* * *
Their rideto Gillette was a quiet if bumpy one. Trish couldn’t stop thoughts from racing through her mind. What did she really have to go back to in Omaha? A dinky, overpriced apartment, a job she didn’t love? One best friend who was swamped with her new IT business? Trish didn’t even have a goldfish.
But Starlight . . . it wasn’t hers for the taking. It was a dream, one that Lina had done very well creating, for some enthusiastic romance writers.
No matter how she looked at things, though, Trish felt as though something had to change. Henry believed you had to work long hours to impress the right people and climb to the top. And for him, it seemed to be working. A month ago, he’d been promoted to a senior auditor.
Yet, Trish was still the lowly cubicle worker on the bottom of the totem pole, and not a bit sad about not climbing that corporate ladder. She’d always known, somewhere deep down, that there had to be more to life than just getting by. Something that didn’t involve long nights and weekends sacrificed for someone else’s dream.
“You seem deep in thought,” Wade said as they passed the Gillette sign welcoming them into town.
“You ever feel you got stuck in a rut and didn’t even know it?” she asked.
Wade slowed the truck for a stoplight. “Can’t say I have.”
“My life. I just don’t know how I got here.” What if she had been brave enough to change her major after that creative writing class? What if she’d been willing to take a risky chance? Maybe she could have had twelve novels published by now, too. “Did you know that I can’t even have a grill at my apartment?”
“Well that’s just tragic.”
“Right? And if I tried to light a fire pit on my coat-closet-sized balcony, I’d be evicted before the fire department showed up to put it out.” Trish crossed and uncrossed her ankles. Was her dream of a permanent home so big that she was willing to sacrifice happiness for that stability?
Wade steered the truck around a curve, slowing for a turn into a small parking lot. “Maybe you should move.” Wade cleared his throat, and added, “You know, like to a small house or something. Apartments seem so confining.”
“Yeah, maybe.” But her lease wasn’t up for eight months yet. The One-Man Tech Shop, Trish read. “Please tell me more than one guy works here.”
“Nope.” Wade pushed open his door. “You read the sign.”
Trish groaned, afraid all hope was lost for The Dinosaur if her fate rested in the hands of one man. That was one perk for Omaha, she had to admit. When Mindy wasn’t an option, she had no shortage of computer repair shops at her disposal each time The Dinosaur acted up. If one couldn’t fix the issue, usually another could.
“Hey, Mike,” Wade called out once they were both in the store.
Trish hugged her laptop as though she were bringing it to have it put down, even though it likely put itself down hours ago. She followed Wade to the front counter. She had a lot of error messages and blue screens before, but never a completely unresponsive computer.
“What do we got here?” Mike asked after he and Wade exchanged some small talk about business and the ranch. Trish tried to follow, but her concentration was lost to the reality that there might be no hope. “Wow, this is one of the oldest models I’ve seen in a while.”
“Oh, come on,” Wade said. “Grams has an older one than this.”
Mike shook his head, his glasses sliding with it. He pushed them up the bridge of his nose. “Nope. This is about ten years old, right?” he directed toward Trish.
A tiny bubble of hope soared. “Yes.” Trish briefly explained what had happened earlier in the day, then went into more detail about the battery life depleting within minutes. The more she talked about the issues, the more she realized how many there were. Signs for months that things were headed for doom.
Kind of like her recent relationship.
That revelation stopped her midsentence.
“I’m not sure there’s much I can do for it,” Mike admitted. He hooked up a tester to the power cord. “This still appears to work—at half capacity, but it’s functioning.” He performed a few more tests on the laptop itself, but nothing seemed to suggest signs of life.
“I think it’s a goner,” Wade said to Trish as delicately as he might have told her a pet goldfish had died.
“I could keep it for a couple days,” Mike offered. “Take it apart. See if I can revive it.”
“No,” Trish said, a firm conviction in her voice. “I think it’s time to cut my losses.” Her laptop, the one almost new possession she’d worked three jobs her first year in college to afford, had been more than good to her. She’d written countless stories that would never see the light of day, and one or two that with any luck just might. “I saved everything important on a thumb drive, except for a few hundred words.” She gathered The Dinosaur in her arms, hugging it against her chest.
“I would offer to buy it for parts,” Mike said. “But frankly, I think most of it’s fried. I could dispose of it for you.”
Trish shook her head. “Thank you, but I’ll take it with me.” She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with The Dinosaur, but tossing it away at a strange store like a cheap piece of scrap metal didn’t quite seem right. Maybe it would make a nice door stop. Or self-defense weapon.
“What are you going to do?” Wade asked when they were back in the truck.
