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P ride suffused me as I maneuvered through the crowded gas station and parked beside the pump like I’d been towing full-sized trailers my whole life. I threw the truck into park, checked my mirrors—not too close and not too far—then beamed at my dad.

He grinned. “You did well, Willy.”

“Yeah, Willy ,” Nick chimed in. “You haven’t killed us yet, so…”

The force of my wide smile fought any annoyance that might have risen at his provocative comment, and I chirped, “Don’t relax too soon. There’s still time yet, baby brother.”

“I’m not a baby.” He scowled as I thwarted his plan to rile me up. “Dad, can I have some cash? I didn’t get anything for breakfast, and I’m starving.”

“Sure thing, kiddo.”

I grinned. Nick hated “kiddo” as much as I despised “Willy.”

Sure enough, Nick hesitated to take the proffered bill, warring with his willingness to accept a handout from the man who had just emasculated him.

Don’t like Dad’s nickname for you? Welcome to the club.

Ultimately, his hunger prevailed as he swiped the money from Dad’s hand and muttered a quick, “Thanks,” before darting off into the station.

“Well, time to fill her up.” Dad climbed out.

The moment of reprieve helped loosen the tension in my shoulders, and I sank into the backrest with a sigh that melted my form into a spineless curl.

Oh, yeah.

I stretched up but jumped when a dark figure caught my attention in the rearview mirror. Goosebumps erupted over my skin, and I whirled, studying the backseat.

It’d looked like someone was sitting right there, looming over the middle. My arm ached with residual chills from the fright, and though I couldn’t see the person in the reflection anymore, it still felt as if tension was building.

My breath sped up, synchronized with my pounding heart.

A knock on my window sent me whirling in the opposite direction, and this time, I couldn’t restrain the gasp that slipped free.

If I’d had enough air in my lungs, I would have screamed. Preoccupied as I was with breathing and preparing for fight or flight, emphasis on the flight, I didn’t make a peep.

My dad’s face peered through the glass.

I blinked in fear, frozen like a headlight startled deer, but eventually, I scrambled for the window button when he knocked again and mimed for me to roll it down.

I licked my dry, trembling lips, searching for a tone a little lower than high-pitched terror. “You rang?”

“Sure did, Willy. If you’re driving, you’re pumping. Hop out. I want you to get in the habit of filling the tank anytime you borrow the vehicles.”

“Okay, Dad,” I agreed easily, eager to leave the dark, looming feeling inside the truck.

Despite the shadow figure no longer being around, my frayed nerves still set my teeth on edge, and each shout, laugh, or car door slamming had me glancing sharply in every direction like a loon.

“Willa?”

I jumped, nearly spraying my dad with fuel. “Oops, sorry about that, Dad. Probably not a smart idea to sneak up on me when I’m armed.”

He crossed his arms. “I’ve been here the whole time. Would I leave a teenager and my poor, defenseless little credit card alone? Fat chance.”

“Pfft. I’m not Mom. She’s the one who buys all the shoes.”

“Sure, but she doesn’t use my credit card to do it.” Dad fluffed my ponytail. “Why are you so jumpy?”

“I’m not jumpy, and how much debt could I rack up at a Seven Elev—”

“Boo!”

“Shiiii—oot!” I screamed, glaring at my brother’s smirking expression, his arms laden with goodies. “What’s wrong with you?”

A jerky stick hung halfway out of his mouth, though how he’d opened it with his hands so full was a total mystery. “Dad’s right. You’re twitchier than normal, sis.”

Dad frowned down at the heaping pile of snacks. “Speaking of Dad being right, how did you buy all that? I handed you a ten.”

Nick shrugged, the action causing the shifting junk food to rattle and squeak. “Used my allowance.”

The laissez-aller explanation brought consternation to Dad’s face. “If you had your allowance, then why the, ahem . I mean, why did you bug me for money?”

The Slim Jim bobbed like a cigar as Nick chewed over his response, literally and figuratively. “Well, I’m still a kid, so it’s your responsibility to feed me.”

Dad’s eyebrow arched. “Uh-huh, so you figured it was my God-given duty to provide you with breakfast. Am I hitting in the ballpark here?”

