Page 35 of Rent a Bad Boy

It would hurt too much if I actually laughed, but the impulse is there. That feels like a good sign. I fish my keys out of my pocket and hand them to her before we make our way down the stairs and out the back exit. It’s a relief to leave the angry crowd behind as we step into the parking lot where my truck is waiting. “Wait.” Isla freezes next to the driver’s-side door. “I forgot. You have a stick shift.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know how to drive a stick shift.”

And I can only see through one eye. “You said you could do this.”

“I wasn’t paying attention when I was in here before, I guess.” That doesn’t stop her from getting in the truck, though, moving the seat forward about six inches because her feet won’t reach the pedals otherwise. She stares at the gearshift like it insulted her chickens. “Okay. How hard can it be?”

Not exactly what I want to hear right now. “Push the clutch in first,” I tell her once I’m inside. “That’s the left pedal.”

“I know what a clutch is. Theoretically.” She pushes it in and turns the key. Once the engine starts, she asks, “Now what?”

“Put it in first. Ease off the clutch while you⁠—”

The truck lurches forward so hard my head snaps back against the headrest, and my ribs send a bolt of pain through my entire torso that makes me see stars. She slams the brake. The engine stalls. We sit in silence.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

“Try again. Slower on the clutch this time.”

She tries again. The truck bucks like a mechanical bull. We lurch across the parking lot in a series of violent jerks that make my broken ribs feel like they’re being played like a xylophone. She grinds the gears shifting into second, and I physically wince at the sound that comes out of the transmission.

“Is that bad?” she asks.

“It’s not great.”

“We’re still moving.”

“Technically.”

We make it onto the road, barely. She’s gripping the steering wheel with both hands, white-knuckled, leaning forward like she’s trying to see the road through sheer force of will. Every time she shifts, the truck shudders. Every time it shudders, I grip the door handle and consider whether surviving an underground fight only to die in a car wreck would be ironic or just stupid.

She takes a turn too wide and clips a mailbox. Not too hard. Just enough for both of us to freeze and then silently agree to keep going. “I thought fighting was the most dangerous thing I’d be doing tonight,” I mutter through gritted teeth as she grinds third gear so hard I swear the truck actually whimpers. Or maybe that was just me.

She glares at me, but there’s something warm underneath it. “If you die in this truck,” she says before turning her eyes back to the road, “it’s not going to be because of my driving. It’s going to be because you didn’t go to the hospital like I told you to.”

“Fair enough.”

Somehow, we make it to my house in one piece. She stalls the truck one final time in the driveway and kills the engine. We sit there in the sudden quiet, both of us breathing, both of us alive. And then she turns to me with steady eyes. Clear. Whatever she was trying to figure out, I’m pretty sure she found her answer somewhere between watching me lose on purpose and surviving her first time driving stick.

“I’m coming inside,” she says softly. “Let me take care of you.”

I’m done arguing. I’m done pretending I don’t need her, because I’ve spent twenty years not needing anyone. Look where it got me: bleeding in the passenger seat of my own truck while a five-foot girl who can’t drive stick takes me home.

There’s nothing for me to do but follow her inside.

13

ISLA

There’s a cut above his left eye that won’t stop bleeding.

I’ve been pressing a washcloth against it for the past ten minutes while he lies on my bed, shirtless, looking like he lost a fight with a cement mixer. That’s basically what happened. His left eye is swollen almost shut. There’s a bruise along his jaw that’s already turning purple. His ribs are wrapped in an Ace bandage I found in the bathroom cabinet. I’m ninety percent sure I applied it wrong, but he didn’t complain when I did it. It’s either fine, or he’s in too much pain to correct me.

“Stop moving,” I warn when he shifts against the pillow.

“I’m not moving.”