Taut: The Ford Book

She whips the cart around the corner and looks up at the aisle signs as she walks, then takes a hard right into the baby stuff. She barely stops, just grabs things off the shelf as she walks. Tosses in diapers, a bib, and a box of something. “I have a bowl and spoon, so I don’t need that,” she explains when she notices me watching her intently.

“OK,” I reply. She stops at the end of the aisle. “You done?”

“I think so.”

“Do you need anything specific? Milk?” She glances down at her br**sts and I let out a small chuckle. “For you, I mean.”

“Oh, I’ll eat whatever, but thank you.”

“OK.” And that’s that. Shopping is over. We stand in the checkout line, which is long since there’s a threat of another storm coming and people are reactionary when they think they might be snowed in for a day. I pay and the girl talks to the baby as the bagger loads our cart back up. And then we go back out and brave the snow. It’s really coming down and the parking lot hasn’t been cleared since earlier in the day, so I have to fight the cart through the slush.

We load the kid and the crap, then climb back into the van. Our doors slam at the same time and we let out a collective sigh. She looks over at me and gives me a smile again. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem. Jason will be at the shop tomorrow, so we can go by and get your stuff if you need it. The Bronco will be done on Monday, but he won’t be able to start your car until later in the week, so you’ll have to stay up here in Vail until it’s done.”

“Oh.” She seems disappointed and that’s all she says as I drive carefully through the snow, the tires making that crunching noise as we go.

“Don’t worry,” I say, looking at her frown. “You can stay at my house. Just call the property managers when you leave and they’ll come lock it all up again. I’ll leave you some cash for food, and you can use this rental if you want.”

She nods and looks out the window.

“What?” I ask as I get back on the freeway.

“Thanks,” she says with an almost too cheerful smile. “It’s very nice of you to help me out like this. You don’t even know me.” And then she snorts a little. “You don’t even know my name.”

“Ashleigh,” I say quietly. “You’re Ashleigh.” She gives me a quizzical look. “Your key chain. It said Ashleigh and Tony Forever or something like that.”

“Oh, right.” The smile disappears.

“But yeah, I’m not usually so nice. You caught me on a bad day.”

“This is a bad day? What are you like on a good day? A saint?” This brings the smile back, at least partly.

“No, on a good day I’m myself. On a good day I would’ve left you in your car all night.”

She looks over at me quickly. “Would not’ve.”

“Yes, I would. On a good day I would never’ve knocked on your window when I went to get the blizzard blankets. I would’ve pretended I never heard you and your baby. And then I would’ve walked back to my hotel and gone to sleep. I’d have forgotten you before I even reached the motel door.”

I get off the freeway at our exit and turn right onto Starburst. The snow is even thicker over here and I start to worry about the driveway. I punch in the gate code once we make it to the house, and then hold my breath as we climb the steep hill. We slide even more this time and it’s freaking her out.

“I don’t like this. Drop me off, I’ll walk up.”

“I’m not dropping you off. Just relax.”

She looks nervously behind us. “I’m afraid we’re gonna slide backwards and—”

“Stop it. I’m not going to let us slide backwards.”

“But what if you can’t control it?”

I shoot her an annoyed look and she turns away as I accelerate a little, making the tires spin. She makes a few indescribable noises and grips the seat, but after a few seconds of sliding sideways, we get traction and continue upwards. When I finally pull around to the garage she lets out a long breath like she was holding it in the entire time. “Told ya,” I say smugly as I put the car in park so I can go open the garage door.

“Yeah, you did, didn’t you?”

I glance up at her as I get out to see if this was sarcasm, but she’s already scooting over into my seat. We’ve got this down to a routine, I guess.

She smiles at me again. Like she trusts me completely even though three seconds ago she thought I was gonna let us slide backwards down a steep hill. I open the garage and she pulls forward with the same careful attention she did earlier, and then I close the door behind her. I start grabbing bags and she messes with the baby.

I set all the bags down on the kitchen island and start taking things out to put away.

“Nope,” she says in a light tone. She walks over to me and puts her hand on my chest to push me away, and then grabs the bag with her other hand at the same time. “You paid, so I’ll put it all away and cook us dinner.”

I try to remove her hand from my chest, but she whirls around before I can even come to grips with the fact that she touched me again.

Fucking girl. That’s three times now.

“Go,” she says. “Shoo. I’ll take care of it.”

“Shoo?” I chuckle. It feels good to laugh after all this bullshit that’s been rattling around in my brain these past few months. “I can cook. I don’t need you to take care of me.”