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And then I kept shivering. Shit. I was just wearing a dress and hadn’t even brought a jacket. I hadn’t thought—stupidly—that I would need one. I’d thought I would be in a warm restaurant, and instead I was out in the cold, no way to keep warm. And what was only a fifteen-minute ride home in the car was probably going to be about an hour-long walk by foot. Shit.
Not to mention it was dark as hell out here. This was the area known as Makeout Point for a reason, where it got hilly so the lights from the town were obscured and there were lots of twists and turns in the road, plenty of places for people to park and get it on while also maintaining privacy.
I pulled out my phone, cursing the fact that I hadn’t charged it and that I had no service out here. I turned on the flashlight so that I could see and prayed that if a car passed by that it wouldn’t hit me by accident. Or that a deer wouldn’t run me over. Or a coyote.
Oh, God, what if I got devoured by a wild animal?
Fuck. Okay, yeah, I wanted to get away from Carter but maybe I had been a bit rash in telling him to go away. Maybe I could have persuaded him to take me home after all.
…but I was also really relieved to be away from Carter. I hadn’t wanted to spend another second with him. Ugh. I couldn’t believe that someone could be so disgusting and disrespectful. What did he think, that I wouldn’t tell Michelle about this? How could he treat the best friend of his sister so horribly?
Unbidden, I remembered how Pike had treated me when he’d realized that it was me, that he was about to get it on with the sister of his best friend. It was an almost identical situation to Carter and me, except—Pike had wanted to stop, at first. He’d questioned why we were doing this. He hadn’t wanted to hurt or disrespect Morgan. He’d said our getting together was a mistake because of Morgan, in fact.
Maybe I had been too harsh with Pike. I felt like shit for what I’d done, trying to get over Pike with Carter. Michelle had made it clear that she didn’t like the idea and now I regretted it, and if Michelle was mad at me, I completely understood. Was this how Pike had felt? Was it really any wonder he’d needed some space?
And he had said he wanted to give us a chance. Had I dismissed him too easily? Had I messed this all up with my immature behavior? Fuck.
From behind me came the sound of an approaching car, the distinct rumble extra loud when I was all alone in the dark by the highway. Shit. I hoped it was a decent person and I could just hitch a ride home. It wasn’t a far drive.
I stepped to the side, holding my phone up and waving it back and forth, and to my shock I recognized the car that pulled over. Like I’d summoned him with my thoughts, it was Pike.
19
Pike
I was just finishing up my drive, starting to calm down, when I saw someone on the road.
What the hell?
The music, the night air, and the drive had done their work and I was feeling more relaxed and calmer. Okay, so, I was nervous about the idea of owning the garage and starting on this venture. The old man was putting a lot of faith in me by offering to let me buy it and I didn’t want to let him down, or prove right any other mechanics who would feel stiffed by Jones choosing me instead of someone else to take over the garage. I was worried, for the first time in my life, what other people thought about me. How they would talk about me.
Growing up I’d never cared what people thought about me or what they said. I didn’t give a shit if they said bad shit about me. But now I was older, and I didn’t want to just be the town’s bad boy anymore. I wanted to settle down and get ready to start a family. I wanted to make this town a proper home for myself instead of just the place where I was causing trouble.
What if in trying to succeed, I failed?
That was my fear. That was why I was worried about this whole thing. But now I understood why, and I would handle it.
So I was feeling pretty good, and then I saw that someone was walking on the side of the road near Makeout Point. My heartrate sped up. Was this person okay? People walking by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere like this—or rather on the edge of the middle of nowhere—wasn’t a good thing. There wasn’t a prison or anything else nearby, and why would someone be willfully hitchhiking at this time of night?
