He shakes his head and sighs. “I don’t think you get it. The landslide washed out the road. There’s no road left in that section.”
My face must tell him everything I’m feeling. Shock, anger, confusion. This isn’t a minor inconvenience. This is a huge disruption for me. Hell, for hundreds of people that take this road to work every day.
“It’s going to be closed for a while. You better get used to taking the South Pass while they rebuild that stretch of road.”
His eyes drift away and I make out the lights of another car in my rearview mirror. He taps the roof of the SUV. “Drive safe tonight.”
With that, I start to pull away. I turn up the intensity on the massaging seats and reside myself to making the most ofthe extra hour I’m going to be spending each way on my commute for the foreseeable future.
As I drive away, I can’t block out one question from creeping into my mind. I’ve been exhausted and barely scraping by while living in Rodgers and driving to work in Jackson. What if I can’t even do this anymore?
CHAPTER 8
SUTTON
“Walk me through this again.”Sly rubs his beard and sighs, sounding more like a curmudgeonly old man instead of the twenty-something he is.
I let out a long groan. It’s partly from exhaustion after making the long drive from Wyoming to New Mexico, only stopping for gas and bathroom breaks, and in part realizing how this sounds out loud.
Instead of going to bed when I got into town, like a sane person, I did the opposite. I stayed up all night fixing the brakes myself. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I replaced the rusted out muffler. Then I changed the oil, put in new spark plugs and that just about got me to where I am now, explaining why Kelsey’s car is up on a lift in our family’s garage.
“OK.” I palm my face and shake my head. “I know how this sounds. I probably should have thought this through more, but she needed help.”
He looks at me, but instead of annoyance I see the shit-eating grin I’m more accustomed to.
“So you just took her car and drove it two states away?”
I shoot him a glare, but he’s right, I didn’t give her much ofa choice. I talked to TJ after I left and he said Grace saw her leaving with my car. “I mean, yeah? But I left her my Porsche.”
He shakes his head and chuckles with that deep, rumbly laugh that reminds me of our dad.
“God, you’re an idiot. Two years and you’re still hung up on her.”
I give him a hard punch to the shoulder. “Better than ten years, and at least I’m still trying.”
His eyes shoot up to mine and I brace for him to strike back. Fuck, that was harsh. I should have not have said that. I see that look of anger and regret in his eyes and watch his jaw tense. Instead of hitting me back though, he takes a deep breath and nods before turning back to the car.
“Right.” He grabs a shop towel and hands it to me. I relax and let my guard down. “Well, you know the whole point of you being here was to help us catch up on work, not add more and get us further behind.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Is there anything left to fix, or can we take it down, get some breakfast, and work on a paying customer’s car?” He looks at her car for a moment before huffing a laugh.
“What is it now?”
“I still can’t believe you drove this piece of shit here and worked on it all night. You know you could have woken me up. I would’ve helped so you could get at least a few hours of sleep.”
Yeah, it definitely sounds crazier the more I hear it. Honestly, I still don’t care. Spending ten hours in her car, which smells just like her, was probably the closest I’ve felt to her in years.
I grab his shoulder and give it a light squeeze. “Thanks. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me pull in last night.”
Sly lives in the apartment above the garage and I wasworried her incredibly loud brakes would wake him up when I got here. Growing up, he was always a heavy sleeper, and I guess that hasn’t changed. I just don’t know how she drove around like that not realizing something was wrong.
“Just work on your hero complex, OK? You’re setting the bar too high for the rest of us.”
I cock a brow at him and he gives me the same expression right back.
“You know exactly what I mean. You have a raging hero complex. You’re killing yourself coming here all the time to help out. You’re helping Slade in Seattle. You literally stole this girl’s car and gave her the keys to yours. What’s your next crusade?”