Page 63 of Roommate
“Where in Montpelier?”
“Outside the Shaw’s.”
“Leaving now. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get there.”
“You don’t have to…”
Click.
Hmm.
I go back inside the store and make a small ATM withdrawal. Then I buy the bottle of wine I skipped the first time, as a thank you for Kieran.
He rolls up in his truck and stops beside my car. He hops out and smiles at me. “Want a jump? I have cables.”
“Sure. I hope that’s it, though.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Kieran frowns after I explain the sequence of events. “It just cut out? How long was the engine running before you shifted into reverse?”
“Uh, sixty seconds? Maybe longer. I was checking my phone for emails.”
“Doesn’t sound like the battery,” he says. “Sounds like a belt.”
“Oh.” I think about that for a minute. “A belt is just a piece of rubber, right? I hope it’s cheaper than a dead battery.”
He winces. “Depends. Let’s try a jump just in case.”
* * *
I’m not exactly stunned when it doesn’t work.
Kieran ends up calling his friend Jude, who sends a tow truck. By the time we’re rolling toward Colebury in Kieran’s truck, it’s after seven.
“Dinner is going to be late,” I grumble. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s no big thing,” he says, switching on the radio.
“Except I’m starving. Aren’t you?” I hate my life right now.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Will the ingredients keep until tomorrow? We could just grab a pizza instead.”
“I guess?” They’ll totally keep, but I just spent all my cash. “I’d need to hit the bank again.”
“I got money,” Kieran says. “Here.” He unlocks his phone and hands it over. “The place is listed in my contacts under Pizza. Because I’m subtle like that. Order a large. Half with sausage and olives, half with whatever you like.”
I hesitate a second.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like pizza?” Kieran says.
“I do,” I say quickly. “I just don’t want to be like your brother—always taking advantage of you.”
“It’s a pizza. Jesus. And it was my idea. Order, okay?”
So I do. I get the whole thing with the toppings he suggested, in case there are leftovers. After I hang up, he turns up the dashboard radio. And wouldn’t you know? Kieran listens to country music. The sounds of Nashville hum through the truck, and for the first few minutes it doesn’t bother me that much. We hear a Darius Rucker tune, and then a crossover song by Delilah Spark. Inevitably, a Brian Aimsley song comes on. It’s his new one, “So Happy I’m Yours.”
I grit my teeth through the first verse, and I’m suddenly aware of an uncomfortable truth—I’ve never wondered if a Brian Aimsley love song was secretly about me. Songwriters collaborate like crazy, and Brian rarely wrote a song by himself.
