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“I don’t want friends, Hallie.”
“No shit. Anyone with eyes can see that, but you know what? Not everything is about you. The guys see something in you, and that’s their prerogative. It’s not your choice on the potential others see in you. Good God, throw them a smile or a wave every few days and they’ll be happy.” She huffed a breath and turned to leave.
“Wait,” he uttered low, frowning down at the phone number. “What did Timber say?”
Hallie crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll tell you if you promise to be nice to the guys.”
Annoying. He hated bartering for anything. It was his way. That was it. His way, or his way. But Hallie had a stubborn set to her mouth and she was looking him straight into his soul, and this little hellion wouldn’t be budged. He could tell. “I’ll be nice for a three-second window,” he negotiated.
She waited a three-count, then shifted her weight to her other side and muttered, “Good enough. She said to tell you that her insurance has officially totaled her car, and she’s already signed the paperwork and gotten a check for it. And that she would be at Two Dog Towing Company gathering anything salvageable from the car tomorrow, if you wanted to grab lunch around there. Her insurance company is doing something weird and making her pay the towing fee to take it to some junkyardoutside of town that her insurance company chose, so she’s going to have to stay and sign some papers. So lame. And then she talked to me for a while, not about you, which was awesome. She seems nice.”
“Well, she’s human,” he told her. He didn’t know why he’d said that like it was a bad thing. He was just still all posted up from the stupid friendship bracelet and the fact that one of the Crew asshats had touched the door handle of his truck to put it on his seat. He was extremely territorial.
“I was human too. So was Corey. So was Sloane. That’s not going to turn any of us off from finding her interesting.”
He hated the way she was looking straight into his eyes. She was too close, and could see too much vulnerability. “Who made the bracelets?” he asked.
“The boys all sat around the destroyed firepit last night watching videos on how to do it, and they made them together.”
“Seriously?”
“Super serious. I took pictures. Do you want to see them?” she asked, pulling her phone from her back pocket.
“No!”
He tossed a glance at the firepit. The ground was split in half, and all the beige bricks they’d built it with were nothing but shards of gravel all around it.
“I’ll get the materials and fix the firepit,” he gritted out.
“The boys would love to do that project with you—”
“It’s not a group project! I’m just fixing it so everyone can stop whining about the broken firepit.” He strode for his truck, his grip tight on his thermos.
Hallie called from behind him, “You should call her. She’ll make things easier.”
Make things easier? Nope. He was not taking that bait. He didn’t understand what she meant by that, but women were mind magicians. Hallie was putting a little grenade in his brainso he could think about it all day and come back tonight and ask what she meant, but no. He was not falling for this, nor would he stoop and care.
He crumpled up the number and tossed it on the ground, hyperaware of Hallie’s glare on his back.
Good. She should watch him not care about anything. Maybe she would talk some sense into Captain, Owen, and Ace, and order them to leave him alone.
She was Second in this Crew. Hallie had the power to do that.
Chapter Four
Today was a bad day.
Timber scrunched up her face at the flashback of hitting the tree as she stared at her mangled car in the tow lot.
Slowly, she walked around the front of it to the driver’s side. The door was gone, and the front end had been crunched up into the driver’s space. She’d been sitting there. And now she was walking upright, with no pain other than the burn on her arm. She’d never believed in miracles before, but this felt pretty important.
It was impossible not to feel lucky, looking at that car and knowing she survived something horrific.
She was pretty sure she owed Wreck more than a Slurpee and some cash for the dent in his truck.
Timber didn’t know why she was shaking, or why her eyes burned with tears she was desperate to keep inside. She didn’t know why she felt a hole in her chest. Seeing her totaled car—and insurance had deemed it totaled—and truly realizing that Wreck had plucked her out of the Grim Reaper’s hands, she felt overcome with emotion.
With a quick glance to make sure no one was around, she stepped closer to the car and knelt down, pressing her hand on the mangled metal beside the steering wheel to steady herself, and noticed something sitting in the cupholder.
