12. Lucy
Lucy
There’s no way I heard him correctly.
I’m hallucinating. I’ve been working nonstop for the past two weeks, I’m not sleeping, and my brain is fuzzy, so I’m hearing things.
Because there’s no way this guy I barely know is offering to pay to get my car back for me.
Gently, he grabs my hand in his and leads me back to the parking lot in front of the diner. And because I’m too exhausted and shocked to do anything else, I follow him.
He walks up to a sleek-looking SUV and unlocks it.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Taking you to get your car.”
I stop walking and stare at him. Oh. Wait. He was serious?
I shake my head and start to speak, but he cuts me off.
“This isn’t a discussion, Lucy. I’m taking you to get your car back.”
I look down at our joined hands, just now noticing how warm and big his palm is. I swallow hard and pull out of his hold.
“You can’t do that,” I say.
“Why not? It’s my fault your car got towed.” He says it with a straight face. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I stare at him. I’m so confused.
He blinks, and the serious, focused expression softens. His eyes are a rich chocolate color. Deep, dark, and mesmerizing.
It feels like he’s peering into me. Like he can see inside of me. I shiver.
“How is my car getting towed your fault?” I ask.
“I got you fired from the coffee shop, so you had to get a new job at the diner. You wouldn’t have parked your car there—you wouldn’t have been here at all if it weren’t for me.”
Pain flickers in his mahogany eyes. Something in my chest softens. He actually means it. He’s actually sorry.
“I still can’t let you do that.” Every instinct to fend for myself fires off inside of me. I’ve lived like this for the past two years. On my own, no help from anyone. It feels weird—wrong, even—to accept his help, even if he genuinely wants to give it.
He steps closer to me. The look in his eyes turns pleading.
“Please let me help you, Lucy.”
I soften even more. “Okay.” I can’t believe he’s doing this for me. “I need to clock out of work first before I leave.”
He walks back into the diner with me. I try to ignore it as half of the restaurant stares at me. I ran out of there while yelling a minute ago, and now I’m back, my face red and puffy from crying.
I head to the back to clock out. Janice, the sweet fifty-something waitress who trained me on my first day, walks over to me.
“You okay, honey?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna clock out so I can go get my car.”
“You need a ride?”
I shake my head. “One of the customers offered to take me. Leo. The hockey player.”
She smiles. “Oh, he’s a sweetheart. Of course he’d offer to take you.”
She pats my arm, then pulls a receipt out of her apron pocket. “You forgot to pick up the receipt from his table earlier. He left you quite a generous tip. I think he likes you.”
She walks off, and I look down at the tip amount on the receipt. My eyes bug out of my head. He left me two hundred dollars? And he’s offering to pay to get my car back too? Exactly how much money does this guy have?
I head back out to the diner. I see Leo standing at the table with the group of friends he came in with. When I stopped by their table, I heard snippets of their conversation. I think the guys are his hockey teammates and the ladies are their girlfriends.
He’s talking to the pretty blonde, who I’m guessing is the girlfriend of the guy who joked about me spitting in Leo’s food, since they sat next to each other and he had his arm around her. I think his name is Nick.
Leo spots me and walks over to me. “You ready?”
I nod. We head out of the restaurant and back over to his car. I go to open the passenger door, but he rushes over to open it for me.
“Um, thanks,” I say.
He closes it, then jogs over to the driver’s side. When he hops in and starts the engine, I buckle my seatbelt. We’re both quiet as he pulls out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“You didn’t have to leave me such a big tip,” I say after a minute.
“Yeah, I did.” He looks ahead at the darkened road. Streetlights line either side, glittering against the night sky. “It was rude of me to make that comment about you looking tired.”
I play with the strap of my bag. “You weren’t wrong. I am tired. I’m exhausted.”
When I glance up, I catch him looking at me for a second before he focuses back on the road. He merges onto the freeway and heads toward the industrial part of the city.
“You really don’t have to do this,” I say.
He doesn’t say anything at first. He just quietly gazes at the road, smoothly cutting through traffic and taking the exit to the tow yard.
“You don’t get a lot of help from people, do you?” he says.
I suddenly feel self-conscious, even though I shouldn’t. Just a few minutes ago, I had a tear-filled breakdown in front of him. He knows how poor I am. Why do I feel embarrassed for him to know how alone I am too?
Maybe because, up to this point, I’ve put up such a tough front for him…and now he’s seeing just how weak and pitiful I really am.
Heat climbs up my cheeks. No use hiding that part of me. He already knows.
“You’re right. I don’t get a lot of help. I’m used to just figuring it out on my own,” I say in a quiet voice.
“I’m really sorry about that.”
The sincerity in his voice hits me square in the chest. I can’t figure this guy out. This handsome college hockey player who I thought was a jerk at first…who tips insanely generously and ditches his friends to help a girl he barely knows.
I gaze out the window, glancing at the warehouses and industrial buildings we pass on the street. “You don’t need to be sorry. Especially when you’re one of the few people who’ve been nice to me in a really, really long time.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him looking over at me. He doesn’t say anything though.
A minute later, he pulls into the parking lot of the tow yard. There’s a small, run-down office building near the entrance. He parks in front, and together we hop out of his car.
I notice how he walks ahead of me so he can open the door for me. He’s really polite.
