Chapter Fourteen #2
“Fuck me,” I said, and immediately ducked down.
“What’s going on?” Tess asked. “You got a case of road rage?”
I slithered down in my seat. “Eli is here. He just walked out of the bakery right next to me and he’s just standing there like a buffoon staring at his cell phone.”
“You should totally troll him,” she said. “Roll down your window and ask how much. Or take a picture of him and text it to him.”
“He’s smiling,” I said. Eli wore an ironic vintage button-up shirt with blue and orange seashells, and despite the smile, his brow was just as furrowed as it always was. Like he was constantly deep in thought. Or angry. Probably angry. “He is not a smiling person!”
I needed to make a quick escape, so I turned the ignition and the car made a loud thumping noise. Smoke immediately began to puff out of the hood.
Eli’s head shot up and I turned the other way like there was something incredibly interesting happening outside of my driver’s-side window.
“He. Saw. Me,” I whispered through gritted teeth.
God, it was so hot in this car.
“Vera?” Eli asked as he circled around the front of the car.
He stood outside my window, my ear still pressed to the phone.
“What do I do?” I asked Tess, my lips not moving.
Eli knocked on my window with one knuckle, his brows raised and the corners of his lips turned down.
I opened my door because I couldn’t roll down the windows without the engine on. “Hi.” And then into the phone, I said, “Tess, I better let you go.”
“Hi, Eli!” she shouted loud enough for him to hear.
“Hey, Tess,” he said in the same resigned voice he always used when speaking to her.
She started saying something, but I was already hanging up.
“Was that your car making that death rattle?” he asked.
“It was definitely more of a boom and less of a rattle. But I’m going to call a tow truck.” With the money I shouldn’t spend because my next paycheck wouldn’t be deposited until Friday.
He motioned to a sleek electric SUV plugged into a charging station on the other side of the street. “I’ll take a quick look and then give you a ride back.”
“I’ll just wait for a tow,” I said.
He grumbled, shook his head, and then handed me the bakery box. Without a word, he opened my door a little wider and reached in past my leg to pop the hood.
My spine tensed as his hand brushed my bare ankle.
While he looked at the engine, I poked my head into the box to find a truly ginormous stack of cannolis. My stomach growled. “Did you rob the bakery?”
“Yes,” he called back, “and you’re slowing down my getaway.”
I peered around the hood to see one of his forearms braced against the car, a vein winding up from his wrist and then disappearing into the sleeve of his shirt. I blamed the warmth spreading across my abdomen on the desert sun.
After a few more minutes, he closed the hood and came back around to me, his forehead peppered with perspiration. “It’s the belt. I can fix it, but I need to get back for book club first.”
I started to protest, but he’d already reached over my lap to take my keys out of the ignition. He was very much in my space and I got an immediate waft of fresh linen and mint.
Totally bewildered, I watched as he took the bakery box from me and then went back to his car to retrieve something. “What are you doing?” I asked as my feet finally caught up to my brain, and I got out of the car.
“Filling up the meter. You got anything you need to bring back with you?”
I didn’t think it was possible to feel any warmer than I already did sitting in that car, sweat dripping down my spine. But as I opened the back hatch of the car, my skin could have caught on fire.
“Just some things for an event on Thursday,” I said innocently.
He came up beside me, and for a second, his composure was obliterated.
His Adam’s apple bobbed and his tongue brushed his lower lip before grabbing the first box.
And then his expression was completely blank.
If I hadn’t known Eli before, I would assume it was something they taught med school students.
The face of an ER doctor who’d seen it all.
“These all for you?”
“Yes, Eli,” I said. “I’m a prepper and you just happened to catch me during my sex toy stockpile.”
The pink of his cheeks dipped a slight shade darker as he smirked. “You got room for one more in that doomsday shelter?”
After we loaded up his car, I ran back across the street and scribbled a note on the back of an old receipt from my purse before tucking it under my windshield wiper.
Please, please don’t give me a ticket. My car was being a jerk and wouldn’t start. I promise to get it towed ASAP.
Sincerely,
A Forty-Year-Old Woman with a Meager Savings Account
“Did you just write a note for parking enforcement?” Eli asked as I buckled my seat belt.
“Parking attendants are people too, and I’m hoping whichever one walks down this street is feeling generous, because I can’t afford a tow and a ticket in the same week.”
“I’ll light a candle for the patron saint of street parking when I get home.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get,” I said as he pulled out of his spot. “Thanks,” I added. “For rescuing me and all my sex toys.”
He slid his Ray-Bans on and with genuine sincerity said, “Anything for sex toys in need.”