Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“Be there in five,” he said finally. “I’m on the bike.”
“He’s coming to get me,” I told Charlie with a smile, putting my phone away. “You don’t have to wait.”
“I’m not leaving you out here alone,” she replied with a snort. “I can wait ten minutes.”
“You really don’t have to.” I was so close to tears that the lump in my throat was hard to ignore.
“Not happening,” she said flatly, leaning over to bump my shoulder.
We stood there in the silence, shivering inside our jackets until Michael pulled into the lot on his motorcycle. I wasn’t sure how or why he’d gone back home to get it after he’d dropped Rhett off, but I wasn’t about to ask. I just wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as humanly possible.
“Same time tomorrow?” Charlie asked with a smile and wave. She strode to her car and was inside it before Michael had turned off his motorcycle.
“What happened?” Michael asked as I hurried toward him.
“Just get me out of here,” I ordered desperately, trying clumsily to climb on the back.
“Wait, wait, wait.” He stopped me by grabbing my hips and pushed me backward a little so he could climb off. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I snapped back. I was losing the fight against my tears and brushed angrily at my face. “Can we just go, please?”
“You’re freezing,” he muttered as he took off his helmet. “Why the hell didn’t you wait inside?”
“She probably wanted to get me as far away from there as possible,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What?”
“I just want to go home.”
“Alright,” he replied with a sigh, still watching me closely. “Here, put this on.”
A few minutes later, he’d put his helmet on my head and helped me onto the bike, ordering me to hold tightly to his waist before pulling out of the parking lot. My stomach swooped with fear as we turned onto the road and I forced my body to move with his even though everything inside me urged me to lean in the opposite direction. Then, we were on the road, and for a few moments, it felt like we were flying.
As I grew more comfortable on the back of the motorcycle, reality started to seep in. No matter how hard I’d tried, I’d failed miserably at something that should’ve been relatively easy. Take an order, make a drink, accept payment and deliver the drink. Simple. I’d served plenty of bar food and drinks just fine, so why on earth had the day making coffee been so hard? Charlie had been there to help me and I’d still been a complete disaster. I didn’t understand it, and I felt like a complete moron.
“How did you leave the truck here?” I asked when we parked in front of Heather and Tommy’s house.
“Figured you might need it before I was done today,” Michael replied with a shrug, helping me dismount. “So, I parked the truck here and rode to the house in the tow truck with my dad.”
“Tow truck?”
“Gotta figure out what’s wrong with the Subaru,” Michael replied easily, taking the helmet off of me. “We brought it to the garage.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I argued. Things were beginning to feel very out of my control and I hated it. I understood that he’d been trying to do something nice, but he hadn’t even asked me.
“We need both vehicles,” he reminded me. He was so matter-of-fact that I got even more annoyed.
I knew that I needed my car. Michael worked far more hours than I would be and sometimes he’d need his truck. It wasn’t as if he had to inform me of that fact.
“Tell me how much it’s going to cost,” I said flatly, starting toward the house. “I’ll cover it somehow.”
“Whoa,” Michael barked, grabbing my arm. “What the hell is going on?”
“You didn’t even ask me if you could take my car!”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s my car,” I ground out.
“And it was stuck in the fuckin’ driveway,” he shot back at me, looking at me like I’d grown an extra head. “You just wanna leave it there like a lawn ornament?”
“Maybe I just wanted a say on what to do next!”
“Fine.” He threw up his hands. “What do you want me to do with the hunk of metal sitting in the forecourt at the garage?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled back.
“While I’d normally love to watch this play out,” Heather said dryly from the front porch. “Your son’s asleep on the couch and you’re being pretty goddamn loud.”
“Sorry,” I replied, deflating. I just wanted the day to be over. I wanted it to be bedtime, so I could tuck Rhett into bed and sit in the quiet for a few minutes and figure out what the hell I was going to do.
“You’re home early,” Heather said as I walked toward her. “Everything okay?”