“This is an evil car and it hates me.”
“No, not Daphne.” My friend and self-appointed driving instructor gives the dash a little pat.
“Why did I give her such a cute name?” I eye Daphne, aka the navy Camaro from hell. I’ve owned my first car for three days and have barely driven her as many miles. “I should start calling her Jezebel.”
“Call her whatever you like but you still have to learn to drive stick.”
“I’m trying.” I lean forward to yell directly into the air vent. “I will be so good to you if you just stop stalling every two seconds!”
“You’re lifting your foot off the clutch too soon.”
“I know.” I collapse back against my seat.
“So stop it.”
I can hear the grin in Maggie’s voice before I turn my head to look at her. Yeah, she’s enjoying this. “You said learning to drive stick would be fun, that I’d have it down in an hour. We’ve been at this all morning and I’m pretty sure I’m getting worse.”
“You’re not going to get any better without the keys, Brooke.”
With a sigh, I push open my door and cross the single lane dirt road. The thigh-high grass skims the hem of my faded blue sundress as I search the open field. Fortunately, the keys have a ridiculously large fuzzy keychain in the shape of an ice skate on them—my new-car present from Maggie—so they aren’t hard to find.
“Who has a stupid keychain now?”
Turning back, I see she’s crawled over the console and is resting her forearms on the driver’s side open window. “I never said stupid, I said interesting.”
Maggie bursts out laughing. “You’re always so polite. Is that a West Texas thing or a Covington thing?”
“Worried it’s catching?” I ask with a faux scowl.
Maggie pulls the collar of her sleeveless watermelon-print shirt up to her chin and hunches her shoulders. “It better not be. If I start calling anybody ma’am, I’m moving back to LA.”
“It’s not my home or my family. I just don’t see the sense in being rude for no reason.” I let my gaze travel back to Daphne. “But that’s with people, not cars.” A smile alights on my face. “Hey, you think there’s something wrong with her and not me?”
Maggie raises an eyebrow—well, I think she raises an eyebrow. Her aviators cover half her rather small face, so it’s hard to tell. She plucks the keys from my hand while fully moving into the driver’s seat. A second later I’m left choking on a dust cloud as she speeds a few hundred yards down the dirt road, executes an action-movie-worthy U-turn, and drives back. She’s grinning as she slows next to me.
“Guess it’s not the car.”
“Not fair. Didn’t you tell me your dad is a professional stunt driver?”
“Professional stunt driver, professional cheater and liar.” She lifts one hand then the other as though she’s weighing the two options. “He is a man of many talents.”
“Sorry,” I say. I feel like I’ve known Maggie my whole life instead of just a couple weeks, so I keep forgetting that there’s still a lot she hasn’t shared with me.
Maggie dismisses my apology with a wave of her hand then lifts her sunglasses into her pink-tinted hair, which exactly matches the double-winged liner on her eyes. She’s definitely raising her eyebrows now. “If we’re talking about fair, ask me how I feel watching you do quintuple silk-cow jumps around me when I can barely skate backward.”
“Salchow jumps, and they were only doubles. Plus, you’re getting so much better.”
“Says the girl my mom literally offered to pay to be my friend.”
“She offered to pay me for ice-skating lessons.” While I needed the money—we live on the outskirts of town and gas to and from anywhere isn’t cheap—it turned out what I really needed was someone whose eyes wouldn’t shade with pity or scorn whenever they looked at me. “Besides, I think we can both agree you’re the one paying now.” I eye the hand rubbing her neck. I’ve been jerking us around for hours trying to tame Daphne.
Maggie tries not to smile. “You know my mom would have paid you twice what she offered. She’s convinced I’m turning into some kind of recluse who only talks to the camera when I’m filming YouTube tutorials. She only really likes the Korean beauty videos I make, but I’m half American too. Anyway, I’m just glad the first person I met turned out to be as amazing off the ice as she is on it. One less thing she can nag me about, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, ignoring the queasy flip in my stomach as she opens the door for me and slides back into the passenger seat.
“All right, enough stalling.” She mimes a rim shot to go along with her pun. “Everybody does it when learning to drive stick. Suck it up and get back in the car.”
I try, I really do, but before my butt even hits the seat, I’m grabbing the gearshift like it’s a bull ready to buck me off. Not that I’ve ever ridden a bull—we may live in cattle country but the empty acres around my family’s farmhouse are purely ornamental—but the idea is starting to look a lot less daunting in comparison.
“Do you remember the most important rule of driving stick?”
I nod, buckling my seat belt. “Don’t confuse the clutch for the brake pedal.”
“No—cars can sense fear.”
I slide my gaze toward my friend and watch her grin at me.
“Are you thinking about punching me in the boob?”
She knows I would never admit to something like that out loud, but the reluctant smile inching onto my face gives me away.
“Joke’s on you.” Grinning wider, Maggie twists to face me and pushes her chest out. “Flat as a board, baby. Who’s laughing now, besides every boy ever?”
Both of us, apparently. It takes way too long for my composure to return enough to start the car again. I don’t even mind that it stalls the first time. Or the second. I manage not to stall on my third try, but Daphne is jerking us around so much that it’s a hollow victory.
You can drive from one end of town to the other in ten minutes, but I’m not ready to face even those few stoplights and intersections, so we stick to the back roads on the outskirts of town near my house, where traffic is practically nonexistent. The only other vehicle we’ve encountered is a truck pulled onto the side of Pecan Road, its driver nowhere to be seen. Not that I’m paying much attention to anything but the gearshift growing sweaty in my palm and the stop sign looming ahead. I could roll through it, except I know I won’t. So I downshift and come to a full and legal stop. Beside me, Maggie says nothing. I know what to do; it’s the execution that keeps tripping me up. I still don’t understand how I can be so good with my feet in one area and so awful in another.