When we walk inside, I’m hit with the scent of stale fast food and smoke. It’s a tiny space, with just a couple of rickety plastic chairs in the front, a small wooden table with a stack of old magazines, and a tiny TV on the wall playing an infomercial.
I turn to Leo, who’s standing next to me. His tall, muscled frame looks comically big in such a small space. Like a giant in an elf’s house.
I walk up to the counter, where there’s an older bald guy hunched over, scratching off a lottery ticket.
“I need to pick up my car,” I say. I tell him the make and model, and he punches it into the computer on his desk.
“That’ll be two hundred and seventeen dollars,” he says in a gruff voice.
My mouth falls open. “Seriously? Your guys had my car for an hour.”
The guy scratches his bald head and shrugs. “I don’t set the prices, doll.”
I roll my eyes and turn to Leo. “I’m sorry,” I say, a wave of embarrassment pummeling my insides. “I’ll pay you back.”
“It’s fine.” His tone is easy, totally unbothered. He hands over his credit card to the guy. He runs it, then hands it back.
“You can wait in here or out in front. I’ll have it out to you in a few minutes.” The guy leaves through the back door.
I turn to Leo. “In or out?”
“Out. I need air. This place smells like stale smoke.”
I follow him back outside. We stand outside and wait for the guy to bring my car around. Leo shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and looks down at the ground.
“I really will pay you back,” I say.
He looks at me, pinning me with that mahogany gaze. “Don’t.”
I shiver at the command in his voice. It’s bossy…but also soft and low.
He clears his throat and rolls his shoulder, wincing slightly.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He nods. “Fine. Just a little stiff from playing tonight.”
“You had a game?”
He nods.
“Did you win?”
He nods again.
“Congrats.”
His mouth tilts up in a soft smile. “Thanks.”
“Sorry you had to spend the night of your win wasting hundreds of dollars on a girl you barely know.”
“Lucy.”
His voice hits that low, rough register that makes me shiver again.
He pins me with his rich coffee-hued gaze. “Don’t say that. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
My skin tingles, and my breath catches.
“Are you gonna call Wally?”
I frown, confused. “What?”
“You mentioned Wally earlier when your car got towed. He’s your friend or family member, right? You said you have to go get him. Now that you’re about to get your car back, you should be able to go to him.”
“Oh…” I trail off, my chest tightening.
Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them away. “I can’t.”
Leo’s brow furrows. “Why not?”
I hug my arms around myself, steeling myself for yet another confession.
I don’t want to tell him this. It’s yet another thing that makes me look poor and pathetic. But I owe it to him to be honest. He’s gone out of his way for me. He helped me. The least I could do is tell him the truth when he asks for it.
“I can’t get Wally because he’s in a shelter, and they’re closed for the night.”
The confusion in his frown etches deeper.
“Wally’s my dog,” I say.
His brow lifts slightly. “Oh.”
“And I can’t get him because I need an address to adopt him from the shelter, but I don’t have one. Because I’m homeless.”
I can’t bear to look at his face when his expression turns to raw pity, so I look away. I glance off to the side, at the rows of cars parked around us. I focus on the traffic sounds in the distance. I look down and count the cracks in the concrete underneath my sneakers.
“Shit, Lucy. I…”
I close my eyes, hugging my arms tighter around my body. “Don’t say it.”
Leo huffs out a breath. I wait for him to do it. To tell me that he’s sorry for the millionth time.
But as the silence stretches between us, he stays quiet.
When I finally work up the nerve to look at him, I’m surprised by the intensity in his gaze. There’s no pity there. Just a watchfulness that makes me feel…cared for.
A second later, the sound of a car engine pulls our focus ahead. I look up and see a pair of headlights cutting through the dark sky.
My car pulls up to us. The guy kills the engine, climbs out of the driver’s seat, and leaves the door open.
He coughs, then spits on the ground. “All yours,” he grumbles.
Leo glowers at him. He looks like he’s going to chew the guy out, but he stays quiet.
I bend down and reach across the driver’s seat to the glove box, then grab the owner’s manual. My heart hammers as I open it up and see the cash I stashed.
I let out a breath, relieved that all my money is still there.
When I step back out of the car, Leo is staring at the backseat, which is crammed with boxes, bags, and suitcases.
“You’re living in your car, aren’t you?” he asks.
I nod, that wave of embarrassment washing over me once more.
Every muscle in my body is twitching to hop in my car and drive off. This night has been humiliating enough. I just want to be alone for a minute. And sleep. God, I’d kill for a good night’s sleep.
“It’s getting late. I should go.” I shuffle my feet. “Thank you again for everything you did for me. I’m sure I’ll see you around at the diner. And hey, I know you won’t let me pay you back, but your next meal is on me. It’s the least I could do.”
He rubs the back of his neck, looking like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.
“Goodnight.” I start to climb into my car.
“You can’t sleep in your car,” he says.
I turn back around. “What?”
“You can’t sleep in your car,” he says again. “It’s not safe.”
I almost laugh. “I’ve been doing it for almost a year. I’ll survive.”
He looks horrified. His lips form a hard, straight line, and his jaw bulges. Worry flickers in his eyes.
“That’s not…” He swallows hard. “Stay at my place tonight.”