I bite my cheek and twist the key harder this time, as if how hard I turn may result in something different, but it doesn’t. The car struggles to turn over, then sputters right back out.
“Come on,” he says. His brow is drawn together, the deep lines almost harboring their own anxious thoughts. There’s the slightest twitch in his jaw as he presses his lips into an even tighter line. I’m too stunned to say anything, and he takes the opportunity to continue. “I have an extra bunk at my cabin. It’s not fancy but there’s a woodstove and hot water.”
Morgan stutters a “w-what?!” that echoes across the parking lot and through the distant valley.
Noah removes his phone from his pocket. “Come on, Lily. I’m going to call a tow truck. It will take them a while to pick it up. You can ride with us.”
Still in the front seat of my car, I grab my hiking backpack from today that has all my essentials in it. More like a couple bucks, an extra pair of socks, and an empty water bottle, but I yank it out with me, nonetheless.
My first reaction is to refuse outright, but honestly, I truly don’t have anywhere to go. My second is to tell him to drop me off at a motel. However, I mentally count my cash on hand, plus what’s left on my debit card—it will not get me a room for the night.
I decide I can crash on his bunk for the night and call Mitch in the morning to ask for an advance on my paycheck to get my car from the tow company. As for the mechanic’s bill, I’m not even sure I want to think about how I’m going to pay for that.
Resigned to the fact Noah’s my best bet, I nod and exit my car while Morgan paces back and forth in her nude heels.
“I just need to fill up then we’ll be on our way.”
Noah slides his card and begins to pump gas, and I shuffle toward his truck. I’d already planned on sliding into the back seat, but it’s set in stone when Morgan quickly clicks her way to the front passenger side and hops in, leaving me standing outside the truck, backpack hanging off one shoulder.
After Noah’s finished, he turns to me. “Ready?”
No.“Don’t have much of a choice, so I guess.”
“You always have a choice,” he says, opening the back door for me. “We’ll drop Morgan off before we head to the cabin.”
I hadn’t always. He’s wrong, and the truth sours my empty stomach.
Once more I toss a look over my shoulder to my car sitting stranded at the pump across from us, and then I climb into the back seat. It has a minor smell of dog, but it’s not as bad as I thought it’d be. In fact, when Noah slides into the driver’s seat in front of me, I catch a whiff of his scent. He smells like crisp air before a coming storm, fresh yet musky. It clings to him as he starts his truck and eyes the rearview mirror.
I slouch down in my seat, annoyed I’m stuck in a truck with Barbie and the town’s Ranger of Virtue, and equally frustrated as the smell of Noah etches its way into my lungs and wraps me like a hug I didn’t know I needed.
Ridiculous.
With a quick fiddle, he presses a few buttons on the infotainment and out spits the most hellish jazz music there ever was.
Morgan wrinkles her nose and glances at Noah, confused. He ignores her, and me for that matter, as we leave the gas station.
As Noah pulls onto the road toward town, I lean my head on the cool window, ignoring the awkwardness emanating from Morgan and Noah in the front. It’s then, in my peripheral, a shadowed figure steps out from between the gas station and the grouping of trees that collide with it. A figure that slinks out of the shrouded night like a man.
We aren’t too far from town, and when Noah pulls into a modest single-story home near Pete’s Market, I’m confused.
The cab of the truck is silent as Morgan rustles around, reaching to pull her purse up from the floorboard. “Thanks for the save tonight, Noah,” she says, and places a hand on his forearm that rests on the center console.
“No problem. Have a good night.” He doesn’t get out of the truck and walk her to the door, like I assume a man of his virtuous being would if they were on a date, and Morgan … she hesitates like she wants to say more but thinks better of it after glancing over her shoulder at me.
“See ya,” she says.
I think it’s directed at me, considering the clipped tone, but Noah answers.
“Night.”
She scoots out, adjusting her too short dress and shuts the door. Then she climbs the front steps to her screened-in porch and, with another brief look toward the truck, unlocks the door and shuts herself in for the night.
Her words, “thanks for the save tonight,” ring in my ear.
“What did she mean bysave tonight?” I ask.
“She called from a disastrous blind date and wanted a ride home. You moving up front?”
