me up and spit me out like I was nothing more than Dubble Bubble.
Glancing around my car, I wonder what my mom and sister would say if they could see me crammed in among almost everything I own.
Except for Dollyboy, my cat, but that’s only because I spent my last chunk of money to board him while I wrapped up tryouts today.
It's weird how bad things and good things can all live together on the same timeline. My day has simultaneously sucked and been the best one I’ve had yet.
He clears his throat. “I should have led with this, but I’m Ty Brewster.”
“I know,” I say after a long pause.
His brow arches as he steps into a beam of light, and though I think he’s waiting for me to share who I am, I don’t. Ty is quiet for a few beats. “I didn’t know if you recognized me with my shirt on.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my cheeks heating.
“Bad joke?” he asks.
I press my forehead into the steering wheel before raising it again. “How about we pretend that didn’t happen?”
He lifts his chin in my direction, eyeing me, but doesn’t say a word.
“Why are you so stuck on waiting around with a stranger anyway? How do I know you’re not some kind of psycho?” I ask, hoping he’s as eager as I am to move past the bathroom incident—as it shall be called from this moment forward.
“You don’t, I guess.”
“Exactly.” I slam my door shut.
Not a minute later, he’s looming outside my window again, his face close to the glass. “You realize over the past month there’s been five vehicle break-ins in this lot and a mugging three blocks away, right?”
I clear my throat. “I did not.”
“You just move here or what?” He crosses his arms, stepping back.
My stomach drops. It’s something I’m still sensitive about.
I wonder if my small-town roots have betrayed me.
What is it about me that seems to be a walking sign that says: “I don’t belong here.
I was raised in a town of 5,000 people.” Even after all these years of living in Vista City, apparently, I still stick out.
But I don’t say any of that. I keep it to myself because what good would it do? “No.”
He examines me, eyes dipping to my blackened phone screen before finding my face again. “You didn’t call anyone, did you?”
I shake my head, accepting defeat.
“Why not?”
I tense up, ashamed to say the words aloud. “No one to call.”
He sighs, turns away, and disappears into the shadows again.
Seconds later, the blink of headlights illuminates the night, and an engine revs.
I watch as he pulls some fancy red SUV around to face my dumpster of a car.
He parks and strides around to his trunk, popping it open and returning with some cords.
“Pop your hood,” he commands.
For a split second I resist, but when he straightens up and stares at me through the windshield, it’s like I’ve misbehaved in class or something.
I pull the hood lever. Suddenly, I’m out of the car and standing next to him, watching as he clips the wires into place, connecting our two very different vehicles to one another.
“You never told me your name,” he says as his hands fiddle under the hood.
“You’re right.”
He laughs, but I’m really not trying to be funny.
I’m trying to decide if I should tell him.
If I don’t, can I pretend like none of this ever happened?
Like I didn’t immediately break my contract after signing it because I was desperate in a parking lot.
Like I hadn’t been sprayed with toilet water that ultimately drove me into his warm, muscular—bare—chest. My eyes trail down his forearms to where his strong hands work, the headlights washing out everything but the thick lines of his tattoos.
I know quite a few girls who would kill to be in this position, and I wish they were.
I wish it weren’t me. I wish I weren’t currently questioning if this counts as fraternizing. I wish I had a better car.
I wish, I wish, I wish. Snap out of it, Avery. Stop wishing everything away when you should be nothing but grateful! Smile. Be happy. Know that even when it’s bad, it’s a blessing.
“Thanks for stopping,” I say, attempting to channel every doubt into something positive.
“You’re welcome.” His lips press into an unreadable, flat line. One that tells me he’s finished speaking. An uncontrollable urge to part it arises within me. I want to hear him say that it’s okay or something.
“Why are you still here anyway? I thought you guys were off today,” I ask, pressing for him to keep on going, unable to stand the silence.
He wipes a dirty hand on the side of his pant leg before digging in his pocket and brandishing a thick, gold watch. It looks expensive. “We had a fan meet and greet thing earlier, and I forgot my watch in my locker.”
“Why’d you wear it if you were just gonna take it off?”
He glances over his shoulder like I’ve asked the most annoying question in the world.
In his world, maybe I did. He doesn’t offer an answer.
My anxiety climbs. Did I say the wrong thing?
Why do I care what he thinks anyway? It’s not like I’ll ever see him again outside of strictly mandated Kings events.
We could never be friends because we aren’t even supposed to be fraternizing.
My tummy ties into impossible knots at the reminder.
I crane my neck to see if he’s almost done, and he glances back at me. Before he can say a word, my phone pings, and I fish it from the tiny pocket in my athletic shorts.
“Oh, Merry Chrysler,” I say under my breath, staring at my phone.
“Hm?”
“Nothing. I just…” All at once, the floodgates that are my lips open, and I spew out every single problem in my life that happens to cross my mind. “I just can’t believe I’m stuck here. With a stranger. How pitiful am I? Surrounded by an entire city of people, and not one person to call for help.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I wait for a reply, but Ty doesn’t say anything. Per usual, my subconscious takes this as an opportunity to overshare.