Page 60 of Once Upon a Fall

He’s quiet for a second. Then he gives me a nod. “Okay,” he says. “Wait for me to tell you to take your foot off the brake.” Then he jogs around to the rear of the truck.

“Go,” I hear him say.

And that’s how I ended up driving a dead truck down Main Street.

There isn’t another car in sight, and we keep our pace slow. By the time we reach his house, Dean is breathing hard.

We debate briefly whether we should push it all the way up Hal’s long driveway but decide to leave it parked at the curb. Once we’ve wrestled it into place, I shift it back into park and pull the parking brake as hard as I can.

Dean comes up to the door and holds it open for me, and I put the keys in the glove box before climbing out.

“Nice work,” he says, giving me a bigger smile than his usual standard one.

“You too,” I say.

I think the adrenaline of moving this thing was keeping me going, because now that we’re here and it’s done, I’m feeling guilty about it.

“What if Hal’s mad?” I ask, my stomach doing a little flip.

Dean wipes his hands on his jeans. “He might be.”

Very comforting.

“You needed the garage,” he says, “and now you’ve got the garage.”

“I probably should send him a text, though,” I say, pulling my phone out of my back pocket.

I write a shorter note than my first one, letting him know how sorry I am for returning his truck, but that we took really good care of it, and that I hope this doesn’t inconvenience him. There were lots of emojis and exclamation points.

“Will you make sure this sounds okay before I send it?” I hand the phone to Dean.

He reads it, brows furrowed. “Mind if I make a couple of changes?”

“Oh, yeah, thanks. My grammar is atrocious.”

He runs his thumbs lightly over the keyboard and then hands it back to me.

I look down at my screen.

Me: Needed the garage. Truck’s in front of your house, keys in the glove box.

“Dean,” I say, appalled but also laughing as I hold up my screen.

“You don’t owe him any explanation.”

I sigh. He’s probably right, even if it makes me feel itchy again. Hal’s been borrowing my garage. Why am I making this so hard on myself?

“I’ll add a little heart at the end, so it sounds nicer.”

“Good plan.”

I press send, and we start walking back toward the inn.

Somewhere around the corner from Hal’s place, the itchy feeling stops.

Something else shows up in its place, and I don’t know what to call it. My shoulders have come down from wherever they’ve been hanging out since I got the text from Pam.

I have a garage again. Tomorrow morning a truck is going to pull up with a pile of tables on it, and I am going to know exactly where they go.