Page 93 of False Start

“What was that?” Trent sat up, surveying the road in front of us.

I shifted into a lower gear, and the car jerked with effort. The steady rattle gave way to a grind. “Not good is what that is.”

“Do you smell smoke?” Trent wrinkled his nose.

In the rearview, a thin line of liquid stained the pavement and confirmed my fears. I pulled the car onto the side of the road, cutting the engine and sucking in a steadying breath before hopping out of the car.

“What’s going on? What’d we break?” Trent followed me out, reaching under the hood to pop it open.

The burning smell smacked us in the face. I covered my nose, stepping back as he fitted the hood strut into place. A string of swears lodged in my throat. I raked a hand over my face.

Trent's panic gave way to concern and then…joy? His lips edged up in a smile. “This is great.”

I coughed on fumes. “Great? That’s the transmission making that noise. This is awful.”

“Right.” Trent turned to me with a shit-eating grin that temporarily made me forget how much I liked him the night before. “It’s a roadside repair. Points. We’re still in this thing.”

I blinked. “Roadside repair? Tell me, Trent, how do you unfuck a transmission on the side of the road?”

“Well…” He narrowed his eyes at the smoldering metal with a thoughtful look before turning back to me. “You can do it, right?”

Annoyance welled in my chest, which, coupled with the fumes, did nothing for my problem-solving skills. I took a step back, running my hand through my hair and blowing out a frustrated sigh. “No, I can’t. Changing out a transmission is a giant pain in the ass. One I haven’t had to do because I don’t wreck transmissions.”

“Seems like you do, actually.” He plastered a goofy grin on his face that, in any other situation, would have made me smile in return. But faced with a blown transmission forty miles from the final check-in, I didn’t find it nearly as amusing.

“Is that helpful?”

The grin fell. “I guess not.”

“I can’t fix this,” I groaned, cupping my phone in my pocket. “We’re going to have to call a tow truck.”

Trent shook his head. “No, we aren’t. This is perfect.”

“Perfectly impossible. Even if I had a whole new transmission, I can’t fix it with the tool kit in the trunk. I need parts and instructions and time.”

“Do you really need to replace it?” He craned his neck into the car. “It doesn’t look that bad.”

“Based on what?” Frustration grew in my chest, threatening to explode while Trent pretended we’d simply run out of gas.

“I mean, it just needs some transmission fluid,” he answered with all the confidence of a guy who didn’t know what he was talking about. “We have some in the trunk.”

“So, we pour it in and it…what exactly? Leaks all over the road again?”

Trent followed my outstretched finger to the trail of transmission fluid in our wake. “We just make it not leak.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “And what does that look like? How do we make it not leak, Mr. Automotive?”

Trent opened and closed his mouth, gaping like a fish. “Damn, I really thought I’d come up with something on the fly. But, yeah, I’m gonna need your help.”

“Great. I’m gonna tell you how we fix this: we don’t.” I held up a hand as he opened his mouth. “And if you make any comment about potential points, I’m calling a tow truck and leaving you on the side of the road.”

He held up his hands, staying out of arm’s length as he walked toward the trunk. “Okay. Fair. I don’t know what I’m talking about, but just think about it for a minute. We’ve only got to limp along for a bit longer. It’s a back road, so we don’t evenhave to go that fast. Let’s just think it through. Maybe we can patch a hole or wrap it up.”

I took a deep breath and stepped away from the car as Trent fished the transmission fluid out of the trunk.

He gave me a wide berth, placing the plastic jug and a toolbox gently at my side before backing away, palms open.

Space was good. The tightness in my chest loosened and focused on the car. The stink of smoke evaporated, and Trent was right about one thing: we didn’t need to make it far. On further inspection, the transmission wasn’tcompletelydestroyed. Not “gaping hole of nothingness” destroyed. That was a good sign.

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