Page 36 of Designed for Disaster

I hung up.

“What is it?” Natasha asked.

“My brother,” I explained. “I guess his professor just posted the grade for his latest paper, and he did even worse than he thought. I know it sounds ridiculous?—”

“It’s not ridiculous,” she insisted. “Kids are under a lot of pressure in college.”

I nodded. “Jimmy carries more than anyone, it seems. Anyway, I have to go.” I lifted my hand. “Thanks for this.”

“Of course.”

I spotted the keys on a bench and reached for them, only to realize I could hardly bend my right hand thanks to the bandage. That was going to make driving the U-Haul from hell a nightmare, and I didn’t have time to sort out another vehicle. I needed to get to Jimmy as soon as possible. “Shit.”

“You okay?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah, fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Driving’s gonna be a problem.” I lifted my bandaged hand again. “Anyway, I’ll see you at work.”

“I could drive.”

“No, that’s?—”

“You’re injured,” she said. “You can’t even bend your hand.”

I wanted to argue, but we both knew she was right. Still, I hadn’t thought of putting her out like this. She’d clearly planned to spend the day working on her projects. Driving some demon-possessed piece of garbage all the way to Jersey and back to check on a kid she’d never even met couldn’t have been on her agenda.

She removed her safety glasses and unplugged her power tools. “You’re practically an invalid.”

I scowled at her. “I’m notthatbad.”

“Just accept the help.”

“But are you really sure?” I asked. “Jimmy’s at Princeton. That’s at least an hour drive.”

She picked up the U-Haul keys. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure.”

11

NATASHA

“Watch out for that pothole!”

“I see it,” I said, gritting my teeth as I steered the U-Haul around the hole, wincing until I was sure we’d cleared it. Every little bump in the road could be enough to make this thing combust. This particular U-Haul was a temperamental beast. Frankly, I had no idea how we’d made it this far without breaking down, but I never wanted to drive anything like it again. “I don’t know why you agreed to rent this hunk of junk.”

“The guy told me it was fine!” Trent said for the fifth time since we’d set off. I’d been complaining about ita lot. “And I was under a little bit of a time crunch.”

“You could have rescheduled the drop-off with me.”

“You’d already spent half your weekend waiting around.”

“I just don’t understand how you even got it out of the parking lot,” I said.

“With some finesse and a prayer.”

“I hope you got liability insurance.” He snorted. I glanced over at him.Oh, right. The guy could buy an entire fleet of U-Hauls if he wanted. Actually, he’d probably thank me for running this one off the road. “Which dorm is Jimmy’s again?”

“Whitman College.” Trent gestured ahead of us. “Southwest side of campus. Look for Elm Drive.”

“Right,” I said. This campus was freaking huge, but luckily Trent had been here before to drop Jimmy off, so he knew exactly where he was going.

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