“Can’t you?” Why do those two words sound like a threat? I think she’s speaking through bared teeth, and not at me.
“Wyatt, it’s yourbrother.” That word sounded a little dangerous for my liking. “He’s been trying to call you apparently.”
Some muffled noises on the other end of the line before I hear sounds that tell me the phone is passing hands. Maybe forced into a closed fist.
“Yeah?”
Here goes nothing. I screw my face up tight and hold my breath. “I need your help.”
FOUR
AMELIA
The tow truck pulls off the single lane of the road and backs up until it’s just in front of the van.
When the driver’s side door opens and a man jumps down out of the tall cab, I’m caught bouncing my head between him and Weston.
It’s not so much their physical characteristics, but something about this guy is similar to the one next to me. Stature more than mannerisms. Not sure I can even pinpoint what it is, but I can tell they’re related.
Maybe it’s the awkward tension between them.
Yep, that’s the dead giveaway.
They’re related.
Or they made eye contact during a devil’s three-way and haven’t figured out how to act around each other since. But nah, the dark-haired guy walking toward me now doesn’t look like the sharing type.
I’m sticking with familial relations. Those can be all kinds of fucked up. Ask me how I’d know.
“Evenin’,” he says, tipping the brim of his dark ballcap my way, before heading over to Weston, who’s waiting by the open hood.
The two of them duck under there, muttering between themselves, pointing at various parts and conferring before they both pop back out of it. They turn and walk back toward me, almost in tandem.
Weston, early thirties, golden skin and hair, in a white tee with khaki cargo pants and brown boots, those dark green eyes just like those of the man next to him. The other man is later thirties, with darkly tanned skin, dark hair and features, and scruff on his face that probably never goes away, shadowing his cut jawline above his Henley and Dickies. The band on his ring finger glints in the moonlight, which somehow makes him feel more foreboding rather than safer.
Everything about the new arrival sayshands off, whereas everything about Weston saysstay awhile. It’s a dichotomy between them that I’d like to propose be more closely inspected, maybe a study could be conducted on. I’m certainly fascinated. For all their similarities, their differences jump out at me louder.
Warm and fuzzy versus cold and sharp.
Messy, precise.
Casual, uptight.
“I’m gonna have to take a better look at it in my shop, but it looks like your engine’s done for,” the tow truck driver says in a gruff, rather solemn voice.
My eyes flash to Weston’s, much more comforting than the other pair. “Amelia, this is Wyatt,” he says. “The local mechanic here in Smoky Heights.”
Oh. Not just a tow truck driver then.
“And my brother,” he tacks on after a second.
Double oh. Not just any mechanic-slash-tow truck driver either.
“He’s still learning the basic human skill called manners,” Weston says pointedly, with lighter delivery than most couldpull off, but the levity doesn’t stop the blow from hitting its intended target.
Wyatt makes a noncommittal sound from somewhere deep in his throat in response, and I nod back at him, giving him a tiny finger wave. “Total pleasure,” I say with zero inflection, and without a pause, I ask, “What do you meandone for?”
“I mean if this were a hospital waiting room, I’d have brought Kleenex for you,” he says dryly.
