Count Your Lucky Stars: A Novel
Count Your Lucky Stars: Chapter 23

“It could be your mass air flow sensor.”

Olivia wrung her hands together and stared over Mr. Miller’s shoulder as he poked around under the open hood of her car. Mr. Miller, Dad’s next-door neighbor, was a recently retired HVAC repairman, not a mechanic, but his brother apparently owned a garage and—Olivia hadn’t known who else to ask for help. “Is that bad?”

Mr. Miller huffed. “Well, it’s not good.”

Her stomach sank. “Oh.”

“But there could also be a problem with your fuel pump. A leak.”

She stepped closer. Beyond knowing where to check the oil and where the battery was located on the off chance she needed a jump, the guts of her car were a mystery. Everything under the hood looked confusing, coils and wires and metal all covered in a sheen of grease. Mr. Miller could’ve told her that her thingamabob needed a new thingamajig, and it would have made as much sense as mass air flow sensor and fuel pump. “Is that bad?”

Mr. Miller grunted and craned his neck, staring at her over his shoulder with a grimace that knotted her stomach. “That’s even worse.”

“Fuck.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Mr. Miller. I just—whatever it is, can you fix it?”

Or did she need to call someone who could?

“In my experience”—Mr. Miller ducked back under the hood, did something she couldn’t see, and a low groan came from the belly of her car, making her wince harder—“you can fix just about anything.”

Olivia gulped. There was probably a worthwhile metaphor buried in there somewhere, a lesson to take away about the power of positive thinking or hard work or endurance or something, but she really just wanted her car to start so she could fix her actual problems.

“Do you know what time it is?”

Mr. Miller pointed across the driveway to where his chest of tools lay open. His phone rested atop a grease-covered rag. Olivia felt a little weird touching someone’s phone, but hey, he’d offered. She pressed the home button. 11:08. A little under two hours before she had to be at the venue. The drive was forty-five minutes, an hour to be safe.

Olivia stepped back over to the car and leaned her hip against the front bumper, nibbling on her thumbnail. “I have a wedding rehearsal I have to be at in Seattle by one.” Mr. Miller said he could fix anything, but could he do it in under an hour? “Do you think you can have it running by noon?”

He gripped the inside frame of the car and gave a heavy sigh. He lifted his head and pinned her with a stare, one of his bushy white brows rising high on his forehead. “Olivia, I won’t be able to fix a damn thing with you hovering.”

Shit. He was right. She was absolutely hovering and in the worst way possible, standing right over his shoulder, doing nothing more than leaking anxiety all over the place. Literally. Her armpits were beginning to sweat and—it was March, for crying out loud. March in Washington. How in the world was she sweating this much?

“Sorry.” She offered him a contrite smile and stepped away from the vehicle. “I’ll just . . .” She jerked her head toward the opposite end of the driveway. “Go stand over there and let you work in peace.”

Hopefully quickly, because time was of the essence, but she had a sneaking suspicion that if she reminded Mr. Miller of her time crunch one more time, he’d toss in his grease-covered towel and tell her to replace someone else to fix her car, and Olivia—

Had no one.

Her phone was a waterlogged hunk of plastic, worthless. Why she was still clutching it in her fist, holding it as if she had a shot in hell of resuscitating it was beyond her. Dad was long gone, probably halfway to Forks by now, and—could she even get an Uber to drive her from Enumclaw all the way to Seattle?

Olivia paced the end of the driveway, careful not to twist an ankle where the pavement cracked and dropped off abruptly, a pothole Dad had never bothered to fix because it was on the opposite side as the mailbox. That was the last thing she needed, an injury on top of everything else.

But that would be just her luck, wouldn’t? Never had she wanted anything in her life as badly as she wanted her damn car to start so she could get to Seattle, to the rehearsal, to Margot.

Olivia shut her eyes.

“I figured out your problem.”

Olivia rushed over to the car, stopping behind Mr. Miller, close enough to hear him explain, but not so close as to crowd him. “I am all ears.”

He reached for the towel tucked inside the front pocket of his jeans and wiped his hands. “Your spark plugs aren’t just corroded, they’ve started to erode.” He pointed at the top of the engine. “See that green cast to the metal? You’ve got some severe oxidation going on, too. Your spark plugs are burned out. Probably causing a timing issue with the ignition. Have you noticed the car runs rough when you idle?”

