Page 19 of Forging Chaos

And then I look over at her, hands over her face, shoulders shaking. “Hey,” I squeeze her arm. “You did perfect. We’re safe.” A car honks, and Thora shrieks, stabbing at the button for the flashers. “Perfect,” I repeat, catching my breath. What the hell happened here?

Thora’s breathing rapidly in little short puffs and won’t make eye contact. She just keeps saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I will make it up to you.”

“Hey,” I tilt my head to try and find her gaze. “Hey, Thora, I’m not mad.” She snaps her eyes to mine, and she looks terrified. I concentrate on keeping my voice level. “This isn’t your fault.”

She shakes her head. “I will have to pay you back for the damage. I can pick up a few shifts and get you the money after finals and?—”

“Hey,” I try to rub a thumb along her hand where she’s still white-knuckling the steering wheel. Someone put a huge dose of terror into this woman, and I want to strangle whoever made her react this way to what’s probably just a flat tire. “Thora, I wouldn’t expect you to pay to fix my car, okay? Let’s go see what happened?”

She blinks, like she’s trying to hold back tears, and I see her throat working as she swallows. “You’re not mad?”

“I am not mad. Not even a little bit.” And it’s true. I’m enjoying myself with her a hell of a lot more than I enjoyed that session of PT, where I learned just how little I’m able to do with my right leg and how the fuck long it will be until I can wear a shoe, let alone walk…let alone run.

Thora whispers, “You’re not mad,” like it’s her new mantra, and I watch her puff out a long, relieved breath before she claps her hands and transforms into a different person—the Thora I’m more familiar with. “Okay, so where’s your jack and tire iron?”

She hops out of the car and walks around back before I can maneuver myself out, clinging to the door for balance as I work to keep my bad foot off the pavement. The front passenger tire seems to have exploded, which reminds me that I was supposed to get new tires this spring but kept putting it off because of football practice, and then, well, I thought the car wouldn’t be going anywhere. “Shit, Thora, this is my fault. I was supposed to get these babies changed months ago.”

Thora squats on the ground near the back seat, grunting as she lifts part of the floor, which I didn’t realize was removable. She pulls out the tire iron, dropping it to the ground with a clang. I scratch my chin and reach for my knee roller inthe back seat right before Thora flips it up and extracts a jack from beneath it. “How do you know where all this shit is in my car?”

She shrugs. “My uncle works on cars.” She starts walking around to the back and flipping open the cover to the spare tire. “Well,” she adds. “He probably runs a chop shop.”

I flinch. “So, you know how to change a tire, but you were freaking out about doing it?” Cars whiz past us on the bridge, and Thora seems not to notice. She starts lining things up by the passenger side of the car.

“Um,” she mutters, “Poor people don’t usually drive reliable cars. I know my way around a donut.” I notice she doesn’t say anything about the freaking out part.

I stare as she works. “At my house, my dad always deals with spare tires.” I’m not even sure if we’ve ever had a flat before, come to think of it, but Thora’s mention of not having a lot of money makes sense since I’m pretty certain my parents have always kept up with car maintenance until my dumb ass came along.

“Yes, well, some of us have dads in and out of jail rather than keeping up with inspections.” Thora frowns. “I’m not going to be strong enough to loosen the nuts, even if I jump on the tire iron.”

“You’re not jumping on the tire iron on the Birmingham bridge, Thora.” I frown at the situation. Not only can I not play the sport I’ve spent my entire life dominating, but I also can’t even change a fucking tire with my—what is Thora exactly? Anyway, with a woman in the car.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Stag.” She starts to stomp on the wrench, but it doesn’t move. She can’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, and I know she’s strong because she hauled the tire over here, but she’s not “D1 football player strong.” And neither am I—not anymore.

I stare down at my useless foot, resting on a wheeled assistivedevice. I’m about to pull out my phone and call my parents when Thora says, “I think what we need to do is balance your knee on my leg since I won’t roll away, and then you stomp the lever with your good foot.”

I blink at her. The idea is fucking weird, and the physics of it sounds wild, but I’d rather give it a try than have to call my mom to come get me when I’m out with a woman I want to see naked. “Hmm,” I grumble.

Thora kneels on the ground like she’s about to propose and pats her thigh. “Put the boot-knee here. You can hold onto the roof since you’re a thousand feet tall.” She’s right about all of it, and when I finally get myself lined up and take an experimental stomp on the tire iron, we both hoot in celebration as the nut loosens with a screech. “I can’t believe that worked.” She grins, bending to move the tools to the next nut on the tire.

We work our way around, me grunting with effort and nearly falling, her stoically bearing the pressure of my awkward body, and then I stand by like an asshole while she jacks up my car and changes the rest of the tire. I snap a picture of her with my phone since she looks hot as fuck, with her face streaked with dirt as she tightens a lug nut on a six-figure car.

Which she shouldn’t have to do when she’s out with me. I realize she wouldn’t even be here with me right now if I weren’t broken, and I slide my phone back in my shorts pocket without looking at the pic.

A slamming sound shakes me out of my drama, and Thora walks back toward me, wiping her hands on her jeans. “I think I got it on there. Do you want to check the tire before I put the tools back?”

I grimace. “Why would I want to check?”

Her face tightens, and I can tell that she is not only used to people yelling at her, but she also somehow doesn’t have confidence that her work is suitable, which means someoneprobably spent a lot of years screaming at her that she’s not good enough.

What’s my mom always saying about emotional regulation? Thora clearly didn’t grow up with a lot of it around. “Right,” she says, tipping her head toward the driver’s side. “Well, let’s get back in, I guess.”

It takes just a few snaps and thumps for Thora to get the car put back together while I climb inside, fishing around the console for hand sanitizer and napkins. I present these to her, and she smiles like I just got her roses, so I decide I should definitely do that later to thank her for putting my car back in working order. “That was incredible,” I tell her, turning in my seat and draping an arm behind hers. “You were amazing, you know that?”

She shakes her head. “I was a mess.” I swallow a retort because now doesn’t seem like the time to dive into her trauma.

“Hey, will you let me buy your outfit or whatever? I owe you big time for changing the tire.”

She puffs out a laugh. “You owe me? I probably drove over a piece of glass or something stupid.”

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