Page 20 of Give Me a Reason

She reached out to lower the window at the same time he bent down to peer into her car.

Oh God. It wasn’t Joe. Anne choked on the remnants of her doughnut and began coughing violently.

She pounded on her chest, tears running down her face.

She didn’t have enough air to scream when the door flew wide open, and she was hauled out of the car.

“Can you breathe?” Frederick demanded with one big hand wrapped around her arm and the other rubbing her back, the front of their bodies nearly touching. “Just keep coughing. That’s it.”

His closeness briefly stunned her into a lust-induced silence. But after a heartbeat, she managed to wheeze, “I’m… okay…”

Frederick studied her face with lingering alarm, his hands running up and down her arms. “You don’t look okay.”

“Doughnuts… went down… wrong pipe,” she rasped.

He dropped his head, his forehead nearly touching hers, and blew out a long breath. Then he went back into action.

“Do you have any water?” He firmly set her aside, propping her against the rear door and reaching into her car. He stood with her bottle of strawberry milk in his hand, looking bemused. After a pause, he handed it to her. “Drink.”

“Thanks.” She took slow, careful sips so she wouldn’t choke on the milk, too. And she needed a minute to gather her thoughts.

What is Frederick doing here?

She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes, not moving her head. He stood close and watched her vigilantly, as though preparing to Heimlich the heck out of her at any real signs of choking. And he still had that confused look on his face.

“What?” she asked, lowering the empty bottle of milk.

“You have…” He pointed, then kind of waved his hand around the bottom half of her face.

When she squinted in response, he reached out and ran the back of his index finger down her nose. Her eyes widened at the same time his did, and he snatched his hand back as though her nose had turned into a smoldering lump of coal.

As she suffered heart palpitations from the featherlight touch, she realized what he’d been pointing at. What he’d wiped away.

Anne gasped and spun away from him, scrubbing furiously at her face with the sleeve of her dark blue blouse.

It came away white with powdered sugar. Her head felt like it would combust from mortification.

She’d imagined his touch to be a caress, but he’d merely been brushing sugar off her nose.

She felt like an enormous dork and looked the part as well.

“What are you doing here?” She turned around, arranging her expression into one of polite inquiry. Hopefully, she’d gotten all the powdered sugar off her face and didn’t look like a deranged doughnut fiend anymore.

“I overheard Coraline telling Joe that you had a flat tire—”

“I told her not to bother him about it,” she cried, fraying around the edges. But what else could Coraline have done? Her shoulders drooped. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have texted her.”

Frederick merely arched an eyebrow and continued, “And I told her I’d come help you.”

“Why?” she blurted. She didn’t mean to say that out loud. But why would he want to help her?

“To thank you.” He coughed into a fist. “For the tacos.”

“You came to change my flat tire because of the tacos?” Anne blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of the situation. Then she gave up with a sigh. She was too tired to figure anything out. “Don’t you need to be at the station?”

“Pete came over to check on the team, so he’s covering for me.

Besides, I won’t be gone for long.” He abruptly turned away and tapped his shoe against the flat tire as though making sure it was indeed flat.

It was her turn to cock an eyebrow. You could tell it was flat from a mile away.

He cleared his throat and added, “I also wanted to thank you because I, uh, talked to my team. It was good. For all of us.”

Every muscle in Anne’s body softened. He’d listened to her advice.

It couldn’t have been easy for him, but he’d gone to his crew when they’d needed him the most. He’d always been brave and selfless like that.

And it might have rankled a lesser man to admit that his ex was right, but he came to find her to do just that—and to thank her by changing her flat tire.

A rush of respect and affection lit a bonfire in her chest. She was afraid smoke would billow out of her mouth if she opened it, but she risked it anyway. “I’m glad.”

“Me, too.” He met her eyes with a ghost of a smile, making her heart flutter helplessly. Maybe it meant he hated her a little less, but he seemed to catch himself and turned back toward her car. “The spare’s in the trunk, right?”

“Oh, the spare? Yes, well…” She gave up pretending to consider his question. “I have no idea. The trunk seems like a good place to start.”

“Hmm.” Even though he kept his face averted, she caught the upward quirk of his lips. Two smiles in a row? But then she realized he was laughing at her this time.

“I’m not an experienced driver,” she said a tad defensively.

He’d always thought highly of her, and his opinion mattered to her.

Her family could think as lowly of her as they wanted—she was accustomed to it—but she didn’t want Frederick to think she was pathetically incompetent.

“I hardly drove in college, and I always had a driver in Korea.”

All signs of mirth deserted his face, and she wished he would go back to laughing at her. She managed to mention their time together and the reason she left him, all in one sentence. He definitely still hated her. Full force. Not even a little bit less.

“Can you pop the trunk for me?” He walked to the back of her white sedan without waiting for her to answer.

She slid into the driver’s seat and opened the trunk.

Exhaustion reared its head again, and she wanted to close her eyes and sleep until she didn’t hurt anymore.

How long would that take? Forever? Her earlier optimism faltered in the face of his anger.

Would she ever be able to win Frederick back?

Not a chance. She wished she had a doughnut left to choke on.

“Got it.” His voice was muffled, his head still buried in her trunk. Then he straightened with the spare tire, his face set into hard, unyielding lines. “Do you know where the jack is?”

“Uh,” she responded eloquently. His lips didn’t so much as twitch at her utter cluelessness, and she curled into herself even more.

“I should have one in my car.” He strode over to the black SUV parked behind her sedan and pulled out the tools he needed. When he came back, he stood looking down at her, his head cocked to the side.

“Oh.” She scrambled out of the driver’s seat, belatedly realizing he couldn’t change the tire with her sitting in the car. “Sorry.”