“I—maybe? To be honest, I haven’t driven it much in the past few months. I walk most places. It sits in a parking garage most of the time.”

Mr. Miller grunted, acknowledging he’d heard her.

Olivia wet her lips. “So . . . corroded—sorry, eroded spark plugs . . . is that bad?”

Mr. Miller frowned. “Mm-hmm.”

“But you can fix it.”

She held her breath, crossing everything she could possibly cross. Fingers, toes, everything save for her eyes.

“I can.”

Her breath escaped her all at once, and with it, a laugh of relief as she bent over, bracing her hands on her knees. Oh, thank God.

“As soon as I can get a replacement.”

Her stomach fell away completely, and her heart stuttered, reminiscent of her stupid engine. “I’m guessing you don’t have any of those lying around in your garage, do you?”

His lips twisted.

Swallowing required effort. It took two tries before she could force words up past the lump in her throat. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s going to take a little while?”

Mr. Miller grimaced and dipped his chin. “I can call AutoZone, see if they have them in stock, but . . .”

It was a fifteen-minute drive from Dad’s to the other side of town, where the store was located—thirty minutes roundtrip. Accounting for the time it would take to actually pick the parts up and install them . . . she was looking at over an hour just to fix the car, easy.

She pressed her lips together and forced a smile. “It’s fine. Thanks for, uh, trying. I appreciate it.” The lump in her throat swelled, the backs of her eyes burning, because what was she supposed to do now?

“Sorry, Olivia,” Mr. Miller said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I wish it would’ve been an easy fix.”

So did she. She scrubbed a hand over her face and exhaled harshly. She couldn’t believe she was about to ask this, but . . . “You wouldn’t possibly be able to give me a ride into Seattle, would you? I’d be happy to pay for—”

Mr. Miller lifted a hand, cutting her off. “I would, gladly, no money necessary, if it weren’t for the fact that Mae and I are down to one car.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. It had drizzled overnight, and a dry patch of concrete the size of a car stood out against the dark, rain-soaked drive.

“Right.” She swallowed hard and pasted on a flimsy smile. “Thanks, anyway.”

Mr. Miller lowered the hood and bent down to gather his tools. “You need me to call someone? Triple A? Your dad?”

She shook her head. There was no need to interrupt Dad’s trip. It would take him longer than an hour to make it back. Pointless to bother him over something he could do nothing to fix.

Unless replacement spark plugs magically fell from the sky, there was nothing she or anyone could do to fix this. It was unfixable. Her phone was dead, her car was dead, and—

Margot was right.

If Olivia had just waited, she wouldn’t be in this mess. But she hadn’t listened, and now she was stuck an hour outside of town with no way to get back. Not only was she going to miss the rehearsal, a critical faux pas as the wedding planner, but what would Margot think? Olivia couldn’t call her, couldn’t let her know. God, she knew Margot’s old number by heart, but her new number? There’d been no reason to memorize it with it programmed in her contacts.

Just show up.

Olivia had had one job, one means of proving to Margot that she was in, that she was all in, and she’d blown it. Sure, she could apologize, but would Margot even care to listen?

“Do you happen to have the Coopers’ number? If not, I can give it to you.”

Maybe she could ask Margot’s dad for her new number.

Mr. Miller scrolled through his contacts and nodded. “Here you go.”

Olivia took the proffered phone and hit call, raising the phone to her ear. It rang four times before going to voicemail. She handed the phone back to Mr. Miller and shook her head. “No answer.”

“I, uh, could call the Taylor kid.” His lips twisted. “Brad?”

Brad. God, no, Brad was the absolute last person on Earth she wanted to . . . well.

Asking a favor from her ex was just about the least appealing thing she could fathom, but not as terrible as missing the rehearsal. Not showing up. Letting Margot down.

If she was going to do this, she didn’t have time to stand around debating it. If she was going to go, she needed to go now.

“It’s okay, Mr. Miller.” She hurried around the car, popping the door, and grabbing her duffel from the back seat. “But thanks, anyway.”

Mr. Miller frowned. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, already moving down the drive. She waved. “I’m sure. I’ve really got to go. Tell Mrs. Miller I said hi!”

