Page 111 of The Fake Out

“She is my kid.”

“So am I. I’m okay never seeing you again.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “You remember when we’d go play miniature golf, just the two of us?”

There had been moments, although few and far between, when my father had almost been a dad. Our miniature golf adventures had been a sort of tradition. As we moved from town to town when I was a kid, one of the first things he’d do is find a nearby course and take me. And we did have fun.

I frowned. “Where did that come from?”

“I was thinking about it the other day.” His gaze was intense. “I wasn’t all bad, you know.”

Those miniature golf trips were perhaps the only memories of my father that had not been tarnished by all the other things he’d done. Evidence that a tiny piece of him had at least tried.

“You had your moments,” I admitted reluctantly. “Iris is still willing to give you a chance. I don’t know why but she is. If you say you’re coming and don’t show up, you might blow it with her forever. Maybe you should leave things the way they are. I’ll tell her I couldn’t get ahold of you. She doesn’t need to know any differently.”

The blonde strolled by our table, boldly trailing the tips of her fingers on my father’s shoulder.

“You know what?” He stood and ran his fingers through his hair. “I forgot I have an appointment in half an hour, but tell Iris I’ll be there.”

“You don’t even know what day it’s on.”

But he was already gone. From the window, I watched him catch up to the blonde in the parking lot.

FORTY-NINE

Are you a coconut? ’Cause, damn, you shredded and sweet as hell.

—KARA R.

The storm started fifteen minutes after I left the café. The sky split open and rain poured in buckets, making it difficult for my windshield wipers to keep up. Downward zags of lightning lit up the world almost on top of each other.

The flat tire happened five minutes after that. One minute I was inching my way down the interstate and the next, the whomp-whomp-whomp could be heard even over the soundtrack of rolling thunder. With no choice, I took the nearest exit off the freeway, a desolate scrap of land at the corner of the freeway and a state highway.

White-knuckled, I pulled over into a patch of dirt, dropped my forehead to the steering wheel, and gave into the rage burning in my chest.

No matter what I did, how hard I tried, nothing ever went the way it should. Nothing.

Why? Why today? Why me? Most days, I tried not to ask the whys. If I thought too much about it, it made me so angry.

I was angry now and I was blessedly alone somewhere off the freeway in a broken car.

So, I did what any sensible person would do in this situation—I screamed.

A long, loud scream. There may have been beating on the steering wheel with my hands. Maybe, “How is this my life?” was yelled to no one in particular. I sat there in my car in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire in the pouring rain and screamed.

The last couple of days had been a lot. I deserved this scream. When my throat started to ache and the rage seemed to have dissipated enough so I could think clearly, I convinced myself it was time to change that tire.

About five seconds after digging the jack and spare from the trunk, the rain became a good old torrential downpour. The lightning ripped through the sky, one bolt on top of another. If anyone was going to get hit by lightning, it would probably be me. This was not a good idea. I knew I should wait it out rather than attempt to change that tire but I was desperate to get home, crawl into bed, and never speak to another living person again.

The patch of dirt I had parked on quickly became one giant mudpuddle. I slipped twice and caught myself before I went all the way down. After I managed to get the car jacked up, I removed three of the four lug nuts before I ran into a problem. The fourth one wouldn’t budge. No matter how much force I put behind it, nothing happened.

I kicked the tire—not a smart move—and climbed back into the car to consider my options. It quickly became apparent I only had one.

With a sigh, I picked up my phone and called.

When Chris’s truck pulled up, there was not a part of my body that wasn’t soaked through. I shivered from the temperature drop brought on by the storm but still, I stood in the rain, intent on removing that damn lug nut.

“Hey.” He reached for the tire iron in my hand, his hair already plastered to his head. “I got it.”