Honestly. I mean, it’s one thing if you’ve had a bad experience or you’re allergic or they don’t fit your lifestyle or something. That, I get. But who sees a puppy and doesn’t want to play with it? That was Brenda.
There was something fundamentally wrong there. Some red flag that had been waving that I was too in love to see. I’d dodged a bullet, I saw that now. But regardless of my new, healthier state of mind around my breakup, my life was still sort of . . . off.
My apartment was depressing. I didn’t have the time or drive to decorate and furnish it. I preferred to build my own stuff or refurbish things, and I just didn’t have the motivation to do it. I wasn’t dating. I didn’t have the motivation for that either.
Maybe I just needed to get my feet under me. Get used to the job, get through Frank’s to-do list. I’d have more time when that was done.
Speaking of Frank . . . I looked at my watch. I had to head over there.
When I got to the parking garage, I looked for the white Honda. Found it.
The back tire was flat.
I blew out a long breath.
I put the truck in Park and looked at the dog in the passenger seat. “Well, looks like today I’m going to show you how to use a compressor.”
Holly
CHAPTER 5
When I came out at 8:15 p.m., there was another note on my windshield. It was written on the back of a brown paper bag from a pet supply store. I took it and sat in the car to read it.
Hey, it’s me again, worst wingman guy.
I noticed your back right tire was a little low the other day. I figured you’d get the sensor alert and put air in it, but it was lower yesterday. I told myself if it was still low today, I’d leave you a note, but then when I got to the parking garage, it was flat. I felt bad for not saying something sooner, so I went and got my compressor and put air in your tire. I think you might have run over a nail. You should be able to get to a tire store now, but it’ll keep leaking if you don’t get it fixed. Also, I’m realizing how completely unhinged this long note on this bag looks, but this was the only paper I had in my truck. I’m done touching your car now without your permission lol. Have a nice day. P.S. Seriously, please get it fixed, it’s giving me anxiety.
I laughed. Then I lolled my head back on the seat.
I knew the tire was low. The repair shops weren’t open by the time I went home, and it wasn’t like I was getting days off to run errands.
I shuddered to think about the absolute breakdown I would have had if I’d come out to a flat tire after the day I had today.
Grandma was starting to fade.
She wasn’t eating or drinking anymore. She was getting weaker. The swelling in her ankles meant her kidneys and heart were failing. Nobody else noticed these little things, but I knew what these changes meant. She didn’t have much time left.
I looked down at the paper bag in my lap.
This was really kind, what this person did.
I wiped under my eyes and googled a tire shop and got their hours. Then I called the agency and asked if they had someone who could cover me until 10:00 a.m. so I could go get it fixed. I let Mom know I’d be late tomorrow and to tell Grandma when she got there in the morning.
I picked up the bag and looked at it again. Then I navigated to the store it came from. I had just enough time to get there before they closed.
John
CHAPTER 6
There was an envelope on top of her back right tire.
It was two o’clock, the day after I’d filled it. It looked good. She must have gotten it fixed.
I picked up the card. It was addressed to me.
To the Worst Wingman Ever,
You, kind sir, have restored my faith in humanity.
I did see the sensor alert. I stopped and put air in it before I parked it the first time you saw it. I was hoping it was just a slow leak and I could put off going to a tire store until my schedule opens up a bit, but I guess the plan failed.
I’m a hospice nurse. I’m caring for someone in the building, and it’s been very time consuming and mentally and emotionally draining. I think coming out and seeing a flat tire would have done me in. I can’t thank you enough for helping me.
Here’s a small token of my appreciation. I trust your anxiety over the air in my tire will ensure you find this before a thief does. If it doesn’t and a thief is reading this instead of you, have the day you deserve, jerk. —H.
There was a twenty-five-dollar gift card to the pet store the bag was from.
I smiled and tucked the gift card in my pocket and looked down at my dog. “She got you a present.”
He wagged his tail.
We headed up in the elevator to Frank’s. The doors pinged on the fourth floor. When they opened, a woman was waiting to get on.
A very beautiful woman.
I wondered for a split second if this could be H. I’d wondered that every time I saw any woman walking around this complex over the last few days. But then H said she was a nurse. This woman wasn’t in scrubs.
She was my age, maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Brown hair in a loose braid, a long flowing skirt, gold sandals. I’d never seen her before, and God knows I would have remembered bumping into her.
The dog was pulling on the leash, trying to meet her. She was in white, and I didn’t want him to jump so I held him back. I nodded at her while we edged past. She smiled at the dog.
She took my spot in the elevator, and I was still facing her, trying to get my puppy to move in the direction we were going, when her eyes dropped to my tool belt.
“Red,” she said, almost to herself.
Then the doors closed and she was gone.
I looked down at myself. Red what? My tools?
I didn’t have time to figure it out because the dog was pulling again. He’d been here once and already knew where he was going. He dragged me down the hall, and I let myself into Frank’s apartment and unleashed him.
Andrea was sitting at the kitchen counter, and she squealed. “A dog? Where’d you get him?”
She hadn’t been here when I came over yesterday.
“Found him abandoned in a unit,” I said, dropping the leash on the counter.
“Are you serious? Poor baby!”
She hopped off the stool and leaned over so he could lick her chin.
Frank came around the corner, holding an electric screwdriver. “Hey.”
I nodded at his hand. “Uh, what are you doing with that?”
“Hanging a shelf.”
“Did you anchor it?”
He paused. Then he turned and hurried back the way he’d come.
“What’s his name?” Andrea asked.
“I haven’t named him yet,” I said.
The Doobie Brothers were playing from somewhere outside the apartment. “Listen to the Music.”
The neighbors were a little loud. The other day someone had shouted, “DICK GUILLOTINE!” at the top of their lungs. No idea what that meant, though it sounded like a great name for a band.
Band names . . .
“What about Doobie?” I asked, looking down at my dog.
Andrea ruffled his ears. “Yeah, he looks like a ‘Doobie.’”
I crouched to pet him. “Do you like that? What do you think?”
He wagged his tail and licked my nose. “Okay. Doobie it is.”
Andrea stood. “How’s the new job?” she asked.
“Disgusting. They sent me in to check out a vacated apartment today. It was hoarded. Floor-to-ceiling garbage. And the toilet had stopped working at some point, so they used the bathtub instead. I had to call in a hazmat team.”
She looked horrified. “Ewwwww . . .”
“Ewww is right. Then I got stung by a hornet.” I looked at the welt on my arm.
“Did you put anything on it?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t have anything. It’s fine.”
Something crashed in the other room, followed by cursing. I pushed off the counter. “And that’s your boyfriend tearing the drywall.”
I went to help my brother find a stud.
Holly
CHAPTER 7
“This is exactly what they mean when they say, ‘If he wanted to, he would.’”
Jillian was holding up the brown paper bag. I’d gone to get it from the car because she wanted to see it after I told her the story.
We were sitting in the sun on the small, plant-filled balcony outside Grandma’s living room. She was napping.
Grandma didn’t nap.