Page 21

21

EMMETT

A rush runs through me as we climb into the car. I don’t know what I was thinking inviting her to go on the drive, but whatever it was, I’m kicking myself for it.

“You buckled?” I say with a smile.

For both of us crying just a few moments ago, I sure feel a rush of adrenaline now. “Yeah,” she says, sounding unsure.

I start the car with a roar, shifting into gear. With a sharp breath out, I press the gas pedal, the rumble of the engine sending shivers down my spine.

I bought this car on a whim a couple of months back. I’ve been fixing up old cars here and there and selling them, but when I saw this car on the marketplace, I knew that I wanted to fix her to keep.

“We’ll just go down the road and come right back,” I tell Heidi, who grips the side of her seat beside me, her eyes wide with fear.

Okay. The car is a bit rickety, that’s true. She sounds like she may blow up at any second. But she’s working, she’s driving, and that’s a huge step.

While the radio plays some old rock song, the rumbling seems to die down. I turn through our gate that blocks off the community, and take a left onto the main road that runs past it.

“You ready?” I ask with a smile.

“No,” Heidi says, squeezing her eyes shut.

Without delay, I hit the gas as hard as I can, sending us flying down the road.

And it’s the best feeling I’ve felt in a long time. The adrenaline rushing through my veins, the roar of the engine and the feeling of something so powerful underneath me.

As we take a right and head down a hill, we have our first problem as the engine jumps.

“Fuck,” I say under my breath.

Heidi’s head whips toward me. “What?”

“Nothing!” I say as a cover, but I know we’re about to be in trouble.

“Emmett Gardner tell me what the fuck is happening.”

“The engine just keeps cutting in and out,” I grit as I pull off to the side of the road. Turning off the car, I wait a couple seconds before turning the key once more.

But it catches, the engine clicking.

Why.

Why must this happen now.

But I know I fucked up. I should have just driven through the neighborhood first. I shouldn’t have pushed it. I definitely shouldn’t have floored it, and I really shouldn’t have driven it down a damn hill, because how the hell am I going to get it back up?

Sure, the thing can be pushed. But not two miles, and certainly not up a hill as steep as the one we’re at the base of.

“Well,” I say as I sit back, running my hand through my hair. “We need help.”

We’re sitting right next to a large field, and although the trees on the other end of it block a lot of the sunset, it’s viewable.

“What are we going to do?” Heidi asks me, panic clear in the way her voice hitches.

I dig my phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to call Leo and he’s going to come get us, and I’ll have a tow truck here soon after. Just have to time it up.”

“Why not just get the tow truck to give us a lift back?” she looks around, as if someone’s going to come murder us at any second.

“Because look at that,” I say, gesturing to the scene in front of us. “How gorgeous is that?”

Heidi stills as she looks out at the scene in front of us. Gorgeous pinks and purples paint the sky.

“Is it just me or does it feel like they’re looking down on us laughing right now?” she whispers.

I let myself laugh. Really laugh. “It does,” I tell her honestly, feeling the joy from it deep in my bones.

“I feel like my dad would have told you this would happen,” she smiles.

“I think McKenna would have told me too.”

We sit there silently for a few minutes before I remember I have to call Leo. He lets it go to voicemail not once, but twice before he finally answers.

“Sorry, I was just beating your daughter at Lego Star Wars. What’s up?”

“I doubt you were beating her,” I scoff. Juni and Elara are quite the pair when it comes to video games.

Leo yelps. “What was that for?”

“For lying,” Briar laughs, taking the phone. “What’s up?”

I look at Heidi, who’s looking up at me with curiosity. “I took the car out for a spin and long story short, Heidi and I are not stuck about two miles from the house.”

There’s a long pause. “Heidi’s with you?”

“Yeah,” I say before realizing what they must be thinking. “We were just hanging out. We’re friends, you know.”

The second I say it, Heidi looks down at her hands in her lap, heat creeping up her ears.

“I’m on my way!” Leo calls from the background. “There’s nothing I love more than coming to the rescue. I got you, Buddy. You’ll be okay.”

I chuckle. “I knew I could count on you.”

When I finally hang up, I rest my head against the seat, watching the sun disappear behind the trees.

“I feel like that Nickelback song,” Heidi whispers suddenly.

“Which one?”

“The one where the dad suddenly appears outside the car.”

“Well it’s a good thing we’re not doing anything, right?” My head falls to the side to look at her with a smirk. Somehow, she grows more and more red.