“Yup.”

“Tell me something, Nicklaus Robert Walker.” Nick and I both stilled at the use of his full name. Mom tossed them out like candy at a parade, but Dad kept them on reserve for truly special occasions, and the way Dad crossed his arms and set his jaw promised that this would be a doozy of a special occasion. “In all your infinite wisdom, did you forget how to open a milk jug?”

Eyes rounded and a beef stick hanging from his slackened mouth, Nick shook his head.

“Interesting. And did you forget how to pour cereal into a bowl? No? How about adding milk on top? Right, I didn’t think so.” Dad was on a roll. “Last I checked, your mom and I hadn’t installed locks on cabinets, so what stopped you from eating at home? You spent all that time pestering your sister when you could have been eating breakfast.”

Nick’s bottom lip wobbled. Dad rarely raised his voice at us.

Catching the micro-movement, Dad swiped a hand over his face. “Nick, you’re aware that we’re well off. Between the doubles your mom swings and my blog, money isn’t the issue here. Do you know what is?”

Silent as a scared little lamb, Nick shook his head.

“While I agree wholeheartedly that children are the parents’ responsibility, that doesn’t mean you can take your parents for granted. Think on that, son.”

Nick nodded.

Feeling blowby embarrassment from Dad’s lecture, I didn’t give my brother a hard time for scaring me before, just opened the door for him so he could crawl inside and lick his wounds in peace. He didn’t slam the door shut. He didn’t shut it at all, staring down at the floorboard like a lost lamb.

The latch clicked in place gently, and I glanced in Dad’s direction.

The kicked puppy look? Yeah, Dad resembled that if someone had also stolen said puppy’s favorite squeak toy on top of the kicking.

Despite the tinted window, Nick wasn’t much better.

Mentally, I groaned and asked, Why me?

Apparently driving and swiping the card for gas had rocketed me into the bizarre position of adulting. “Don’t sweat it, Dad. Nick will bounce back in no time.”

As if I’d tossed him a lifeline, his attention flew to me. “Really? You don’t think I was too hard on him?”

I waved his concerns off, removing the nozzle from the truck when it clicked and returning it to the holder. “Of course not, it’s character building.”

Dad bobbed his head. “It’s just… there are so many entitled people in the world, and I didn’t want… Well, that doesn’t matter.”

Oh, we were still discussing it.

Okay.

“No—I mean, I agree. We didn’t have much money when I was his age. Your car blog only really took off these last five years, so he doesn’t realize how insane it is to buy every single snack that tickles his fancy.”

Dad arched a brow, some of his good mood returning. “Tickles his fancy? What are you, seventeen going on eighty?”

I groaned. “The dad jokes… Don’t tell me you’re starting the dad jokes this early in the weekend.”

“Obviously, I am.” He paused a beat, putting his arm out to block me when I went to climb back in.

“Am I not driving?”

“No, you can, but do me a favor, yeah? Look busy for a minute while I talk to your brother?”

“Sure thing, Dad.”

“Nick,” Dad began before he shut the door and cut off the rest of their private conversation.

Birds chirped. The sun shone. There was a piece of dull green gum in a flattened pancake by the pump.

I barely stopped myself before shoving my hands in my pockets and whistling a jaunty tune.

Despite my boredom, this still beat going into the truck and catching more of Dad’s parenting.

Hands down.

I cleared my throat.

Glanced at the gas prices, eyes bugging a bit at the total.

Scuffed my toe against the base of the curb…

Okay.

That was it.

After a second incident of awkward, accidental eye contact with a total stranger, I slipped my phone from my pocket and started scrolling. A loud truck rolled up behind us and idled, obviously wanting the pump we’d parked at despite there being two free spots for both diesel and gasoline.

The hair on my neck stood on end beneath the weight of the driver’s impatient stare.

At least, I assumed so until he peeled away and circled to the far side of the station where an empty pump sat. The feeling of being watched remained, and the air grew heavy, my breathing speeding up.

Before I delved further into what was setting me off, I caught Dad gesturing from the cab.