Without answering, he knelt on the ground and efficiently jacked up her car.

Anne hovered nearby, mesmerized by the play of muscles on his back.

She wanted to kneel behind him and wrap her arms around his waist. She wanted to hold him tight and tell him, I’m sorry I hurt you .

The apology bubbled up her throat, but she swallowed it back down.

The words sounded hopelessly inadequate, especially after ten years.

“You don’t need to stand here,” he said gruffly. She hopped back a step when he glanced up at her. “You can go wait in my car.”

“I don’t m—” She bit off her knee-jerk response. She would feel bad sitting around in his car while he worked, but he probably preferred to not have her breathing down his neck. “Okay.”

“This shouldn’t take too long.” He turned back to the tire. “I should be done in twenty minutes.”

“Please take your time. Don’t worry about me.

” She thought she heard him grumble yeah right under his breath.

What did that mean? Did he worry about her?

She remembered how he’d appeared at her side when she cut her hand, his body curved around her.

But he had just been being kind, right? Yeah. She must’ve misheard.

Chewing her lip, she climbed into the passenger seat of his SUV.

She pretended to check her phone, but her eyes kept straying toward Frederick.

Maybe she should’ve stayed with him. She could’ve used her cell phone flashlight to give him some extra light.

The streetlamps were a bit dim. Not that it seemed to affect him.

He was so sure-handed she wouldn’t be surprised if he could change the tire in the dark.

It used to annoy her a little that he seemed to be good at everything.

He approached every challenge with such confidence, and the results never disappointed.

She envied him because he seemed to glide through life with ease when she always felt uncertain, second-guessing her every decision.

But she mostly admired him for it. And she loved how some of his confidence rubbed off on her when she was with him.

She became braver and more self-assured with him by her side.

The bitter irony of it all was that she never would’ve had the confidence to audition for the K-drama role if it hadn’t been for Frederick.

She didn’t think she would actually get the role, but she knew she wouldn’t make a fool out of herself as long as she tried her best. If Frederick believed in her, so would she.

Frederick and Auntie Sharon had been the only ones who knew she was minoring in theater.

Her father and Juliette would’ve laughed their heads off if they’d known.

They would’ve found it inconceivable that anyone would want to put Anne out front, in any capacity.

To her family, her only worth was for cleaning up after them, both literally and figuratively.

Anne’s brows drew into a frown. How had she grown so complacent with her role in her family?

They took her sacrifice for granted, accepting it as their due.

Her father never thanked her for saving him from financial ruin.

And he never acknowledged her success as an actress, even though he had no compunction about taking the money she’d earned through it.

Now that she’d paid off the mortgage for her childhood home, he’d settled back into dismissing her completely.

Yet she never once complained about the unfairness of it all. Was she truly okay with that?

She had inherited her mom’s level head and caring nature, so it made sense for her to take care of their family when she passed away.

While her father had loved his wife in his own way, he never understood Anne, so he expected her to stay quiet and out of sight.

He and her older sister, and even sometimes Tessa, didn’t want to be reminded that Anne needed taking care of, too—that they should take care of one another. Maybe it was time she reminded them.

Anne huffed an impatient sigh. That was neither here nor there.

Besides, what was the point of dredging all that up?

Her family would never change. She glanced out the windshield and yelped when she saw Frederick getting to his feet, dusting off his hands.

She must’ve been lost in her thoughts for longer than she’d realized.

She scrambled out of his SUV just as he made his way back to it.

“You’re all set for tonight.” He walked past her to open his trunk.

She couldn’t be sure, but he seemed less angry, the lines of his back less tense.

He put his tools away and came to stand in front of her, a respectable distance apart.

Very respectable. Like Victorian-era respectable.

“But you need to get that tire replaced as soon as you can. You shouldn’t drive with a spare for very long. ”

“I’ll be sure to get it changed tomorrow.” She offered him a small smile. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

He scratched his cheek, leaving a smudge of oil across it. Her hand twitched by her side, wanting to reach out and wipe it off.

“It’s kind of in my job description.” He seemed to catch himself when his lips tried to spread into a grin. “Why were you—”

“I guess—” She clamped her mouth shut to stop talking over him, but he’d stopped, too. “What were you saying?”

“It’s nothing. Well, actually…” Two faint lines appeared between his brows. “Why were you gobbling down doughnuts fast enough to choke?”

“I wasn’t gobbling them down,” she mumbled, her cheeks growing warm. “You just startled me.”

He eyed her with a healthy dose of skepticism. “You must’ve stuffed a whole doughnut in your mouth to choke like that.”

“I was hungry.” She hugged her arms around her midriff, fidgeting with renewed embarrassment. “I didn’t eat very much dinner.”

“You didn’t have dinner?” He took a step closer, making her eyes widen. “Why?”

“Because Joe called Coraline just as we started eating.” She waved her hand in the air. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Everything is fine.”

Frederick drew in a quick breath and opened his mouth, then abruptly pressed his lips together. His throat worked as though he were swallowing the words at the tip of his tongue.

“Will you be okay driving home?” he asked stiffly. She was 97 percent positive that was not what he’d been about to say.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She searched for something witty to say, not ready to part ways with him. “Unless there was alcohol in that strawberry milk.”

He didn’t even crack a smile at her poor excuse for a joke. Instead, he jerked his chin toward her car in a not-so-subtle hint that she should hit the road, and her fragile courage withered inside her. “I should get back to the station.”

“Of course.” It surprised her when her voice didn’t waver. “Thank you again. Good night.”

With a curt nod and a grunt, he got into his car and started the engine. Anne thought he would just take off, but he stayed until she drove away… until she couldn’t see his car in the rearview mirror anymore.