While I stood there with my mouth gaping, the door to the stadium opened and closed behind me. A huge man on crutches, mirrored aviator sunglasses over his eyes in the waning August sunlight, slowly limped up to me.
“Is that yours?” He pointed at the car pile with one of his crutches.
“Yes! Someone killed my car!”
“That’s my truck. I tapped yours when I came in,” he mentioned.
“You tapped it?” I turned to stare at him, and suddenly it dawned on me that this was Davis Blake. The one, the only Davis Blake. The starting quarterback. The guy who broke the United Football Confederation's passing yards record the year before. Davis Blake. Sweet Jesus.
Davis Blake had murdered my car.
“You tapped it?” I repeated.
He was already slowly moving over towards his truck and beeping it to unlock the door. I immediately saw the issue.
“Hang on,” I called, jogging up to him. “How are you driving with your right leg injured?”
He turned to stare at me. At least, I thought he was staring at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the glasses.
“I’m using my left leg,” he said finally.
“I don’t think that’s working for you,” I said helplessly. Closer up, I could see the extent of the damage. No way was my car drivable. I didn’t know if it was even fixable. “Did you hit the gas instead of the brake?”
He just looked at me. Or maybe he had fallen asleep behind the sunglasses, I couldn’t tell.
“How am I supposed to get home?” He didn’t answer. “My car is like a fly that got swatted! Like an old tube of toothpaste! I have the panini of hatchbacks!” I realized that I was waving my arms around over my head and my voice had increased dramatically in volume.
“You shouldn’t have parked in this lot, anyway. It’s only for players.”
“And for on-field employees on rehearsal days, like today,” I defended myself. “It’s in the Woodsmen Family Handbook.”
“You read all that? Huh.” That seemed to be my dismissal, because he turned and limped the few steps to his truck.
“Hang on. Hang on! You can’t drive, you’re going to make this worse.” I hopped ahead of him, putting myself between him and the vehicles. “Let me back the truck off. Down.” I winced.
Davis Blake just stared at me. Maybe he was staring at me. His face was pointed toward me.
“Fine.” He held out the keys and I put out my hand as he dropped them. “Be careful with it.”
“You have a well-developed sense of irony,” I muttered. I could barely reach the door handle. There was a bar you could step on to get in, but it was a lucky thing I was so limber, or I wouldn’t have gotten my butt up in the truck.
I started the engine and it roared and rumbled like a herd of elephants ran past. Music blasted out of the oversized speakers on the doors and base boomed up from the back. I covered one ear and flailed with my other hand at the buttons on the dashboard until it stopped. Then I carefully moved the seat forward so that I could drive this behemoth.
The view was actually nice from so high. It would be easy to get through traffic. And if someone was in your way, you could just drive right over their car! Sweet Jesus. I put the truck into reverse and carefully eased back it off mine, flinching at the creaking and breaking noises I could hear over the deafening thunder of the engine. I threw it in park, turned it off, and leaped down to assess the damage.
“Oh. My. Lord.”
Davis Blake pursed his lips. “Let me know how much it costs to get it touched up, and I’ll pay you.”
“Touched up? Touched up?” I was close to yelling again. “Touched up. My car is…” There were no words. “I can’t drive this, and I obviously can’t let you drive yours.”
His mouth tightened. “I told you that I will pay for your repairs. What do you suggest we do now?”
There were two of us, one car between us, and only one of us was fit to drive it. The answer seemed clear to me.
Really, I didn’t know how he’d managed to get into the truck to drive himself over to the stadium. Even as big and strong as he was, he was barely able to get up into the passenger side with his hurt leg, and I found myself pushing on his butt to help him. I was pushing Davis Blake’s…no one would ever believe me. It felt like two very unripe, hard melons. Not that I was squeezing, I was only doing it to help him. Totally not perverted, at all.
When I had hauled myself back into the driver’s seat, he was already on his phone. “I’m getting your car towed. They’ll meet you at my house with a loaner,” he said when he hung up, his words flat and expressionless. The last time I’d heard his voice was when he had been hurt on the field, but I’d listened to his interviews plenty of times. He didn’t usually sound so…empty.
I took a breath, feeling better. Davis Blake would get my car fixed, and Lord knew it needed it even before it was pancaked. “Thank you,” I said. “Well? Are you going to say it?”
“Why aren’t you driving?”
I waited. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“Am I supposed to be saying something?” he asked, exasperated.
“How about apologizing for wrecking my car?” I said helpfully. “And also, thanking me for not killing you.”
“I’m sorry about your car,” he said slowly and carefully, like each word was painfully tugged out of him. “Thank you for not killing me.”
He hit a button on his navigation system and it started directing us to his house, and we drove in silence for a few miles. Despite the fact that it had just decimated my own
