Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I squeeze my phone tighter. “How long until someone gets here?” I ask.
“Soon,” he says. “Stay inside until they’re with you. Don’t go back out alone. You’ll know when they get there it’s my people. But until then, I need you inside. Don’t take a walk or give the car another thought.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
I glance toward the glass doors. Dr. Reeves isn’t visible from here, but that doesn’t mean he’s gone. A shiver crawls up my arms.
When I hang up, I sit in a hard plastic chair by the waiting area and try to slow my breathing. My hands won’t stop shaking.
Two flat tires. It keeps looping through my head.
Two.
Not one. Two. Could it have been nails? A pothole? Some freak thing? Or—My thoughts snag on Dr. Reeves’s face out there. The way he stepped outside at just the right time. The way he seemed to know what I was dealing with before I told him.
I swallow hard.
No. Don’t spiral. Don’t do that. I force myself to focus on Miles’s words.
I’ll have someone to you within thirty minutes.
Miles doesn’t say things he can’t back up. Even from states away, he speaks like he can reach through the phone and put himself between me and the world.
I don’t know how he does it. I don’t know why he does it.
But he does.
I sit there under the too-bright lobby lights, listening to the hum of the building, watching a couple of tired people shuffle toward the elevators, watching security do another slow round.
And I wait.
Trying to trust that help is already on the way.
Trying not to look at the doors and imagine someone standing out there, watching. Even as the anxiety climbs I hear him in my head and it soothes me. Let your man be a man and trust I will get this handled.
My man.
He’s all man. And I do trust he will have it handled. All of it is proven when a man wearing a leather vest with a different patch than Miles and Raff wear. No, his has a skull and the words Saint’s Outlaws on his vest. The patches on the front read President and Wrath. The man is menacing, but once he approaches me a wide smile crosses his face before he greets me to let me know my car is ready.
While I stayed in here, he got a call from Miles. He brought three of his brothers and fixed my car. And I was able to get home to grandpa before his caregiver had to clock an additional hour since I always schedule some overlap to allow for me to be late.
Miles stepped in from states away to save my day. I wish he was here so I could show him my appreciation. Since he’s not, I make a mental note to give it to him in the near future even if I only get a weekend trip to North Carolina to do so.
Yeah, I have it bad for the man who has come into my world and left me filled with butterflies since the beginning.
Thirteen
Miles
The garage at Honey's Hot Rods smells like oil, rubber, and a hundred ghosts of engines that have roared through here before mine.
I breathe it in like it’s oxygen.
My bike’s stripped down to her bones in the center bay, chrome and black scattered across the red concrete floor. I’ve got grease under my nails and sweat sliding down my spine, radio low in the corner playing some classic rock Stud has it set to. The overhead fans churn the heavy Carolina heat but don’t do much more than push it around.
This is my church.
Out back, in the second building where Stud keeps his personal collection—a series classic muscle lined up like trophies in a glass case—I hear a truck door slam hard enough to rattle the sheet metal walls.
I don’t have to see him to know who it is. The gate out front limits activity in the bays to keep customers out of the unsafe areas. The amount of people who will casually walk under a car on a lift not knowing a thing about vehicles in the first place astounds me. Cars fall even with seasoned mechanics using the lifts. Stud learned a long time ago, even the gate and fencing only limits the fools that tread back here.
That specific slam, I know it anywhere. It’s an late nineties model Dodge truck. One that may be rough around the edges, but carries an unmatched loyalty. Much like the owner.
Smoke.
His boots hit gravel, fast and heavy. The man never learned how to walk into anything calmly. It’s probably his biggest downfall, rushing into everything with a reaction rather than stopping to read the full situation. It’s him through and through. One thing about me, I’ll never ask a man to change because I’ll be damned if anyone can change me.