Page 87 of In The Weeds
Right before they got together, Luka appeared on my doorstep, his sweatshirt on inside out and a look on his face like someone stole all of his cookies and his last slice of pizza, too. He sat on my couch wrapped in three blankets and stared blankly into my fireplace for close to five hours.I just need a second,he had said.Just a few minutes.
“I told you to stop being an idiot,” I say, reluctant. “Tell her how you feel.”
Luka raises both eyebrows.
“Stop being an idiot,” he tells me. A smile twists his mouth to the side. “Tell her how you feel.”
Stella appears not too long later,a sweatshirt down to her knees and a shovel dragging listlessly behind her. She looks like she just went seven rounds with her mattress and lost every single one. She brushes a kiss to Luka’s cheek, wraps her arms around my middle in a hug, and then tows her way over to the far end of the field and proceeds to dig the slowest, sloppiest holes known to mankind. Luka lasts three minutes before he trudges his way over to help.
Layla arrives just as a few fat raindrops decide to fall from the sky, rubber boots and a bright blue knit beanie. She walks right up to me and squeezes tight, her head under my chin. I get a mouthful of puffball.
“I didn’t have time to make zucchini bread,” she says. She squeezes harder and I let out a wheeze. “I’m sorry.”
I blink down at her head and give her a gentle squeeze back. Really, I’m trying to encourage her to let go. Rolling out all those pie crusts has made her scary strong. “That’s alright.”
“I’ll make some this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
She hoists the shovel I didn’t see her bring over her shoulder and joins Luka and Stella, her hat bouncing the entire way. I see headlights flash in the distance and I frown.
“What’s going on?” I shout over to my trio of unexpected assistants. A raindrop lands on my nose and slides down.
Stella is leaning back against Luka’s chest, her head tipped against his shoulder. Her eyes are barely open and for a second, I think she’s asleep. “The phone tree,” she yells back, her call echoing out over the empty field. “We moved dig day up.”
Another pair of headlights appears in the distance, two beams of light cast down the dirt road that leads to the farm. I watch them for a second and swallow hard. Those piano strings relax, just a bit.
“Why?”
I can see the look Stella is giving me from all the way over here. One delicately raised eyebrow, her lips in a flat line. Layla scoffs and Luka shakes his head.
“If you’re digging, we’re all digging,” she yells. The heat in her statement is lessened slightly by a giant yawn, right in the middle. She shivers and Luka presses a kiss to the back of her head, his forearm anchored across her collarbone. “That’s what partners do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
EVELYN
I hate this place.
I hate this place. I hate this car. And I hate this stupid backroad that my GPS told me would be the more scenic route. I hate that I thought a more scenic route sounded nice, and I didn’t just take the highway. I could have been back by now.
Or, at the very least, I could be drinking a milkshake on my way back.
On the highway.
I stare out at a field of dead grass and kick my flat tire. There is not a single scenic thing about this stretch of poorly maintained road and the abandoned gas station thirty feet away, a family of crows staring blankly at me from their perch on a boarded up storefront. I’m getting faint Hitchcock vibes, and I press two fingers between my eyebrows, silently willing some positive vibes. It feels like I’ve had a string of cosmic bad luck since I left the U.S. Small Business Coalition offices in Durham. I try not to read into it.
Spilled coffee. Missed turn. Another missed turn. Lost signal. And now this. A flat tire.
At least the rental has a spare. I only need to … remember how to change it.
My mom had been big on this stuff in high school. Replacing old, rusted out pipes beneath the sink and changing the oil in the car. She said it was important for me to learn how to be my own hero.
You won’t ever need to ask a boy, she had told me, grease up to her elbows and across her forehead, a grin on her face as she released the jack. Her laugh had been proud and bright in our tiny garage, crinkles in the dark skin around her eyes. Her arm warm around my shoulder as our minivan rocked in place.
She’d be scowling at me now though, if she could see me staring at the tire propped up against the wheel well.
I put my hand over my eyes and glance down the long winding road I’ve pulled to the side of. I can’t hear a single engine rumbling in the distance. I check my phone again and note the lack of bars in the top right corner.
