I wanted to punch him in the throat.
“I can’t be there for another hour at least,” my father started without preamble. “There’s about forty minutes or so until your sister’s next race. Then I have to run and take your stepmother some food. And then I can be there to pick you up.”
In turn, knowing I was on the side of a major highway, broken down and likely in danger, he would choose to stay at the meet where he could come pick me up and get back before her heat. Then he’d choose to take my stepmother fucking food before coming to get me.
Yes, it was painfully obvious sometimes where I ranked in my father’s eyes.
“Don’t fucking worry about it,” I croaked. “I’ll call a tow truck.”
“Well, don’t tow it to my shop. I won’t be there until Monday afternoon,” my father said as he ignored my language. “I don’t want anyone trying to break into my shop because your car is sitting out front.”
I looked at my car.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be towing it to his shop.
I’d be towing it to the dump.
Then I’d go buy a new one.
Because this was the last fucking time I was calling him.
The very, very last.
But I couldn’t stop the curiosity at wanting to know why my father, who was anal to the extreme about when he got to the shop, wasn’t going to be there on time.
“Uhh, why?” I asked. “You’re there every Monday at the crack of dawn. Is something going on?”
Then he ripped my heart out for a second time that day.
“I’m buying your sister a horse. We can’t get her anytime but Monday during the day.”
My father’s words from a few years back hit me like a sledgehammer.
No, you can’t have a horse. You’re not worth that much money.
Pulling my phone away from my ear, I hit the end call button and then went a step further.
I completely deleted my father from my phone.
I was done.
I was done trying to be something I wasn’t.
I was done trying to get the attention of that man when he didn’t want to give me anything, not even a fucking hello.
So. Damn. Done.
Needless to say, when the roar of a bike went from a throaty throb to a dull roar as it slowed down behind me somewhere, I couldn’t even muster enough gumption to lift my damn head.
That was because I was crying.
I couldn’t stop, either.
After so many years of trying to get my father’s love and attention, he’d finally put the last nail in the coffin.
I didn’t even look up when I heard the thud of bootsteps on the asphalt road I was currently standing on.
I did look up, however, when I heard my name rumble out of what I knew to be a sexy mouth.
“Crockett?” Zach asked quietly.
I looked up, startled to hear my name.
I’d assumed it was just some random person stopping to check out my car.
Not him.
My head snapped up and I stared at Zach with dawning horror.
Not only was I dressed like utter shit, but I was also crying, which made my face blotchy and puffy.
Not to mention I likely had raccoon eyes.
“Uh, hey.” I smiled. “What are you doing here?”
He pointed to the car of mine that had finally stopped smoking.
“Checking on you,” he said. “It’d be rude of me to leave one of the upstanding citizens of Souls Chapel, Texas on the side of the road.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t.
Instead, I allowed him to keep talking. “You need a ride? Did you call a tow truck yet?”
“A ride, yes,” I confirmed. “A tow truck, no.” I paused. “I don’t know where to send it.”
His head shifted slightly. “I have a friend that owns a garage. Works there in his spare time.”
A friend that owned a garage but only worked there in his spare time?
Was it me, or was that weird?
“Umm.” I paused. “I don’t think I want it fixed.”
That was truthful. At this point, I decided that it was worth the hassle of getting a new car that I knew wouldn’t break down on me in the middle of nowhere.
He tilted his head. “It’s a decent car. You could fix it for cheap and then trade it in, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Actually, that wasn’t what I was getting at. I didn’t know what I was getting at.
“Anyway,” he gestured toward the bike. “Hop on. I’ll give you a ride home.”
I bit my lip, unsure of what to do.
Getting on that bike would mean wrapping my body around Zach, who I’d been watching so intently over the last six months that it was almost comical.
He entered my every waking and sleeping thought with his piercing eyes and his sexy mouth.
Did I really want to add being wrapped around him to my dreams, too?
That question was slapped down fast when an eighteen-wheeler passed by us so closely that I felt the wind coming off of his truck knock me off balance.
“Shit, he could’ve moved the fuck over,” he grumbled as he gestured toward his bike with a jerk of his chin. “Let’s go.”
That last comment wasn’t polite in the least. It was short.
Was he mad that I hadn’t immediately jumped at his offer earlier?
“Umm,” I said as I passed behind him. “Sure.”
I found myself shuffling over to the bike and waiting patiently while he mounted.
When I mounted the bike behind him, I ended up burning the piss out of my leg when I touched the tailpipe as I got on behind him.
Luckily, I was wearing jeans.
Unluckily, I could tell that despite the jeans, it was still going to leave a mark.
“You okay?” he asked at my inhaled hiss.
I sat on the seat behind him, then lifted my legs, trying to find purchase somewhere.
He reached down and caught one of my calves, gesturing where to put my feet before letting me go.
“You ever been on a bike before?” he asked.
I cleared my suddenly dry throat. “No.”
“Then you might want to hold on.”
With that parting comment, I was left reaching for him as he started the bike.
It was so loud that it startled me, and I wondered what in the hell would make someone want to listen to this for hours on end.
But as soon as he started off of the side of the road, and the sound of the motor died down to a dull roar as the wind carried the sound away, I realized what it was that was so enticing.
It felt freeing, as if I was on a roller coaster.
That free feeling didn’t get to stay for very long.
He pulled into the driveway of the convenience store closest to where my car broke down and got off the bike. “Need fuel or I’m not gonna make it. I was pushing it trying to make it here.”
My brows rose. “You’re one of those people then?”
“Those people?” he asked with his brows furrowed in confusion.
I watched as he shrugged off my question and went to the pump to insert his card. When it was ready—who the hell put the highest grade in their vehicle?—he looked back at me expectantly.
“Those people that let their vehicle almost run out of gas before they get more,” I said, then pointed at myself. “I’m one of those that starts looking for a gas station when my gas gauge starts reading half.”