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Gravel crunches undermy feet as I head toward my car.I tilt my head, wondering why it looks so uneven.When my gaze goes to the front tyre, I groan.
A flat.And not just a flat where I can put air in and it will be fixed.Something is sticking out of the tyre.
I used my spare on the back-left side wheel a month ago.Due to the move and the hours I’ve had to do at work, I haven’t had the time to get it replaced.If my dad didn’t make me carry one when I first passed my test, I’d be screwed.For some reason, I seem to constantly drive over something sharp.Either that or I have shit luck when it comes to cars.
“Crap!”
Milly lifts her head from my shoulder.“Want me to help you change it?”
“You know how to change a tyre?”I question.
She nods.I shouldn’t be surprised; Malia has always done everything by herself, and she taught her siblings to do the same.It’s why I was so surprised she agreed to get the work done by a contractor instead of doing it herself.
I sigh.“Unless you have a spare tyre I don’t know about, there would be no point.”
“Hey,” Reid greets, startling me.He glances down at my tyre, his thick eyebrows rising.“Shit.How did that happen?”
I narrow my gaze on him.“Did you do this?”
He kneels down next to the tyre, pulling out his phone to shine the light on it.“Unless I took up throwing stars whilst blind drunk, and randomly started throwing them at car tyres, the answer is no,” he mutters.
“A what?”I ask, moving closer.I lift Milly up higher on my hip and watch as he pulls out a silver star-shaped blade thing.
“How did that happen?”Milly asks sleepily.“Can I keep it?”
“Not sure this and a kid is a good combination,” he mutters, distracted.He glances at me.“You pissed anyone off lately?”
“No,” I cry, offended.I’ve never even got into a fight with anyone—unless you count me and Freya tackling each other to the floor.
“Come on, I’ll take you back,” he offers and turns toward the van, but then I notice his head drop.I peek around him, my eyes widening when I see the same star-shaped blade sticking out of his tyre.
“Didyoupiss someone off?”I question, then pull out my phone and shine the torch on the other cars in the parking lot.“They are all like it.”
He presses the screen on his phone a few times before lifting it to his ear.“Jax, have you left yet?Good.I need you to bring the car up—if it hasn’t been tampered with.Someone has stabbed a tyre on each car here with a star blade.I need to take the neighbour back with her kid and check if Tommy is around to grab the correct tyres off him.”
“She’s not my kid.She’s my cousin,” I whisper.Not that I would be ashamed to have Milly as a daughter.I just thought I should clear that up since it would look like I was a teenage mum—again, not that I would be ashamed, but it would have been hard since I was still a virgin when she was conceived.
He arches an eyebrow at me but says nothing else as he listens to who I’m assuming is Jaxon on the other end of the phone.“So they didn’t venture that far down the lane,” he states.“See you in a minute.”
Once he’s off the phone, I clear my throat.“You don’t need to take us back.I can call a taxi and get my dad to come and change the tyre tomorrow for me.”
“What’s the point in waiting God knows how long for a taxi when I’m right here?Besides, the kid is tired and you look like you’re about to drop her,” he argues and then takes her from me.Instead of putting up a fight, Milly willingly goes, snuggling into his shoulder.
He shouldn’t look this hot holding a kid.
Or this at ease.
“Are you mad at me?”Milly whispers.
I sigh at the sight of the grin that spreads across his mouth.“That you played me like a fiddle and I fell for it?Nah.It’s character building, kid.”
My eyes bug out.“I can hold her you know,” I remark once the shock of him taking her and looking hot holding her disappears.
He eyes me like he knows me, or is trying to place me, and I try not to fidget under his scrutiny.He also can’t know how badly it burns that he doesn’t remember.That night was unforgettable for me, and not just because of how it ended.It meant something.To know he doesn’t remember me just adds salt to the wound.
“Are you going to tell me how you know me and why you look so familiar?”
