Going 78 Miles Per Hour | ✓

58 | Detour

JUEVES
5:47 PM

Reid Harlow

Presley is going to be so fucking upset.

I park his Mustang on the side of the road, watching as cars pass me with a honk of their horn and a sympathetic glance outside of the passenger window. I wanted to flick them off, or swear at them, but I was busy assessing the damage made in my predicament.

A large object—that I guess I didn't fucking see—plunged itself into the front pan of the car, creating severe damage underneath the hood. Leading along that, one of his tires popped due to a metal pipe bursting, and slicing across the rubber, creating a gaping hole that releases the air out quicker than I had the opportunity to make it to the side of the road safely.

I'm fucking pissed.

I've been standing outside of this car for the past half hour, evaluating the damage as if I had the specialized capability to fix it. I know a lot of shit about a lot of things, and I know how to work my way around a car, but there's no way in hell I could fix that.

I popped the hood up a while back, wondering if the busted pipe had caused any additional leakage near the engine—and thankfully, there wasn't, just a bit of white smoke that came from the engine's over-exhaustion.

"Fuck," I swore under my breath, putting two hands locked behind my head, glancing back at the hood propped open. I don't know what the fuck to do—should I suck it up and call my foster brother for help, or should I pray by some miracle that a lonely mechanic with a heart of gold would find sympathetic in my dilemma and help me out.

Which I doubt would be the latter because every passing vehicle that saw me in my situation, has either looked at me with a glance or honked their car.

Like it's a fucking game.

My phone vibrates from my back pocket and I drop both hands to fish out the device, my heart leaping in acceleration at the thought that Presley is calling to check in with me. He has a tendency to call me whenever he feels uneasy about something—but this time, his dumbass gut-feeling would be correct.

But, to my surprise, it wasn't the six-foot tall Korean with an overly positive attitude.

It's my girlfriend.

I stare at the phone as her name flashes across the screen, phone buzzing, and seconds pouring into the timer as it's waiting for me to accept or decline the call. My heart gradually finds a natural rhythm, and I force myself to release all my pent-up aggression from the hour's worth of misfortunate. I know I could open the call with the worst fucking attitude, and I would fucking hate myself if I release it onto Dahlia.

With a couple seconds left, I click on the green button and hold the phone up to my ear, inhaling and exhaling deeply, pretending I'm mediating the stress away.

"Hey," my voice low, summoned through gritted teeth.

"I got my license!" Dahlia squeals through the phone, and I could imagine the biggest fucking grin plastered on her lips as this moment, her jumping up and down on the balls of her heels with the plastic card in her hands. "I passed with a 90!"

The tension in my shoulders loosen, and I wipe my thumb across my bottom lip, hiding away with the approaching smile that resulted from my girlfriend's contagious excitement. "That's great, I'm so proud of you."

I sound so fucking exhausted and monotonic, but I genuinely am proud of her. She came so far. From not being able to sit behind the driver seat, having a panic attack through a wrong move, to getting her license—it's a huge fucking deal. I'm just terrible at expressing emotions through the phone.