Page 31 of Lake
“Or men. I don’t judge,” she said with a shrug then took another bite of her burger.
“No, I don’t like guys.” Did that sound a little defensive? I had no clue why, it wasn’t like I had anything against dudes that liked other dudes. Ky and Chris were one of my favorite couples, for crying out loud.
Her eyes cut up to mine like she wasn’t buying it.
“I like ti-uh, boobs.”
And because I was now thinking about boobs I couldn’t help but glance down at hers. My eyes screwed shut as I shook my head. Shit! I was usually a lot smoother than this.
“Okay.” She didn’t look impressed at all. “So what’s up with my car?”
“You really want to know?”
“No… it doesn’t sound like I do.”
“Well, like I said, you needed an oil change. There was no oil in there at all. And don’t get me started on your filter. You do know you’re supposed to get one every three thousand miles, right?”
“I thought that was more of like a suggestion,” she said causing me to grit my teeth. “What else— wait did you say needed? I thought you’d work up some kind of bill for me before you started doing shit.”
“Yeah, I went ahead and took care of that for you,” I answered like it was no big thing. She looked down and I had a feeling that it had something to do with money and not being able to pay for it. I wasn’t going to charge her for it and to me, it wasn’t a big deal. I continued on because I didn’t like seeing this look on her at all. “I’m throwing it in for free because I feel bad forher. We’ll work it all out later, don’t worry about it. So, your car overheated and you blew a—”
“Okay, don’t give me all the mechanic-y talk, I won’t understand a damn thing. Just tell me what has to be fixed in order for me to get around here and then make it home when this is all over. And by that, I mean how much. Also, how long will it take?”
I let out an exacerbated sigh.
“I have to call around for parts. Some of them I might even have to go try and dig out of a junkyard. Your car is old but not old enough to where people would consider it a classic. Most of those end up becoming scrap metal.”
“You take that back. What if she heard you say that?!”
I smiled.
“At her age, I don’t think her hearing would be all that good.”
“True,” she replied. “Go on.”
“IfI were going to fix it,” I started and stared her down. The car wasn’t really worth fixing and I had a good idea that the repairs were going to be out of her price range. She would have been better off scrapping the thing and finding some cheap clunker that was in better condition to get her home. “I would need at least a few days. Probably more like a week. Parts will take a few days to get in and that is if I can order them. And there is just so much… it’s going to take me a while to get it right.”
She fell back in the chair looking deflated.
“Honestly, you’re looking at dropping more than what the car is even worth.” I had no idea why I felt the need to add that in there because I was pretty sure she got that with just my tone alone.
“So you’re telling me that I’m stuck here?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Um, is there a cheap place that I can stay nearby?” she asked and then shook her head and stood up. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out. Thanks, Lake.”
Then she was gone before I could get another word out.
How did I go from feeling playfully happy to feeling like an asshole that had kicked someone’s puppy in a blink?
I shoved away from the table determined to fixsomething. It may not have been her car but I had an idea of how to help her out a little.
