I’d been proven right when the only other two places in town that were hiring had turned me away with similar comments. Desperation had driven me to try the next town over and then the next one after that. I’d spent the better part of the week driving to every town within an hour’s drive of Pelican Bay, and while none of them had turned me away simply because I was Nolan Grainger, the rejections had stung all the same.
It turned out that a classically trained Juilliard violinist who’d played in concerts all over the world wasn’t as qualified to run the cash register at Carl’s Fuel Mart or wait tables at Delia’s Dine ‘n Dash as one might think. My ego had taken a blow when Carl himself had informed me he thought the nice young man from the local high school who’d interviewed just before me would be a better fit for the position.
The hopelessness of my situation sank in as darkness began to settle over the horizon. I could keep trying to drive farther and farther out, but the cost of gas would start to cut into any salary I might make. Still, it was better than nothing. My mother would pitch a fit that I wouldn’t be around as much to help her take care of my father, but I was tired of placating her about the situation. I’d tried more times than I could count this past week to make her realize how dire the circumstances really were, but she’d steadfastly insisted that my father would fix things once he was better.
Problem was, there’d be nothing left to fix.
You could call Trey.
Bile curled in my belly as the thought permeated my brain. I was desperate, but not that desperate. The vindictive son of a bitch had ruined my career. No fucking way was I going crawling back to him, though I knew that was exactly what he wanted.
I tried to think of even one friend I could lean on for help or even just to vent my frustrations to, but there was no one. I’d figured out too late that my friends had been Trey’s friends first.
I sighed as I flipped on the car’s headlights. The job hunt would resume tomorrow. I’d find something and I’d get my parents back on their feet and then I’d get the hell out of Dodge.
That was my last thought before the car suddenly shuddered and the steering wheel vibrated under my hands. I looked down at the dash just in time to see the gauges and lights go dark as the engine cut out, and I quickly pulled the wheel to the right so the car wouldn’t stop right there in the middle of the road. Once on the shoulder, I tried getting the car started several times, but it wouldn’t even turn over. I automatically reached for my phone, but sometime in the last thirty minutes the battery had finally given up and died completely.
I was stuck.
In the middle of nowhere.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I sat in silence for a good ten minutes as I contemplated what to do. The temperature in the car began to drop pretty quickly as the heat faded. It wasn’t brutally cold yet outside, but as the sun fell from the sky, the temperatures had started to dip into the upper twenties. I got out of the car and looked around but couldn’t see any lights anywhere, which meant there likely weren’t any homes nearby. The road I was on connected Pelican Bay to its neighboring town of Greenville, but in between was just a whole bunch of nothing. I debated what to do and figured my safest bet was to stay with the car. I checked the back seat for any kind of blanket, but there was nothing. Popping the trunk from inside the car, I got out and went to check it too. There wasn’t enough light to see by, so I had to feel around with my hand. I wanted to laugh at the fact that there was absolutely nothing in the trunk. Not even a stray wrapper or plastic grocery bag.
“Perfect,” I whispered as I slammed the trunk closed.
I’d just started to head toward the front of the car when headlights lit up the road in front of me. In California, the sight would have had me nervous, but in Minnesota, there was only one thing those headlights could mean.
Rescue.
I put out my hand in a slight wave as I waited for the car to slow down, but to my surprise – and annoyance – it flew past, not slowing down in the least. All I could make out of the vehicle was that it was a large pickup truck.
“Ass,” I breathed as I shook my head. So much for not having to sleep in the damn car tonight.