Page 1 of Solo

Chapter One

Kate

I don’t know what I expect to see when I raise the hood of the car. It’s not as if there’ll be a neon sign flashing Broken Hose or Blown Tranny—whatever the hell a tranny is. But there’s nothing like that. Just the greasy, metallic guts of my old Toyota. I recognize the plastic container that holds the blue washer fluid and the cap that I twist off to put antifreeze in. I see the dipstick I use to check the level on the oil that this bucket of bolts guzzles down and smokes out the tailpipe. But that’s it.

“Hey, do you need some help?”

I’m so startled by the voice behind me that I jump and hit my head on the hood of the car. The pain comes in a single blinding flash.

“Shit!” I hiss, my fingers flying to the spot on my forehead. When I pull them away, they’re smeared with blood. Great. Just great. This is exactly what I need this morning on top of car trouble. On top of being late. On top of freezing my ass off in this parking lot.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?”

The voice is right next to me now, and when I turn to face it—turn to face him, I’m met by some seriously broad shoulders. Wow. His concerned eyes are a blend of blue and green that are sexy as hell. His hair, just a little too long in the back, is a sandy blond and he’s got a little matching stubble. Like Ryan Gosling. Make that a double wow.

“Here,” he says, pulling a crumpled McDonald’s napkin from his backpack. “It’s clean. It’s just a little squashed is all.”

“I…uh…thanks,” I mumble, accepting his offering and his apologetic smile. I use the napkin to apply pressure to my bleeding head.

He looks amused, the corners of his eyes crinkling into the slightest hint of crow’s-feet. It makes him look a little older than I thought at first glance. He must be a grad student. No, actually his clothes are too nice. Grad students don’t have money for nice clothes. He must be faculty or staff. Older, for sure. But that’s okay. I can work with older.

“Something wrong with your car?” he asks, his gaze moving between me and my eighteen-year-old Corolla.

I swivel to look down at the vehicle that is the bane of my existence most days.

“It won’t start,” I say dejectedly.

“And…you know something about cars, do you?” The amusement in his tone tells me that he’s wondering why I even bothered to raise the hood and have a look.

I shake my head and immediately regret the movement, wincing through another surge of pain.

“No, I just thought it might be something obvious. A broken hose or something. But it’s not anything I can see.”

“You know, you really should have that looked at.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll have to get a tow truck,” I mutter.

His cheeky grin grows into a broad smile and he throws his head back, laughing loudly.

“What?” I demand, suddenly embarrassed over something I can’t even identify.

“Not the car, your head!”

“Oh. Oh.” I laugh with him now. “Are you suggesting I have my head examined?” I ask with faux indignation. God! Am I flirting with Hot Older Guy?

“I am, actually,” he says, still smiling but not laughing anymore. “That looks like a pretty deep gash. And you know how those head wounds are. They bleed a lot. You might need stitches or something.”

He’s not wrong. I can feel the blood soaking through the napkin. But at the same time, I can also hear the ka-ching! of the cash register as I do the mental math on a car tow, car repair, and a trip to the ER. The blood will regenerate; the car won’t.

“If it’s still bleeding in a little while, I will.” I lie through my reassuring smile. “But hey, thanks for checking on me.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if I’d left you alone you wouldn’t have a gash in your forehead,” he says, looking remorseful. “Listen, the least I can do is give you a lift. Where’re you headed?”

“Oh, the Music building. But it’s not too far. I can walk from here,” I say, pointing toward a cluster of brick buildings barely discernable across a small lake and through some trees.

“Yeah, not too far if you have forty-five minutes to kill.” He snorts, closing the hood of my car. “That’s all the way on the other side of campus. What are you doing over here? Do you live in the dorms?”

I shake my head. “No, I work in the North Dining Hall. But you know, I’ll bet I can catch a shuttle.”