One
Eloise
Quit overdoing it. Quit handling shit alone.
The voice ofmy best friend Karsyn, whom I called Kars, echoed through my head like an ominous warning.Overworked, overstressed, underfucked.That’s what she would have said was wrong with me. Although, considering the smoke rolling out from under my car’s hood, it looked like Iwaspretty fucked. Shame it wasn’t in a way I enjoyed.
“Send me some freaking help,” I muttered as if the universe would drop a handsome mechanic at my feet.
Lifting the hood of my car, I surveyed the engine. Not that it would do any good. I didn’t know much about practical things since I’d spent my entire adult life in the business world. Things like car maintenance and lawncare were foreign to me. I could manage a spreadsheet and more recently, any cocktail recipe. Before I left for Europe, I’d been a bartender. Returning to Falcon Creek, I’d secured both the business manager position atThe Kicking Donkeyas well as having fun as a backup bartender. But office skills and mixology wouldn’t fix my car.
“Need help, Eli?” I looked up from the engine as a smooth, honeyed voice spoke from behind my shoulder, but I didn’t turn around.
“Thank you! You’re the answer to my prayers!”
I spoke before I recognized the voice that was attached to the last person I wanted to see. Reed Hampton. Suave. Handsome. Leaning against my bumper like some tall drink of water. We were adjacent by association and not really friends. He was best friends with August, one of Karsyn’s boyfriends. She had recently gotten into a throuple. That connection had us hanging out more often. So often that he might even be growing on me. Not that I’d tell him that.
“The answer to your prayers, huh?” He stroked the scruff on his chin.
“Something like that. Anyway, don’t worry about it.” I pulled my honey-blonde hair into a high ponytail. The weather was warm tonight, but I was suddenly sweltering. It could be Reed’s presence or something else entirely.
“I tinker with cars sometimes. May I look at it?”
“I’ll just call for a tow. It’s getting late. Who knows how long it will take?” I pushed up the sleeves of my cardigan, preparing to dive back under.
“Let me at least look at it, lemondrop. Maybe I’ll see the problem.”
He’d bestowed the sweet-yet-sour nickname on me after I’d talked him into a shot with the same name a few weeks ago. A fruity alcoholic twist on the classic candy. Reed confessed that the drink reminded him of the candies his grandmother used to have in a large glass dish on her coffee table. He fondly remembered having one whenever he would go to her house growing up. Since then, he ordered the shot whenever he came to the bar I managed. Maybe he was getting used to the idea of me too.
“I’ll call a tow truck. No big deal,” I told him even though it was a bigger deal than I’d let on. Our town didn’t have reliable public transportation, so I needed a vehicle. I’d had the car for almost eight years, and nothing major had happened to it, but I hadn’t kept up with maintenance. Just like I hadn’t been keeping up with other important things in my life.
“I won’t make it worse,” he said, chuckling. “At least, I’ll try not to.”
Reed rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt, tucking them as he folded each one to his elbow. His hair was tousled as if he’d been jabbing his fingers through it earlier. From this distance I could see the light scruff on his chin as he clenched and relaxed his jaw. He was staring at me. Was it my desperation that made my lips part slightly as I stared back? He looked yummy enough to lick.
“There isn’t a foreign car repair shop nearby. I’ll have to go all the way to Cheyenne.”
“Then it can’t hurt for me to check one thing.”
“I’ll figure it out, Reed. Move so I can just–” I reached for something in the engine. Reed grabbed for my hand as if trying to stop me but he caught my wrist, triggering me. Reacting on pure instinct, I jerked my hand away from his grip, slamming my fingers into hot metal, the exact part that Reed wanted me to avoid.
“Yow!”
Forgetting where I was for a moment, my brain spiraling from the immediate trauma he’d inadvertently caused, I stumbled into him instead of away from him. Reed, seemingly off-balance from trying to help me again, slammed his head into the hood. As if this moment couldn’t get any worse– he fell and landed hard against the pavement.
“Fuck!” Reed rubbed his head.
“Oh my god! Are you okay?"
Reed winced. Slowly he got to his feet, as if mentally taking stock of his body. “I’ll be fine.”
Tears pricked the back of my eyelids and I forced them away. Years ago someone had assaulted me, pinning my wrists to the ground while they did horrible things. Whenever my wrist was grabbed, I’d become triggered. I’d spent a long time dealing with the mental damage, but I wasn’t fully healed. “My... your... when you grabbed me–”
“Hey. Hey, breathe. Are you having a panic attack?”
"No, it’s, uh, worse. It’s similar, but I’m emotional. It’s from PTSD,” I said as if that would explain it all.
“Will it help if I hold you for a few minutes until you calm?”
