Page 5 of The Do-Over

“Hey.”

He actually grinned at my expression. “I wasn’t impugning your fashion choices—you look very, um,polo player’s girlfriend,don’t worry. I was merely referring to your bare legs and the fact that it’s, like, twenty degrees outside. Ride? Yes?”

I swallowed and buried my frozen nose in the coat collar. It smelled like cold and motor oil. “Um, yeah. I guess.”

“You meanthank you?”

That actually made me smile a little. “Thank you so much, my amazing savior.”

“That’s more like it.”

I climbed into his truck, slammed the heavy door, and buckled my seat belt. It rumbled to a loud start before he turned off his flashers and headed in the direction of the school. Whatever angry band he had blaring from that antiquated stereo system was atrocious and way too loud.

“Whatisthis?” I turned down the garbage music and held myfrozen fingers in front of the vents that were haltingly blowing out warm air.

“If you’re referring to the music, it’s Metallica. How do you not know that?”

“Um, because I have taste and I’m not a hundred?”

That made his mouth slide into a smirk. “What isyourgo-to driving album, then, lab partner?”

I was currently super into Fleetwood Mac’sRumoursalbum but I shrugged and said, “I kind of just listen to the radio.”

“You poor, quality-music-starved girl.”

“In this instance it would be poor, unintelligible-barking-starved girl.”

“Just listen.” He cranked it back up and smiled over at me. “Their rage feels good, doesn’t it? Feel it, Bunson Burner—breathe it in.”

“I’m good.”Bunson Burner. I shook my head but couldn’t hold in the smile as the word “blackened” was grunted out by Metallica all over his truck. “I’ll just snort my own rage, thank you.”

After a minute he turned the music back down and hit his blinker as the high school approached. He moved the shifter next to the steering wheel, popping it into second gear for the turn, and I think I sounded a little too excited when I said, “This truck is three-on-the-tree?”

He crinkled his brows together. “How doyouknow about three-on-the-tree?”

I crossed my arms and felt kind of cool. “I know lots of things.”

His mouth went into a filthy smile. “Well, that is certainly nice to know.”

Did he think I was flirting? “I didn’t mean it likethat.”

He chuckled a littlehuh-huh-huhlaugh that was deep and rumbly.

My cheeks were burning and I said, “My dad had a car with that. Forget it.”

He pulled around to the junior parking lot. “Did he teach you how to drive it?”

“What?” I reached down and pulled my lip gloss out of my backpack.

“The car with standard transmission on the column. Did your dad teach you to drive it?”

“Nope.” I pulled down his visor and ran the wand over my mouth, remembering all the times my dad had promised to teach me but ended up getting too busy with work and the twins to actually follow through on his word.

“That’s a shame.” His truck fishtailed as he turned at the end of the first row. “Everyone should know how to drive a manual transmission.”

Yeah, they should. I flipped the visor back up and pictured the stick shift in my dad’s Porsche, the decades-old project car he’d always said would be mine when he finished it.

He’d finished it three years ago.

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