After a few long beats, she glanced around. “Where’s your car?”
“I’m on foot.”
“You live around here?” she asked.
Rather than answer, he said, “I’ll drive you home and jog back.”
“No. No, you can’t do that. I couldn’t ask you to, not with your—”
“I’m fine. And you can’t drive after what just happened,” he said. “Come on.”
After a brief hesitation, she nodded, and he walked her around to the passenger door, which was unlocked, and went to get in the driver’s side. She was one of those women whose car was full of random shit, so it took her about three minutes to clear off her seat, but he kinda liked that. It meant she didn’t have passengers often. He figured between that and the lack of a ring, she probably wasn’t married.
She handed him the keys. “Okay,” he said before starting the engine. “Where to?”
With the turn of the key came low, modulated radio voices and a squealing fan belt.
“You need to get that looked at,” he said.
“What?”
“Fan belt.”
“Oh. Right. I don’t… I mean, I never…”
“I could take a look, if you want.”
“You?” She looked at him as he pulled out, her shocked expression almost comical. Or it would have been if it hadn’t hurt just a bit.
“Sure.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It’d be a pleasure.”
“Oh.”
He stopped at the sign and turned to catch her watching him.
After a few seconds of silence, he asked, “Which way?”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Sorry, left here.”
He turned and drove on in silence as she guided him down a few more streets.
“Look, I can’t ask you to walk home from my place. It’s out of the way and—”
“I’m at the motel in town. ’S it far from that?”
“About a mile,” she said.
“That’s fine. I was jogging anyway so it’s actually perfect.”
“I feel bad, Mr. Blane. You…” She hesitated, and he glanced over at her. “You appear to have a limp.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, his voice as hard and final as he could make it.
After a turn onto Jason Lane, she spoke again. “The motel. What… I mean…you’re living there?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