Thank goodness.

I rushed inside, fastened the seat belt, and then we were on the road once more.

Distance seemed to soothe the unease. The farther we traveled from the gas station, the less oppressive the air felt. The Walker men had overcome their rift, and Nick wasted no time gorging himself on the armload of snacks.

His loud chewing drowned out the radio, and it was becoming distractingly annoying. I flicked my eyes to the rearview mirror to snap at him and jolted when I saw the dark figure so close that my skin registered a whisper of a breeze trailing over my neck.

Before I could scream, the form blinked away.

Furiously, I scanned every corner and crevice of the cab, ignoring Dad’s increasingly concerned array of questions.

Whatever it’d been, it was gone. The air had returned to its cheery atmosphere.

I released my breath. “Nothing’s wrong, Dad, but… I thought—” I cut myself off with a scream, slamming both feet on the brake pedal, aware that I’d never stop in time to avoid the person standing in the middle of the road.

Everything happened so fast.

The truck, strained from the combined weight of the cargo and Jeep, bucked and protested the harsh stop. Its rear tires skidded, but luckily, Dad knew how to triangulate the load correctly between the hitch and trailer axles.

People tended to avoid straining their vehicle’s suspension when towing and often overcompensated, leaving no weight and sometimes lifting the back end of the truck so that, when push came to shove, the tires wouldn’t have enough weight on them. No weight equaled no traction.

Dad had dedicated an entire six-show segment on his video channel demonstrating the proper distribution when we’d witnessed one too many people jackknife or flip, so the rear end didn’t squirrel out, but physics still followed their laws, and nothing could make a ten-ton setup stop in a blink.

We plowed right over the victim in the middle of the road, rocking to a rubber burning halt fifteen feet later.

My hands were frozen on the wheel, and I couldn’t breathe. “O-Oh my God.”

“Willa, what the hell?” Dad demanded.

“I-I killed someone,” I whispered. Nausea clogged my throat, lingering in my mouth like a lead weight.

Dad blinked. “What?”

My shaking fingers scrambled to undo the buckle, needing a few false starts to complete the task, then I was reaching for the door.

“Willa? Willa, stop! Where are you going?”

“Dad?” Nick’s tremulous voice cried.

Dad swore. “Stay in the car, son. Willa!”

He copied my actions, fumbling for his own safety restraint, but I’d already fled the cab, running to the back of the truck.

A human body couldn’t have survived a hit like that, and I braced myself for a mangled corpse, but there was nothing.

The road was pristine—not a bloodstain, pebble, or crack out of place apart from the acrid scent of the still smoking skid marks.

I blinked in the bright morning sun, shell-shocked. “B-But… What?”

A hand latched onto my arm, yanking me to face them. “What’s the matter with you, Willa? You can’t stop in the middle of the highway!”

Even as Dad said that, the honks of vehicles lining up behind us registered.

“But there was… I thought I saw somebody.”

Dad did a double take. “Some body ? There’s no one for miles. We’re too close to state lands. Are you sure it wasn’t an animal?” he pressed.

I stared at the faded gray pavement, still able to picture the very clear, human hands stretching over the brush guard, as if reaching for us. “Um… right. Maybe.”

No.

Dad glanced above my head, waving people on and returning caustic replies in kind when they shouted out their frustration.

“Get off the damn road, menace!”

“Give her a break! She’s seventeen,” Dad snapped. Once the flow of traffic leveled out, Dad steered our vehicle to the shoulder, verifying all the ratchet straps were secured and that nothing had shifted. “How about I take over driving, Willa? You look pretty shaken.”

It’d been on the tip of my tongue to ask for exactly that, but it cut my pride when he beat me to the punch.

I felt like I’d let him down in a major way, and the road showed clear evidence that I hadn’t seen what I’d thought, making me feel worse. “You probably should.”

Heart cleaving in two while my mind whirled up a frenzy of thoughts in various directions, I wondered for the millionth time what was broken in me.

Ten minutes later, Dad turned into the entrance to Blue Dunes State Park and greeted the gate attendant by name.

