Page 33 of Stuck With the Best Man

“What?”

“It’s probably fine,” I say quickly. “This car is brand new. The sensors are just really sensitive. I’ll pull into the next rest area we see.”

“Even brand-new cars can get flat tires, Ben.”

“We don’t have a flat tire,Ruby. We just have low tire pressure.”

“Because something on the roads probably punctured the tire! They were a mess from the storm!”

“Orbecause I’ve put hundreds of miles on this car recently and therefore, the tires have just deflated a little bit.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I think it is.”

Ruby huffs. “I can’t afford delays. Just pull off at the next exit.”

“I literally just said I’d do that.”

“You said the nextrest area. That’s not for another forty miles.”

I let out a long sigh. There goes every ounce of pleasantness we managed to cultivate.

“It’s fine,” I tell her.

Except, it’s not fine. Because five minutes later, the dashboard makes another littleding, followed by an extremely insistentding-ding-ding.

The orange light turns red. The steering wheel starts edging toward the right, as if the suspension is suddenly very off balance.

“Darn it,” I mutter. “I have to pull over.”

“Wait until we get to the next exit!”

“That’s in another seven miles, Ruby! I can’t drive with a flat tire on the highway for seven miles!”

“I thought you said it wasn’t flat!”

“Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I!?”

Ruby lets out a noise that sounds an awful lot like a snarl. I focus on safely navigating to the breakdown lane, then slowing down to a steady crawl until we come to a stop securely off to the side. Frankly, I deserve a pat on the back for that admirably calm handling of a potentially dangerous situation. However, when I glance at Ruby, she’s back to looking like she wishes she could explode my head with the force of her thoughts alone.

I open my door, grateful that the highway is fairly empty up this way. I’d really rather not have too many witnesses to Ruby flaying me alive.

Because we do, indeed, have a flat tire. I lean down, finding the culprit right away. There’s not one, buttwonails embedded in the front right tire, either from navigating the messy roads back on the Cape or from sheer unluckiness. The tire itself is sagging sadly, losing more air by the second.

I cringe, climbing back in the car and reaching for my phone.

“It’s flat,” I mutter.

“I’m going to strangle you.”

“Well, at least wait until after I call AAA.”

Chapter Eleven: Ruby

“It’stwothirty,”Igrumble.

“Yes, I can read clocks too.”

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