Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)(92)

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 find 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—”