He laughed. “You’re not wrong. If he sees you right now, we might have a problem.”
“He’s going to have to drag me back to Chicago at this rate,” I muttered. “Tranquilize me and throw me in his jet.”
“But he’ll do it lovingly.”
“Only if lovingly means efficiently,” I retorted. “I wouldn’t put it past him to hire some big game hunter to track me through the desert if I tried to run.”
Colin laughed again, his head shaking. “Why would you run? Unless…”
I sighed. “Unless what?”
“Unless there’s a girl,” he said. “Is there a girl?”
I averted my gaze, back to studying the kid near the ice machine. Unfortunately, Colin knew me well enough to know what that meant. “Holy shit. Thereisa girl. You’ve even got that look on your face that says you’ve accidentally fallen in love and you’re now going to buy property out there.”
I snorted. “I’m not buying property.”
“I didn’t hear you denying that you’ve fallen in love,” he said. “Who is she?”
Raquel was nowhere nearby, but I still found myself looking down the street in the direction of the autobody shop, wondering what she was doing right now. When I refocused on Colin, I narrowed my eyes at the screen.
“Before I tell you anything, are you calling because Alex asked you to?”
He scoffed. “No. I’m calling because you’re my friend and I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“Okay,” I said after thinking it over for a beat. “Look, I’m not hiding any of this. I just don’t want Alex to find out and have aknee-jerk reaction if he thinks I’m considering not coming back at all. He’s given me some time and I really don’t want him changing his mind about it.”
“My lips are sealed.” He strode into his office and clicked the door shut behind him. “What’s going on, Theo?”
“When the bike broke down, I caught a ride into this town, Quartz Pass. I didn’t plan it and I didn’t expect that I’d get stuck here, but the bike is pretty fucked and this was the closest mechanic to where I was when the engine gave out on me. Let’s start there so you can tell Alex that I didn’t plan for this to happen.”
“I wasn’t going to tell him anything, but sure. If he asks, I’ll let him know it was not an intentional delay.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my head as I tried to decide how to explain the rest of it. “Long story short, the guy who dropped me off brought me to a local motel, and when I found out the bike was going to take some time to get fixed, I told the owner of the motel I’d do some work for her in exchange for a reduced room rate.”
“Why?” A deep, confused furrow appeared between his eyebrows, but at least he wasn’t being judgmental about it. Yet. “I mean, it’s noble and all, doing odd jobs for someone while you’re staying there, but why worry about a reduced rate at all, you cheap fucker?”
I chuckled. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t worried about it. It’s not like I asked, but when I was trying to find out if she had my room available for a while longer, she offered to cut me a deal and I took it.”
A slow smile spread on his lips. “So that’s the girl, huh, the motel owner who cut you a deal?”
I snorted. “Fuck, no. Frieda is like the town mom. She’s at least a hundred, chain-smokes her way through life, and frankly, she’d probably castrate you just for having that thought.”
He winced. “Best not to tell her, then.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, probably.”
“Okay, so you’re working in exchange for lodging,” he said thoughtfully. “What are you doing, exactly?”
“Well, just this morning, I’ve painted some siding, fixed a couple lightbulbs, and I’m about to go teach myself about cabinet repair.”
“Cabinet repair?” he repeated dumbly, then dropped into the chair behind his desk and blew out a heavy breath. “Not for nothing, but why are you repairing cabinets? You have a degree in business with a minor in both marketingandfinance. It seems to me like you’re punching way below your weight, and that’s without even examining why you’re still punching at all. You could’ve just told her you’d had another think and you don’t want the deal after all.”
I glanced around the motel, at the faded turquoise railings I hadn’t gotten to yet and the paint supplies sitting under the awning. The kid had moved on from the ice machine, now zipping up and down the dusty parking lot while his mom was hauling one load of washing after the next in and out of the laundry room.
“I’ve made friends here,” I said finally. “I have a loyalty card for the hardware store and I get free slices of pie from the cafe whenever Frieda compliments my work to Miley, who’s the barista there. I don’t know why I’m repairing cabinets, Colin. All I know is that I’m making the best of the time I’ve got here, and honestly, it’s been good for me.”
Quartz Pass had climbed under my skin and Colin was suddenly looking at me so closely through the phone that he finally seemed to see it. “Holy shit. You’re putting down roots.”
