My smile turns wicked when I see the opportunity staring me right in the face.
Taking out my phone, I dial a guy I know at Bad Boys Auto.
“S’up?” Curtis shouts into the phone over the deafening whir of a loud impact wrench.
“Hey, man. It’s Jordan. Could you do me a favor?”
“Seeing as I owe you several, go for it.”
Douglass pauses in her movements as she blatantly listens in to my conversation.
“Could you send a tow out to the gas station across from Golden Peaks?”
Douglass wiggles out of the car window and uprights herself. “Jordan, what are you doing?”
Curtis laughs. “Damn, it’s a little early in the day to be needing a lap dance.”
I turn and lean a hip on the hood of my car. “No, shithead. I’m not at the club. A friend’s car broke down. It’s a rental. Ugly mud-brown Celica. You can’t miss it.”
“Jordan, hang up the phone,” Douglass demands, and I hold up a hand, telling her to wait.
“Then let them handle it,” he replies. He covers the mouthpiece on the phone and shouts at someone.
Douglass rounds the hood of the Tesla and tries to grab the phone from my hand. “I’m serious, Jordan. Hang up.”
I turn my back to her. “Just come and get it and take it back to the shop. Get Cass to call the rental company. I’ll give my friend a ride—umph.”
My phone almost flies out of my hand when Douglass crashes into my back and climbs me.
“Hang the damn phone up right now!”
Curtis’s laugh booms over the line. “Looks like you’re busy. I’ll radio for the truck to come out your way.”
“Thanks, man.”
I quickly hang up just as Douglass lurches an arm over my shoulder, tipping me off balance. Her legs lock around my torso like a vise, and she wraps her arms around my neck as I stumble forward, ramming into the side of my car.
An instant heat scorches me from the inside out as a shimmer of recollection of having her in a similar position—legs and arms gripping me close as I pin her to a wall and thrust deep— suddenly hits me.
Douglass jumps off my back and stomps her foot. There’s a shimmer of tears lurking behind her eyes before she lets loose on me.
“You are such an asshole! Jesus, Jordan, I can’t afford to pay for a tow truck. I couldn’t even afford to pay for the car rental in the first place. I had to max out my one credit card!”
Concern melds with curiosity. There are so many questions I want to ask her. Why didn’t she go to college? Why is she broke? Why did she leave Woodspire, and what brought her back?
“Then let me help you.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.
“Oh, that’s rich coming out of your mouth. I don’t want your ‘kind of help,’” she says with air quotes. “Just leave me the hell alone.”
I can’t. I wish to God I could. I wish I could remember that night and what I did that was so bad, she despises even the sight of me.
“Get in the car.”
Douglass crooks her neck to look up at me and pokes me in the chest with a finger. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
The Douglass standing in front of me is so different from the girl I used to know. Not going to lie. I like this new side of her, full of spitfire and attitude.
