Page 70 of Forbidden Hearts
“I swear, this is the worst week of my life!” I scream. “I knocked over all the cans in the store and fell on top of Asher. Then I thought,hey, Phoebe, volunteering will feed your soul, only to find a girl who is just like me. But, this? Ohh, this is really the icing on my crap cake,” I mutter, still walking and hoping for just one damn bar to call my dad. “Now you run out of gas.”
I move farther down the road. My car is no longer visible, but I keep twisting left and right until, finally, the bar appears. I stop moving and dial my father’s number. He doesn’t answer. Figures.
I call again, still nothing.
I swear, that man can sleep through a war in the living room.
Then the battery on my phone turns red.
“And now my phone is about to die!”
Of course it is.
I could call the station, but then there would be record of this. Brynlee is another option, but it’s the middle of the night. That leaves . . . Asher.
He’s the last person I want to ask for help, but . . . I don’t know who else to call, and I am so fucking tired.
So, here it goes.
He answers on the second ring.
“Phoebe?”
“Hey, uh, I’m stranded on Old Mill Road.”
“What the hell are you doing out there?”
“I’m stuck here. I have almost no battery on my phone, so I can’t explain more, but could you . . . come get me or maybe just bring a can of gas . . .”
This is mortifying. Seriously, I just want to crawl into a hole and never come out.
“You ran out of gas?”
“If you can’t come, that’s fine. I’ll call the station and see if Joey is working,” I say, frustration flowing through my voice. “I don’t want you to have to wake Olivia to come.”
“No. I’ll be there. Brynn and Rowan were here playing cards two minutes ago, so I can grab Brynn to stay here.”
“Thank you.”
It will take him about fifteen minutes to get here, so I go through all the ways that I can explain this so he doesn’t give me hell for it. I come up with a whole lot of nothing. I was stupid, that’s that, and I feel stupid, so there’s that too.
More than anything, I really don’t want to listen to it from him.
He’ll never understand why this upset me. Why some girl, I don’t know, had me so distracted I forgot to get gas.
I’ve worked so hard to get him to see me as a smart, responsible, and mature woman who manages her life, and then I have this shit happen.
My stomach is in knots thinking about the loads of bullshit that are coming my way. I really don’t think I can take it. Not tonight. Not when I’m this raw.
What feels like an eternity later, headlights illuminate the field, and a second later, Asher’s pickup pulls up next to me. He has an old truck that doesn’t have a radio or power anything, but it’s well built and could withstand a war. Sort of reminds me of the man behind the wheel.
He gets out and looks to where I’m leaning against my closed driver’s door. “I don’t have any gas other than diesel, so why don’t we leave your car here, you can stay at my place, and we’ll take care of it in the morning before I leave for my shift?”
Sounds like a terrible plan, but I’m not going to argue with the guy who just drove all the way out here to help.
I grab my groceries from the back, and because I’m having the worst day, when I lift the last bag, it rips open, spilling the contents on the dirt road.
“Fuck!” I yell and tears threaten to spill over. I’m so angry, so upset, and I can’t control my fucking emotions. “Like one thing? I can’t have just one goddamn thing go right?” Asher is already crouching to pick up the contents, so I shake my head, wiping the traitorous tear that fell, and grab one of the cartons of ice cream that is already oozing out the sides. “Of course.”
