Page 42 of It Couldn't Be You
“Doesn’t hurt to have a good mechanic take a look at it. You should go to Roger’s Auto shop. Steve Rogers is a really good guy.”
“I’ve never seen him. Where’s he located?”
“Just a couple minutes down the street from here, actually. You can follow me,” he said while I helped him up from his snowball sniper spot.
“Gabe, you sure you’re feeling up to it?” I looked down at his casted up leg.
“Up to driving down the street to the auto shop and then just sitting there with you? I think I can manage.” He laughed. He tucked his crutches under his arms and hopped over to his truck while I buckled into my car.
It didn’t hit me until we had already checked in with the front desk and were waiting in the lobby as they inspected my car that I knew who Steve Rogers was. He was Jordan’s ex-girlfriend’s dad. The infamous Sophia’s dad.
Only a few seconds prior, I had seen her with her dark brown hair swept into a glossy ponytail and her tan skin—even in the thick of winter—walk into the shop with two coffee cups in hand.What is Sophia doing here?
As if on cue, she said to the guy at the front desk, “I brought a coffee for my dad.”
Steve Rogers was Sofia Roger’s dad.
“Oh yeah,” I whispered to myself. Gabriel glanced over, having noticed me murmur under my breath. I gave him a half smile.
Sophia looked around the lobby, and I saw her gaze fall on me. Her eyes went wide, and she awkwardly looked away.
She was Jordan’s high school sweetheart. She and I had always been friendly with each other in school, sharing friends and attending the same events. She was a track star and spent most of her time with athletes, and I was a total bookworm and kept busy with the English Club and the Hernandezes. The difference in things keeping us busy was the only reason we didn’t hang out more.
Jordan told me about his relationship with Sophia on our third date. We had just walked out of the movie theatre downtown. The streetlamps were glowing. It was a fall night with leaves underfoot, and I had mused, “Do you have any long-lost love I need to worry about?”
Like in the movie, I was implying. But his hesitancy before he answered reminded me of Sophia.
I had forgotten to worry about her in our little new-love bubble. But for years, I had known Jordan from “Jordan and Sophia.” A pair. A duo.
“No, not really.” He laughed uncomfortably.
“Not really? Not exactly reassuring,” I teased as our holding hands swung.
“No. I meant a simple, no.”
I sighed. “What was your last relationship?” I didn’t want to ask, but I also knew it would get more awkward the longer I waited. We both knew I knew the answer.
“It was actually my high school relationship. Do you remember Sophie?”
“Yeah, I do. No one since her?”
“Nothing but a few dates here and there during college,” he said, looking out at the street behind me.
Was I going to be another “just a few dates” on the road back to her?
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well, it’s hard to say.” He stopped walking.
We stood in front of an old building being remodeled. People walked by us, lost in their own conversations, as he found his words.
“I guess you could blame distance. We really tried to make it work, going to two separate schools. Sophie had a scholarship she couldn’t turn down. I needed to keep working with dad to pay off my schooling, so I had to stay close to here, you know. Maybe I should’ve budged, in hindsight, and followed her. But we really thought we could make it work. We were nuts for each other all through high school.”
“I remember. Prom king and queen.” Sophia and Jordan, two names always together.
“Yeah, yeah. We thought it’d be okay. We’d have school breaks. But she got caught up in her own world, and I did, too. Then, I got a little jealous of this guy she was doing everything with. They were the center of their little social group. We started fighting more than sharing. I was being selfish; I see that now.”
It was quiet between us. He cleared his throat.