Brad’s house, her old house, was two streets over, a ten-minute walk at a brisk pace. Olivia booked it, moving as fast as she could in a pencil skirt that kept her from being able to fully spread her legs. Her underwear were beginning to ride up, the lace chafing against the insides of her thighs while the outsides of her thighs and calves burned from this hybrid speed-walk/jog combo. Even though it was only in the midfifties, sweat dampened her hairline and the space between her boobs, leaving her sticky and gross. By the time she made it to Brad’s, she was breathless, and her hair was stuck to her neck and forehead, but she made it.

Hustling past the god-awful bass-shaped mailbox, which was definitely new, she made a beeline to the front door and pounded the side of her fist against it. “Brad.”

Her heart pounded, chest heaving with every rapid breath that burned the back of her throat. She waited less than thirty seconds and rapped her knuckles against the door, following it with a long, hard press of her thumb against the doorbell.

For a moment, she could’ve sworn she heard the sound of footsteps approaching, thundering down the stairs to the front door, but that was just blood thrumming inside her head.

Olivia whimpered and let her forehead fall forward against the front door. How stupid. It was Friday, midday. Of course Brad wasn’t answering the door. He was at work. She scrunched her eyes shut. Just like she needed to be in an hour.

For a second there, she’d honestly believed she could have everything she wanted. As if wanting badly enough could translate into having.

Olivia dragged a hand across her eyes, ruining her makeup. Not that it mattered. No one was going to see it because she wasn’t going to make it to Seattle, not on time. Showing up late was better than not showing up at all, but what would Brendon and Annie think? Lori? God, goodbye promotion, goodbye raise. And Margot?

Her heart clenched.

Olivia didn’t want to say goodbye.

She had promised. One simple thing: show up. She couldn’t even do that. With the way she’d left, how she’d left things between them, Margot might think Olivia didn’t want to show up, when that wasn’t it at all.

How ironic that the moment she decided to get out of her own way, life had to toss umpteen obstacles in her path. How the hell was that fair?

Olivia backed away from the door. Sunlight glinted off metal out of the corner of her eye. She sniffled and turned toward the side yard and—almost fell over.

The red Ford F-650 six-door pickup that she had failed to convince Brad he didn’t need—he’d had a perfectly good Ford F-150 he planned to keep—was parked in the grass beside the house. Nine feet tall and with wheel wells higher than her hips, the truck had intimidated the hell out of her to the point where she’d never even dreamed of getting behind the wheel. Why would she when she had her efficient, reasonable, reliable Subaru that could get her everywhere she needed to go?

She pinched her lips together and threw one last glance over her shoulder at the front door before crossing the yard. Her flats sank into the grass, wet blades tickling her ankles. She stopped beside the truck and held her breath as she reached up for the handle on the driver’s-side door. All she wanted was to see whether it was unlocked and—

The door cracked open, and her heart climbed inside her throat.

Holy shit.

She wet her lips and checked over both shoulders. The street was quiet, no busybody neighbors puttering around their yards wondering what Olivia was doing, breaking into her ex-husband’s truck. It wasn’t technically breaking into if he left it unlocked, right? Brad had never bothered to lock his car at home, something he could get away with in a town like Enumclaw.

He also a had a terrible habit of leaving the keys to his truck under the visor because—who would be bold enough to steal a truck like this?

Her pulse pounded in her throat as she threw her duffel to the ground. She gripped the door with one hand and rested the other on the leather seat. One foot braced on the footrail, Olivia levered herself up into the cab. The air was different up here. She snorted and with a shaking hand flipped the visor open.

Brad’s keys clattered against the dash, gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the windshield. She snatched them up and hopped down, landing in the grass with a soft squish, mud squelching under her feet and running up the sides of her flats. The metal was cold against her skin, sharp, too, as she ran the pad of her thumb idly over the teeth. Breaking into his truck was one thing; taking it was something else altogether.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to be happy.

All those years spent compromising, storing books under her bed, giving, giving, giving, answering his calls even after their divorce, so much time wasted trying in vain to please Brad at the expense of her own happiness.

How did that saying go? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission?

She reached inside her purse for a pen and a piece of paper.

Brad owed her one.