Dad’s blog and video channel ensured we visited most weekends in the warmer months. Sponsors liked videos of their products being used by the famous “Offroad Joe.”

Dad was in the unique position of having both excellent spelling and mechanical skills. That distinction placed my dad’s online platform on the desks of some big-name companies. Viewers and, in turn, corporations enjoyed his wry and dry humor when discussing motors.

Any parts purchased by his followers through links on his website earned him a sizable commission. In addition, several large, oddly shaped packages were delivered to our house—freebies from people wanting the buzz that a review from “Offroad Joe” would bring. After a particularly bulky set of fender flares, Dad started leaving out home-baked goodies for the mailman, a “thanks for putting up with us” bribe.

That was my dad, the literate, well-educated, stay-at-home mechanic.

I’d been riding in the backseat of his Jeep for years, watching and learning, and later, when he gained a following and quit his auto shop job to do this full time, we came as often as we pleased. Mom’s demanding schedule meant I got to ride shotgun nine times out of ten.

I loved my mom but idolized my dad. Sure, he was embarrassing sometimes and had his quirks, but I wouldn’t change a thing about him—

“Willy!”

—except that.

“Help your brother with the tent!” he hollered across what seemed like the entire campground while he began unloading the pumpkin orange Jeep from the trailer.

I glued my eyes to the ground as I moved to do his bidding, hoping other campers would assume he’d been addressing some prepubescent boy instead of me. Of course, if they looked over, the odds were good they’d forget about “Willy” when they spotted Dad.

Right on cue, the crowd in the nearby tents chattered among themselves before three of the bravest separated from the pack to approach. “Hey, you’re Offroad Joe. We’re big fans.”

Dad stopped wrestling with the ratchet strap stuck around the axle of his Jeep to shake their hands. “Hi, I’m Robert. Nice to meet you.”

I’d witnessed this interaction so many times, I could almost mime the entire conversation.

Their faces morphed into confusion. “Wait, you are Offroad Joe, right?”

“Yep.”

“But your name’s not Joe?”

“Nope, I picked it as a twist on the expression ‘average Joe,’ and then my branding team advised me to lean into it when we realized people assumed that was my given name.”

“Huh.”

“You’re lucky, you know,” Nick grouched to me when I approached, pulling out the tent stakes and drawing my attention from their conversation.

“Why?”

“You get to ride the four-wheeler here.” He handed me a set of the poles.

I cleared my throat and snapped the poles together. “It’s not Mom or Dad’s fault. Those are the rules. You have to be a certain age, just like I can’t drive Dad’s Jeep on the trails until I upgrade from a probationary license.”

Not necessarily disagreeing, Nick grumbled, fiercely hammering one of the corner stakes into the ground. “Well, you don’t have much longer for that either. Just a couple of weeks, and you’ll have it.” He swore and sucked his thumb when one of his angered swings missed the post. As if he’d lanced a festering wound through the pain, he continued calmer, even managing to quirk a half smirk, so I braced myself for whatever he’d say next, likely at my expense. “You’re lucky it’s not a height requirement. Must be at least this tall to—”

Yep, called it.

I shoved him, cutting off his joke. “Still taller than you.”

“Debatable.” Another whack sounded, this one a hair more aggressive than the previous.

My comment hit its mark.

I cleared the smile threatening to break free at his minor tantrum about still being a passenger because, boy, could I relate to his frustration. This day was seventeen years in coming.

“You know,” I began, feeding the assembled support piece through the sleeves on the tent, “if I’m driving the four-wheeler, I won’t be riding shotgun.”

Nick stopped pounding at the poor metal stake that had done nothing to him other than be present while he needed to vent his frustrations. The hammer froze halfway in the air as he digested my statement.

I chanced a look. His face was pensive.

Finally, he said, “Hmm.”

His neutral expression didn’t fool me a bit. We’d shared a room our whole lives. Even with his back to me, I read the excitement in his movements, and it was contagious.

I allowed my grin to grow, happy to have helped shift his attention to something positive.

In no time at all, and with minimal bickering, we had the tent standing tall and proud.

Today would be a good day.

Nothing could go wrong.