Page 15 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
“White Audi?”
“Yeah, how’d you—”
Before I can finish my question, there’s another knock on my window. Whole Foods guy is back, holding his phone up so I can see the active call. When he puts it back to his ear, I hear him through the window, but also through my phone.
“You’re gonna have to come out now, so I can hook you up to my truck.”
And then I burst into flames.
—
When my foot hits the pavement, his tow truck comes into full view and my face burns red-hot. The side door is tagged withPops’ Auto Shopand what must be their logo: a cartoon drawing of a Black man in a rocking chair wearing a Kool-Aid grin. Not exactly the slaughter mobile I’d imagined.
He walks me to the passenger side to get the door. I’m tempted to point out that I can open my own doorthankyouverymuch,but I can’t form the words around my own foot, still lodged firmly in my mouth. I squeak out a pathetic “Thanks” instead. Because though technically I still didn’t order his saving, in this moment, I am, in fact, in need of it.
His legs make quick work of the jog back to the driver’s side. Even in this behemoth of a vehicle, this guy dwarfs the cabin with his presence. Well, him and the elephant-size discomfort shoehorned between us.
I don’t know how long I’ve had this death grip on my phone, but when my fingers start to cramp, I loosen it—though I refuse to release it entirely. What else am I going to do with my hands?
“I’m just gonna pull in front,” he says, maneuvering the truck into position and jumping out to get to work.
I’m alone in the pristine cab, hammering out a message to Zola with entirely too much backstory, when the door opensagain. Sooner than I’d expected. The truck shifts under his weight, and I freeze. Like if I’m still enough, he might not notice me. Sitting here. In his truck.
The heat of his body beside me is suffocating enough, but when he reaches into the center console for a business card, his knuckles skim my elbow, and I jump out of my skin.
“Sorry,” he says, trying to cover his laugh.
I attempt to play off my obvious overreaction. Adjusting my body again and again, with equally jerky movements as if perhaps that’s just how bodies move. It is not.
I know I should leave it alone now, but I simply cannot.
“Oh, it’s me!” I screech, before trying again. “I mean mine. My fault.” And then, because my brain has short-circuited, I keep saying all the words. “I was in the way. That was my bad. With your fingers.”
“You’re good,” he says, lip still quirking as he jots notes on his clipboard.
I’ve only been in this guy’s presence for a matter of minutes, but already I recognize that thing his mouth is doing as he bites back his smile.
After my reaction to the accidental elbow graze, I don’t blame him for announcing his plans to reach over into the glove box to retrieve a stapler. His movements are focused and direct—he hardly enters my bubble—but it doesn’t stop anxiety from prickling the tips of my fingers now that we’re only inches apart.
I direct all my focus to the first thing I see to ground myself, fixating on the subtleties of every tattoo painting his arms as they flex and relax with each stroke of his pen.
I craft a detailed backstory for every intricate symbol and decide on hyperspecific names for the colored ink bringing them to life. But when the malachite stem of a carmine dahlialeads directly into a vein that snakes up his forearm, my eyes stray from the flower, following the lines of his biceps instead.
It’d be easier to pretend he hadn’t caught my gaze trailing across his skin if he wasn’t sinking his teeth into his bottom lip like that.
Mischief dances in his eyes as he clears his throat. “What’s your name?”
“Kaia?” I say, like I’m guessing. “Harper.”
He mouths it silently as he makes that final note on his paperwork. I’d never really considered the exact shapes my name might make crossing a person’s lips, but now that I’ve seen it form on his mouth, I won’t forget.
He releases his paper from the clamp and holds it out to me, careful not to let so much as a stray fingernail cross onto my side of the console.
“That’s everything you’ll need.”
“Thanks,” I say, pretending to survey it before shoving it into my purse.
“Should we wait for your boyfriend here? Or I can take you to the shop or a charge station and he can meet us there.”
