Page 39 of When to Call a Blitz

“What are we going to do?” Heidi asks me, panic clear in the way her voice hitches.

I dig my phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to call Leo and he’s going to come get us, and I’ll have a tow truck here soon after. Just have to time it up.”

“Why not just get the tow truck to give us a lift back?” she looks around, as if someone’s going to come murder us at any second.

“Because look at that,” I say, gesturing to the scene in front of us. “How gorgeous is that?”

Heidi stills as she looks out at the scene in front of us. Gorgeous pinks and purples paint the sky.

“Is it just me or does it feel like they’re looking down on us laughing right now?” she whispers.

I let myself laugh. Really laugh. “It does,” I tell her honestly, feeling the joy from it deep in my bones.

“I feel like my dad would have told you this would happen,” she smiles.

“I think McKenna would have told me too.”

We sit there silently for a few minutes before I remember I have to call Leo. He lets it go to voicemail not once, but twice before he finally answers.

“Sorry, I was just beating your daughter at Lego Star Wars. What’s up?”

“I doubt you were beating her,” I scoff. Juni and Elara are quite the pair when it comes to video games.

Leo yelps. “What was that for?”

“For lying,” Briar laughs, taking the phone. “What’s up?”

I look at Heidi, who’s looking up at me with curiosity. “I took the car out for a spin and long story short, Heidi and I are not stuck about two miles from the house.”

There’s a long pause. “Heidi’s with you?”

“Yeah,” I say before realizing what they must be thinking. “We were just hanging out. We’re friends, you know.”

The second I say it, Heidi looks down at her hands in her lap, heat creeping up her ears.

“I’m on my way!” Leo calls from the background. “There’s nothing I love more than coming to the rescue. I got you, Buddy. You’ll be okay.”

I chuckle. “I knew I could count on you.”

When I finally hang up, I rest my head against the seat, watching the sun disappear behind the trees.

“I feel like that Nickelback song,” Heidi whispers suddenly.

“Which one?”

“The one where the dad suddenly appears outside the car.”

“Well it’s a good thing we’re not doing anything, right?” My head falls to the side to look at her with a smirk. Somehow, she grows more and more red.

“That’s true.” Her eyes drift to my lips.

A couple seconds pass as I breathe in her fruity scent mixed with the leather seat cleaner I used the other day, the smell like ecstasy.

“What is your favorite memory?” she asks.

I think long and hard about it, the silence almost starting to get awkward, yet somehow I feel like she’s doing the same.

“You mean other than the obvious, like the day Juniper was born?” I ask. Heidi nods. “Well, there was the first time we visited Maryland. It was before the draft and I was invited. We made the trip here from North Carolina,” I start.

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