Until Arden

Chapter 3

Dash

Thetowtruckdriver is just finishing up after unloading the car when we arrive at Arden’s house. The house is a single story with an unfinished picket fence and a driveway that leads up the side of the house to a storage building. It’s a relatively modest house, but well cared for.

“Woah,” Holden watches, wide-eyed, as the driver resets the hook on the back of his truck. “What’s he doing?”

“He brought Mommy’s car home because it broke.” Arden looks like she’s holding it together, but the way she keeps tugging on the ends of her hair tells me otherwise.

“Why is it broke?”

“I...” Arden shakes her head. She’s nervous. Probably wondering how she's going to manage fixing the car and caring for her son without a vehicle to get to work. “It just happened. Like your little car that breaks sometimes.”

“Did the wheel fall off?”

Turning my head, I try not to laugh and instead focus on getting his car seat out of the truck. If I burst out laughing now, it’ll only earn the ire of Arden.

“No, thankfully,” Arden says. “It just doesn’t go vroom anymore.”

Don’t laugh.

Even though I manage to hold it in, Arden scowls at me as if she knows I’m struggling.

I stand off to the side with Holden’s car seat while Arden talks to the driver, and he hands her the keys. As he drives away, she pops the back hatch, gesturing for me to put the car seat there.

“Thanks,” she says.

Before I can even start talking again, she shakes her head. “Sorry, but I have a feeling you’re going to make some grand gesture to help again. I really appreciate your help today, but I just can’t do it right now.”

“I know you’re going to argue, but I can get an alternator from Dad tomorrow.”

“No, Dash—” She takes off toward the front patio, little more than a rectangular concrete slab with one step leading up to the front door.

There is a slight breeze brushing against my back, carrying a hint of fresh pine, as I walk toward her. “You can’t afford it, and I’m not asking you to. You can’t make money if you can’t get to work. And you have Holden to take care of.”

Pressing the base of her hand against her forehead, she puts Holden down next to a play set to the left of the door and stalks back to me. “Do not use my son as leverage.”

Holding up my hands, I take a step back. “I wouldn’t do that. I swear. I’ve been around cars my whole life and it won’t take me long to swap out the alternator. I only want to help.”

“I said no,” she snaps. “I don’t need your help.”

“I know you don’t, but I’d like to help. I’ll cover the parts and you don’t have to worry about any of it.”

“I don’t want your charity, Dash.”

I swallow my argument. Maybe I should stop pushing. If I back her into a corner, I may never have an opportunity to get through to her. “It’s not charity. I know it sucks when things are out of your control, and you don’t have the means to deal with it because I’ve been there. And when I was, someone was kind enough to help me out, so if I can help and pay that forward, I don’t need anything in return.”

Staring into her eyes, I see the pain she’s trying to hide. I’d like to go into her past and dropkick whoever hurt her that badly. A storm is brewing inside her eyes, but it quickly quiets, and she looks away from me. The muscles in her face relax, and she finally nods.

“I can get the parts wholesale. It’ll take me a couple hours, max, to put them in. I know you don’t trust me, but—” I trail off, unsure if I should continue. It’s hard to tell if it’s exhaustion weighing on her or the genuine offer.

Holden runs up behind her, grabbing the back of her knee and almost shoving her right into my chest. “Mommy.”

She scoops him up and presses a kiss to the top of his head. Then she straightens and looks up at me. “Fine, but I want it all in writing.”

“Give me a pen and paper.”

Arden grabs Holden’s backpack from the porch and hands me a piece of sketch paper and a crayon. She even cracks a smile when she hands them over.

I write out a quick agreement that I’ll provide the parts, install them, and she is under no obligation to pay me or ever speak to me again. Except I make it sound a little more professional—ironic for a contract written in crayon. I want her to trust me, even if it’s only a little. I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is that I see reflected in her face that has me hooked. Sure, she’s gorgeous, especially when she relaxes a little and lets herself smile. There’s also a hint of familiarity that I sense standing next to her. I don’t know what prompted her to uproot and move here, but something clouds her eyes whenever she drifts off into silent thought.

I hold out the paper for Arden. She stares at it for a long moment before taking it and looking it over. Her expression relaxes, then turns into a smile. “That’s thorough.”

“I’m a contractor. Contracts and written agreements are par for the course. Are you off tomorrow night?”

She nods. “But I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

“I can come by around six-thirty, if that works for you.”

“Okay.” She turns to go into the house, but pauses and looks back to me. “I’m sorry for the way I acted. I’m not really used to someone offering to help without an ulterior motive.”

Slowly, I nod. “I’m not as bad as you think.”

A faint smile plays on her lips. “No, I imagine you're far worse than I think. For me anyway.”

On my way to work, I stop by Dad’s shop to order the alternator and a new battery. The office hasn’t opened yet, but he’s already fiddling around in the shop. Since Mom’s death two years ago, he’s always talking about how hard it is to be at home in the mornings.

“Mornin’, Dad.”

He looks up, then sets a wrench down on the bench and wipes his hands on a rag. “Morning. What brings you around this early?”

“I need a favor.”

His smile fades and he leans back to peer through the window.

“For a friend,” I say.

He slides his hands into his pockets and purses his lips into an appraising frown. “This friend have a name?”

“Arden. She’s new to town and works for Janelle.”

He taps his chin thoughtfully. “What possessed you to play knight in shining armor this time?”

It’s bad enough fielding Talon’s questions. Dad’s are worse. I rake my fingers over my jawline, choosing to ignore his implications. “The alternator and battery on her car went out over the weekend and I’m going to replace them for her. When’s the deadline for adding to your parts order for the day?”

“If it’s in by ten and they have it in stock, they should bring it over this afternoon.” He waves me toward the computer. “Have at it.”

While I’m putting the information into the parts order, he continues buzzing about behind me, but of course, can’t keep his commentary quiet. “Does she know you’re ordering the parts?”

“Yes.” I think back to the anger in her voice when I offered to pay for it and shake my head.

He leans against the desk near my left arm, cleaning the sludge out of a socket. He narrows his eyes and I know he’s trying to read me. “When are you going to stop trying to make up for something that was completely out of your control?”

My eye twitches. He doesn’t even know the worst of my transgressions—at least not to my knowledge. He did, however, have a front-row seat to my hellion-style high school antics and royal screw-ups. My junior year, I knocked up my on-again-off-again girlfriend. Of course, since we were teenagers on rocky ground to start with, and her parents were especially strict, she tried to keep it a secret from everyone, including me. The facade fell apart when she collapsed in the hallway at school and was rushed to the hospital for an ectopic pregnancy. After that, I spent the next year sneaking off to get drunk and generally being an asshole to everyone around me. “I don’t know. When I feel like I’ve built up enough karma not to be reincarnated as a slug in a salt mine.”

He relaxes his stance and scrubs the wrench on the edge of the table. “Whatever philosophical spin you want to put on it, you’ll never be happy until you allow yourself to be.”

“I’m not unhappy, Dad. I have a great job, a nice home, trustworthy friends, and a loving dad who still gives me hell every time I visit.” I concentrate on the computer until the printer starts up again with my order confirmation.

“You’re looking for something though.” Since losing Mom, I think he’s been more concerned with seeing me settled down and happy. I know he wants me to have the kind of love and relationship they’d had since before they ran off to get married, fresh out of high school. He also knows that razzing me is the only way to spill any details about my life.

“Yeah, a way to get out of here before it turns into a therapy session.”

He laughs and slaps my back hard enough to almost knock me off the stool. “Okay, smartass. I’ll call you when the parts are delivered.”