I didn't have that. Not right now. Not without draining my savings down to absolutely nothing and praying I didn’t have any other emergencies.
And yet, what choice did I have? I needed a car.
“Okay,” I said, my voice coming out calmer than I felt. “How long will it take?”
“I can get the parts in a day or two, and can probably have it done in three. I’ll call the tow truck—they should be here in about an hour.”
An hour. Another hour of standing here watching my one remaining nice thing get hauled away.
“Thanks, Jerry.”
He nodded and pulled out his phone to make the call.
Luke touched my elbow gently. “Come back inside. You’re freezing.”
I let him guide me back into his house, my mind spinning. Two thousand dollars. I could put it on my credit card, but that was already close to maxed out. I could ask my parents, but they were on a fixed income, and I’d already borrowed money from them earlier this year.
I could?—
“Holly.”
I looked up to find Luke watching me with concern.
“I’d like to offer?—”
“No,” I said immediately, the word rushing out before my brain could screw it up by wanting to say yes.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to offer to pay for the repairs. Or loan me money. And I appreciate it, I do, but I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I barely know you, and I’m not a charity case, and—” I broke off, barely holding in a frustrated growl. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
For a moment, Luke looked like he wanted to argue, but then thought better of it. “Okay. But at least let me give you a ride home after the tow truck comes.”
That, I could accept. “Okay. Thank you.”
The next hour passed in a strange sort of limbo. Luke poured me another coffee, and we sat in the living room together, not talking much. When the tow truck finally showed up, I stood on Luke’s porch as the driver hoisted the one nice thing I’d kept from my old life onto the flatbed. Watching it get loaded onto the truck felt symbolic in a way that made my stomach hurt. Or maybe that was all the coffee I’d drunk.
Luke stood beside me as the tow truck pulled away, his proximity oddly comforting.
I exhaled slowly.
“You know what?” Luke said suddenly. “I’m taking you to dinner.”
I turned and blinked at the sudden change in direction. “What?”
“My friend Rosa makes the best lasagna in New England. It can fix almost anything.”
I almost laughed. “I don't think Italian food is going to magically repair my alternator or turn into a pile of cash.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it’ll taste good, and you won’t have to cook, and you’ll have company instead of going home alone to a house with shag carpet from 1952, where you’ll stew over everything that’s gone wrong lately.”
He had a point. And honestly? I didn’t have it in me to argue. Or to go home alone. Or to pretend I was fine when I very clearly wasn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “Dinner sounds good.”
