Page 53 of The Problem with Falling
He grinned his goofy grin. “Are you a whiskey or tequila girl?”
I bit my bottom lip and held the railing of his porch, swaying. “Surprise me.”
He rubbed his hands together. “My kind of girl. Be right back.”
The second he stepped inside his house and closed his front door, I turned into Forrest Gump, running down the driveway. I kept running and running as the sky darkened overhead. The second I felt as if I were far enough out of reach, I pulled out my phone to call someone.
Unfortunately for me?
Dead zone.
No service.
One of the perks of being surrounded by nature.
“Crap,” I muttered to myself, walking on the edge of the road, which had no streetlights. I glanced around the road, not seeing any other houses nearby. Did everyone in Westin Lake live on acres and acres of land with no other homes to be seen?
Even though my anxiety was building, I did my best not to get too overwhelmed. With each step I took, I said a silent prayer. I’d been in worse situations. Once, I got lost in the desert while traveling through Dubai. I had sand in parts of my body where sand did not belong. Currently, I had no sand between my butt cheeks, so that had to be a positive.
As I continued down the path, my heart skipped a beat when headlights came from around the corner. As I held my hand up in the air, I prayed that people in Westin Lake weren’t terrified of hitchhikers. Then I said an extra prayer that the driver wasn’t another Peter type of human.
As the truck slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road, my heart skipped several beats as the passenger window was rolled down to reveal the driver.
“Theo!” I shouted, tossing my hands up in celebration. “Oh my gosh! I’m so happy to see you!”
“Never thought I’d hear those words leave your mouth.”
“You and me both.”
“What the heck are you doing?” he asked, leaning toward the passenger window as he sat in the driver’s seat.
“Being lost.”
“And now found, I guess.” He unlocked his doors. “Get in.”
I did as he said, and the moment I slipped into the seat of his truck, my whole body relaxed. I released a weighted breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
I slammed my door shut and locked it instantly. “Thank you,” I said.
“The party was no good?”
“The party wasn’t a party. It was Peter trying to hook up with me.”
Theo’s face went stone-cold as he clenched his jaw. “Tell me what happened.”
I told him about the situation that went down with Peter. The more I spoke, the more I saw the rage building inside Theo. It was a quiet rage, though. A rage that others might not have noticed if they didn’t look closely enough. Luckily for me, all I could do was keep my eyes on him as I spoke.
“I’m going to kick his ass,” he muttered with a deep growl. “When Jensen stopped by my place and said there wasn’t aparty, I knew I should drive by and check to make sure you were all right.”
I sat straighter. “Is that why you were heading that way? To check on me?”
“I figured it couldn’t hurt. I didn’t want you to be in a si-si-situation that l-l-left you uncomfortable,” he stuttered, then cussed under his breath as if embarrassed by his own stutters. That was the first time I noticed his stuttering voice since the pizza night situation, and I could see the nerves in his stare. But I didn’t care about him tripping over his words because, for the first time in a while, I noticed the real Theo. The non-grumpy, caring version of him.
My own small-town grumpy Superman.
“Stop it, Willow,” he mentioned, glancing over toward me.
“Stop what?”