“That’s true.” Her eyes drift to my lips.

A couple seconds pass as I breathe in her fruity scent mixed with the leather seat cleaner I used the other day, the smell like ecstasy.

“What is your favorite memory?” she asks.

I think long and hard about it, the silence almost starting to get awkward, yet somehow I feel like she’s doing the same.

“You mean other than the obvious, like the day Juniper was born?” I ask. Heidi nods. “Well, there was the first time we visited Maryland. It was before the draft and I was invited. We made the trip here from North Carolina,” I start.

“You’re a good old southern boy?” she smiles.

“If you want to say that, sure.” I pause. “A southern boy with a northern mentality, I’ll just leave it at that,” I add. “We were being shown around, and afterwards, everyone told us we needed to bring our significant others to the aquarium.” I smile at the thought.

“I had been down to Georgia a couple of times to visit theirs, but in my opinion there’s nothing like the National aquarium.”

“It’s a good one,” she says beside me, her gaze still forward at the sunset. “I’d love to go see the whale sharks though.”

I nod. “They’re definitely cool. Worth going to see for sure.”

“Did she love the aquarium?”

“She adored it. We had so much fun. She was pregnant at the time, and when we reached the top of the aquarium, where they have all the birds and things? I don’t know. I’ve never seen her look so happy. I knew that if I ended up here, I was going to bring her there all the time.”

“I love that,” Heidi says quietly.

I lick my lips. “When we were up there looking for some of the animals, a couple butterflies landed on her hand. She took it as a sign.”

“What kind of sign?” Heidi asks, but I know she probably already knows. We talked about it that night.

I swallow.

“A good omen of sorts,” I shrug. “I’m not super sure what all of that means, but McKenna was really into symbolism too. She said that they represented new beginnings,” I meet her eyes, remembering her exact words from that night, and the responses I couldn’t quite get out. “She was convinced from then on that we’d end up in Maryland.”

“And you did,” she whispers.

I nod. “I did.”

But she didn’t.

Taking a deep breath and shoving the tears threatening to escape down, I clear my throat. “What’s your favorite memory with your dad?”

“I think it was those long drives,” she says with a shrug. “I don’t know. There were a lot of really good memories. There was one time we went for a drive, and the sky was literally bright orange. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen anything like it.” She smiles, pulling at her fingers in her lap.

“We got out of the car and climbed onto the roof to watch it. I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like it again.”

A single tear falls from her eye as she looks at me, sucking at her lip. “It was a week before he passed away.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her sincerely.

We’ve both known loss, both hitting in different ways, but both equally horrible.

She shrugs one shoulder. “Like I’ve said. Life happens. It’s just what you do with it that matters.”

“That’s true.”

“Can you be honest with me for a second?” she asks out of the blue.

“Sure.”

“Why did you ghost me?”

Fuck.

“I don’t do friendship well,” I say simply. “I think the more people you let in, the more people you have to lose.”

“You won’t lose me though,” she grabs my hand, her fingers warm and soft in my rough hands, and I close my eyes at the feeling.

I haven’t been touched in a long time.

“No one can ever know for sure.”

“As long as I have my way, we’re going to be friends, alright Gardner?”

But the problem isn’t that we’re friends. It’s that since the very second I saw her, I wanted, for the first time in years, to have something more than friends.

It’s the very thought that I may want something more in the future that scares the living shit out of me. Because I meant what I said. The more you have, the more you have to lose.

And if I let Heidi in, I have a lot to lose.

***

Leo looks between us as he drops us in my driveway, the tow truck bringing the car back to my garage right behind him.

“What were you two up to?” he asks with a knowing smirk. Too bad he doesn’t know shit.

“We were just taking the car for a spin,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.

Leo chuckles, jingling his keys in his hand before heading back ot his car. “Sure, you keep telling yourself that,” he says.

“We were!”

He nods, and he keeps nodding, until he’s literally down the street.

“Fucking bobblehead,” Heidi says under hear breath, and I can’t help the guffaw that rips through me.

Once I’m settled down, I put my things on my workbench, watching as Heidi makes her way to the stairs. “Do you want to come over tomorrow morning for a run?” I ask.

She considers it, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Sure. But only if you come to something with me Sunday night.”

“We have a game Sunday afternoon,” I remind her.

“That’s perfect then. Great way to unwind.”

“What is it?”

“A sound bath.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that, but I’ll try everything at least once.