Chapter 16 #2
It was just…so much jolting. I couldn’t get the hang of letting off the clutch at the same rate as I accelerated.
“Is the closest chiropractor in Burlington?” I asked. “I’ll pay for your next adjustment.”
“You’re doing fine. Just try again.”
Part of me wanted to refuse. To give up and accept that I was an automatic kind of girl.
But another part of me wanted to show myself I could do this. To trust myself, like James had said.
Slowly, I started to get better. I managed to get into first gear without any jolting.
A couple minutes later, James had me accelerate, pointing out how the engine sounded and telling me to shift into second.
When I did it, I cheered like I’d just isolated the first gene instead of cruising down the road at a whipping eight miles per hour.
We were coming up on a hillier section, so James told me to flip a U-turn. There was a short regression, as this required more than one gear shift and another violent jolt.
But I got back into gear faster and smoother than ever.
James’s smile was bigger than I’d seen it since he’d gotten back to Autumn Ridge.
Mine matched—until I looked in my rearview mirror. There was a car approaching. Quickly. His 25 mph made my 8 mph look like a three-toed sloth.
“James,” I said, a hint of panic in my voice.
He turned in his seat to look behind us. “Don’t worry about him. He can go around.” He rolled down the window and motioned for the car to pass us.
It honked.
“James,” I repeated.
“It’s okay. Ignore him.”
I couldn’t, though. The car was riding my tail—and had no clue just how dangerous my tail could be when I had to shift.
“You can speed up if you want,” James said. “Shifting into third will be easier than shifting into second was. But you don’t have to. Let him figure out his own life. Just focus on you.”
Shifting into third with a car kissing my bumper felt like a whole new type of reckless driving, but not doing anything was equally unthinkable.
Maybe that was why I turned onto the street that came up on our left a few seconds later.
“Uh,” James said as the car full of teenage boys sped up and flew out of sight—a middle finger flashing by with them.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just couldn’t keep going with them riding my tail like that.” I returned my eyes to the road, and my heart skipped a few beats.
This road was not flat. It was not gently rolling like the one we’d been on. It was a full-blown hill, stretching upward ahead of us.
“James…”
“It’s okay. Just keep your momentum and stay in second gear. I’ll let you know if you need to downshift.”
I did as I was told, my heart beating like I was trying to land a prop plane at midnight in a minefield.
“Give it a little more gas,” James said as we started to lose momentum.
I did.
He shook his head. “You’re gonna have to downshift.”
Even in my state of high-alert, I noticed his right hand tightening on the grab bar on his door.
Downshifting was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want to touch anything. I wanted James to take over. To save us.
“Sadie,” James said with calm urgency. “Shift into first. You’ve gotta do it quickly, though, or we’ll start to roll back.”
I had pushed in the clutch obediently, but my eyes ballooned. “WHAT?”
He put his hand over mine. “Go!”
I let off the gas, shifted into first, then started to accelerate.
But we were rolling back.
I screamed. We rolled more.
“Brakes! Brakes!” James said.
My right foot, instrument of chaos and our one hope of salvation, hesitated as we gained speed in the wrong direction.
James’s hand left mine as my foot searched for the brake pedal. There was a loud cranking sound, and we jolted to a stop.
It was utterly silent except for the sound of our ragged breathing and the low hum of the engine as we both stared ahead. My heart was pounding a thousand beats a minute, but the car was still. Blessedly still.
I let out a shaky breath, keeping my feet on both the clutch and the brake so they were flush with the floor. This truck would not be moving an inch if I had anything to say about it.
James still gripped the hand-brake, his white knuckles slowly regaining color as he let out a breath of his own.
“I am so sorry,” I said, my entire body shaking.
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice steady.
I stared at him, this man who’d offered to teach me how to drive stick shift and almost died in the process—and was somehow still calm.
A breathy laugh formed in my chest. Out of relief. Out of embarrassment. Out of the ridiculousness of it all. It bubbled to the surface.
James looked at me in surprise.
It only made me laugh harder.
His mouth drew into an uncertain smile, and the smile turned into a laugh. It was gentle at first, but as our gazes held, it grew until it matched mine, loud and unrestrained. Two people laughing in a truck stopped on a hill.
Before I knew it, I was wiping tears from my eyes and holding my stomach as my abs ached and my cheeks hurt.
Apparently, this was my reaction to a near-death experience.
Every time I thought of those moments on the hill, with me scrambling to find the right pedal and James begging me to find the brakes, a fresh wave of laughter rolled over me.
“Whew,” I said, blinking away the last tears as we crawled our way out of slaphappy. “Ready to switch places?”
He shook his head, wiping his own eyes. “The lesson isn’t over.”
I gaped at him. “You’re kidding, right? I almost killed us.”
“But you didn’t.” He wasn’t joking.
The man was ready for round two.
How in the world did he trust me after that debacle?
“James,” I argued, “it’s okay. You tried. I tried. We did our best. Sometimes, it’s okay to give up.”
“No. It’s not.”
My comment had been half-joke, but his response wasn’t.
“I don’t give up on people,” he said.
I swallowed. It felt like this might be about more than my learning to drive stick. Was there a chance he was thinking about Lily?
That would be crazy, right? She was married. To my brother. She had a daughter—and a son on the way.
I tried again to argue against continuing the lesson, but he was insistent, and I started to wonder—just a little bit—if he was insane. Or had a death wish.
I asked if I could just ease the car in reverse down the hill, riding the brake, but he wanted me to get to the top. He taught me a trick with the hand-brake to keep us from rolling backward while I got into first gear.
And guess what?
It worked.
We made it to the top of the hill, and I nearly cried with relief and a sense of accomplishment.
I parked the car to let myself revel in my victory and give my heart a chance to slow down, and James smiled at me in a way that made my heart race all over again.
He hadn’t let me give up on myself, and even though I’d wanted to shake sense into him, I was grateful now. Grateful and touched by his faith in me.
Why was it so hard for me to have faith in myself?
He looked around. “Interesting place to stop.”
My eyes widened as I realized where we were.
Makeout Ridge.
I’d parked the truck at the town kissing spot.
“I did not mean to bring us here! I swear.”
He turned his head, hiding his face from mine. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to be rude about it.”
“What? No! I just…”
His eyes met mine, twinkling with amusement.
He was messing with me.
I let my head fall back. “James Tyler Jackson-Five Carver! You’re killing me today.”
“Pretty sure you were the one who tried to kill both of us.”
I punched him in the arm but couldn’t stop a laugh.
“You ready for your sixteen-hour break?” he asked.
I’d kind of hoped he’d forgotten about that. Of course he hadn’t, though. “I think I’ll start it after I’m done baking tomorrow. Maybe at, like, six?”
His eyes narrowed. “So…half of your sixteen hours will be while you’re asleep?”
I smiled guiltily. “Sleep is the best break, right?”
His lips pressed together. “It’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe you should’ve been more clear.”