Page 33 of Excitable Boy
“I think we’ve got a flat.”
She snickered. “Whoops. Hey, I’m glad I wasn’t driving.”
He pulled over, but this stretch of two-lane road had the bare minimum of shoulder, with deep ditches on either side. Despite the posted speed limit being only fifty, he realized that was being treated more as a suggestion than a rule.
Hell, he’d been doing sixty without realizing it.
He put it into park and found the hazard flashers button. “Stay in the car,” he cautioned her. Then he had to wait until the road was clear to get out and look at the tire.
Sure enough, it was flat.
Dammit.
Twenty minutes later, after overcoming a very crappy cell signal and Shayla figured out exactly where they were with her phone while Tony was on the phone with AAA, they were told it’d be at least three hours before they could get their tire changed.
He hung up fuming. “Fuck it. I’m going to change it. It’ll be dark in an hour.” He pulled the vehicle up a little, sliding the SUV over to the right on the narrow shoulder as far as he dared without it sitting at too much of an incline. It gave him scant room to change the thing, but fuck it.
“Tony,” Shay said, her voice sounding nervous, “are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m sure it’s a terrible idea, but we’re not spending the whole night out here waiting for a wrecker when I can change it in a few minutes.”
She got out and helped him unload the back hatch and set their luggage safely out of the way so he could get the spare and jack out. Then, working in bursts as Shayla warned him about oncoming traffic, he got the lug nuts loosened and the SUV jacked up.
Once he removed the flat tire, he rolled it to the back hatch and was going to grab the spare when he spotted two cars racing along, side-by-side, and not slowing down.
As they approached, it was obvious the one on their side of the road wasn’t fully in control. Their tire caught the edge of the pavement, pulling them off the road and right toward them.
“Shit!”
Tony grabbed Shayla and dove for the ditch with her, meaning they didn’t see—but they heard—the sickening sound of a collision.
They were too busy landing in the six inches of muddy water.
And not being dead.
Tony’s pulse pounded, and he was afraid to move at first, afraid to get off her, wanting to shield her body with his. “Are you okay, pet?”
She nodded. “Are you?”
“Yeah.” They finally sat up and took inventory, realizing they were both unharmed other than now being covered with stinking ditch water and mud.
Shaken, they climbed up the embankment to find one of the cars upside down in the ditch on the other side of the road, and one spun out and facing the wrong way, but its front passenger side was smashed.
The impact had knocked the Pilot off the jack, which wasn’t the biggest problem.
The front driver’s quarter was smashed.
At least traffic was stopping in both directions, and people stopped to check on them, as well as pull the little teenaged assholes out of the other cars.
Uninjured, of course.
Enraged, Tony started toward them but Shayla grabbed his arm and hung off it, literally digging her heels in to try to hold him back.
“Sir, no, please?”
“They could’ve killed you!”
She tugged on him. “You, too!”
