Page 53 of Tumbleweed Temptation
“No, I don't think so.” Her brain was so busy trying to wrap around this unexpected trip, she had to rein in her thoughts to figure out what she would need.
“Okay.” He hit the signal to turn on the road out of town.
She twisted in her seat to look at the three in the back. “You all planned this?”
“Not so much planned as went along,” Sofia said. “There aren’t a lot of college games around, and this is supposed to be a good match-up.”
“I don't care what kind of match-up it is,” Sofia said. “It’s just fun to get out of town. And Javi and Poppy went to Angelo State, so we have a team to root for.”
“Why didn't you tell me the plan when you came into the diner?” she asked Austin.
“I don't know. Didn't it give you something to think about other than people talking about you sneaking out of the apartment last night?”
She whipped her head around.
“People talking about what?” Javi asked.
“You know, you helped me take him back to the apartment.”
“And then she stayed and we started watching a movie and fell asleep.”
“You sure you want to go to the game, then?” Javi asked.
“I’m not tired.” She would be later, but she wasn't tired now. She was...excited. She was excluded from a lot of things because of her weird schedule. Sometimes she made choice, sometimes people forgot about her because she said no so often. She’d never been to a college game, had only been to a few of the homecoming high school games.
“She doesn’t get much sleep anyway,” Poppy said. “She’s up all hours working. I get texts from her at all hours even though she knows I have to get up early.” She paired the last words with a glare.
“I don’t know why you keep your phone volume on,” Ginny said with a shrug.
“The light would wake me up anyway.”
“Turn your phone upside down. I don’t want to forget what I was going to tell you.”
“Working?” Austin interrupted. “I thought you did the morning shift. Doesn’t Janine save the late shift for the high school kids?”
“Yeah, I—have a second job.” She cast a glare over her shoulder at Poppy’s. She didn't advertise her editing job. Well, okay, she advertised, but online, and without her picture. She didn't want people in town to know she edited romance novels, especially now that they suspected her of having a romance of her own.
“You do? Why didn't you tell me?” Austin asked.
“I don't tell many people. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“What is it?”
“Just some freelancing stuff.”
He gave her a sideways look, but apparently got the message that she didn't want to talk about it, so he dropped it. She appreciated his perception and leaned back against the passenger seat, ready for miles and miles of nothing between Broken Wheel and San Angelo.
But the time went quickly with the conversation bouncing around the car. She was surprised they never had an awkward silence, conversation pinging from the contest to the gossip—Ginny sneaking out of Austin’s place was a recurring theme as the friends tried to learn if there was more to that story—to Hailey’s renovation of The Wheel House from the dump it had been when they were kids.
“Speaking of fixing up old stuff, what are you going to do with the garage?” Javi asked Austin.
“What am I going to do with the what?” Austin glanced in the rear view mirror to meet his friend’s eyes.
“The garage. Your dad’s garage?”
“It’s not my dad’s garage. He worked there with Caleb Pearson’s dad, yeah, but it wasn't his.”
“Yeah it was. Isn’t that what Mr. Davila said?” Javi asked Sofia, who had gone a little pale. “It keeps coming up, why no one has done anything with that property, just let it collapse like that, get overgrown, and Mr. Davila said it was because it wasn't ours to take care of. That we’d figure something out when you got back.”
