I laugh because that's such a stupid question. "Yeah. I'm great. Living the dream. Just sitting on a curb in the middle of nowhere having a totally normal day." I wipe my face, not looking at him. "I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just need a minute and then I'll figure something out because that's what I do, I figure things out, I'm very good at figuring things out even when everything's falling apart and I have exactly—" I check my wallet, hands shaking. "One hundred and eighty-three dollars to my name after paying for that pie, which was worth it by the way, Sunny makes excellent pie, but that's not enough for a hotel even if this town had a hotel which I'm guessing it doesn't because I haven't seen one and—"
"Scout—"
"And my car's dead. Like really dead. Not coming-back-to-life dead. I heard the death rattle, Finn. That's a thing that happened. So I can't even sleep in my car which was honestly my backup plan, sleep in the car for a few nights until I figured something out, but now that's not an option and I walked here in like a thousand-degree heat carrying everything I own which isn't much but it's heavy when you're walking half a mile in the sun and my shoes have holes in them—look, actual holes—and I just asked a stranger for help and he said no which is completely fair, he doesn't know me, why would he let some random disaster woman live above his shop, that's insane, I wouldn't let me live above my shop either if I had a shop—"
"Scout, breathe—"
"I am breathing! This is me breathing! This is me having a totally normal breakdown on a curb in Arizona after running away from my wedding—there, I said it, I ran away from my wedding like some rom-com cliché except it's not funny because Evan was—" My voice cracks. "And I thought I'd be okay, I thought I'd figure it out, I always figure it out, but my car died and I'm sitting on a curb and I have nowhere to go and I don't even know why I'm telling you this, you don't care, why would you care, I'm just some girl who showed up and made your friend uncomfortable with my stupid centerfold comment which was wildly inappropriate and I'm sorry about that—"
"He's heard worse."
"That doesn't make it better! I shouldn't have said it! I shouldn't say half the things I say but my brain just—it just keeps going and my mouth can't keep up and now I'm rambling at you and you probably have work to do, actual important work, not sitting here with the crying disaster girl who can't take a hint—"
"You're not a disaster."
I look up at him. He's crouched beside me now, elbows on his knees, looking at me with something that might be concern or pity or both.
"I'm absolutely a disaster," I say. "I'm the definition of disaster. I'm what they show people as a warning about what happens when you make bad decisions and then run away from them instead of dealing with them like an adult—"
I hear boots on gravel. Slow, deliberate.
Holt's standing there, arms crossed, jaw tight, looking at me like I'm a problem he's trying to solve.
Long silence. I wipe my face again, probably smearing dust everywhere, definitely looking like hell.
Then he says, "You run the front desk, you can have the room."
I blink. Finn's head whips around. "Wait, what?"
"Answer phones. File invoices. Show up on time." Holt's looking at me, not Finn. His voice is flat but there's something underneath it—resignation, maybe. "You do that, you stay."
"I—" My brain's short-circuiting. "Are you serious?"
"Three hundred a month. You start Monday."
"I can do that." The words come out too fast. "I'm really good at phones. And filing. I'm extremely good at filing. I once organized an entire office supply closet by color and then by frequency of use and then alphabetically within each category and everyone said it was excessive but it worked, it was a very functional system—"
"Seven AM."
"I'll be here at six-thirty—"
"Seven's fine." He's already turning away. Conversation over. But different this time. "Finn, show her the place."
And then he's gone, walking back into the garage like he didn't just change everything.
I sit there on the curb, tears still drying on my face, staring at Finn.
"Did that just happen?" I ask.
Finn's grinning. "Yeah. That just happened."
"Why? He said no. Like three times he said no."
"Because you broke down on his curb and he can't handle that." Finn stands, offers me his hand. "Holt's got a soft spot for lost causes. Don't tell him I said that—he'll deny it and then make my life hell for a week."
I take his hand. Let him pull me up. My legs are shaking. "I'm a lost cause?"
"You're a person who needs help and asked for it. That's all he needed to hear." He grabs my duffel, jerks his head toward the stairs. "Come on. Let me show you your new place. Fair warning—it's not fancy. But it's got a bed and a door that locks and it's yours now."
