Love & Luck(28)

“Guys!” I yelled, waving my arms at both Ian and Rowan. They were standing side by side at the tomb. How had that thing kept their attention for so long? “Guys!”

Ian glanced over, and I tapped an imaginary watch on my wrist. “We need to go. Now.”

He languidly pulled his phone out of his pocket before he and Rowan began jogging toward me. I hurried around the back of the car, something unexpected catching my eye.

“Oh, no.” The tailpipe now sagged lazily to the ground, the tip completely submerged in a puddle of water. I ducked down to assess the damage.

“Sorry. We lost track of time,” Rowan said, his breath heavy as he splashed toward me. “Good thing I’m a fast driver.” He caught sight of my crouched form. “Oh, no, did the pipe come loose?”

“I think we lost a bolt. We have to fix it before we leave.”

Rowan crossed his arms nervously. “Any chance we could fix it later? I don’t want to risk getting you to the airport late.”

I fought it, but the practical side of me won out. If the tailpipe were to disconnect as we were driving, that would be it. No workable car. No airport. No Italy and no Lina. I had to find at least a short-term solution.

I jumped to my feet. “As long as we can get it off the road, we’ll be fine. What do you have that we could tie it up with?”

Rowan tapped his chin, looking at the bumper stickers as if they might be able to help him out. “Dental floss? I might have a bungee cord somewhere.”

I shook my head. “It has to be metal, or it will melt through and we’ll have to stop and do it again.”

“How about these?” Rowan pulled a pair of headphones out of his back pocket, the cords tangled into a nest. “Aren’t the wires inside made out of copper?”

Ian’s mouth dropped open. “Absolutely not. Those are Shure headphones. They’re, like, two hundred dollars.”

“You’re offering me your two-hundred-dollar headphones?” I asked, shocked. I knew Rowan was nice, but this was over-the-top.

He tossed them to me. “They were a guilt present,” he said, bitterness ringing through his voice. “Divorce kid perks.” His shoulders sagged slightly, and Ian gave him a surprised look, but it was pretty clear Rowan didn’t want any follow-up questions.

It was way too generous of an offer, but I had to take him up on it anyway. I had too much at stake. I gave him a nod of thanks, then dropped down to the ground. “Ian, hold the tailpipe up for me.” He obeyed and I crawled halfway under the bumper, water seeping into my shorts as I felt my way around.

I was used to being the family mechanic. The summer after Walter turned sixteen, my brothers and I had a tire blowout on a freeway near our house. I’d dug out the owner’s manual, and by the time my dad had showed up, I was covered in grease, and the spare tire was on. Unlike school, cars had just always made sense to me—there was something comforting about the fact that the answer was always just a popped hood or wrench twist away.

The underside of Rowan’s car was coated in mud, and it took me way longer than it should have to attach the tailpipe. Nerves were not my friend. What felt like an hour later, I jumped to my feet, anxiety rippling through my center. “Got it. Let’s get out of here.”

“Maybe you should change before you get back in Rowan’s car,” Ian said, looking at my clothes. “You look like a mud ball.”

“We don’t have time,” Rowan said, heading for his door. “Hop in, mud ball.”



I was bouncing around the back seat, trying to ignore the fact that the numbers on Clover’s dashboard clock were moving at warp speed, when Rowan suddenly let loose with a word that sounded mispronounced. “Feck!”

Feck? I looked up. “What’s wrong?”

Rowan pointed out the windshield. “That’s what’s wrong.”

I spiked forward anxiously, and what I saw tied my stomach into a neat bow. About a quarter mile up was a tractor. But not just any tractor—this one was massive, spilling out over both lanes of the road like a giant, lumbering lobster. It definitely wasn’t in a hurry. Rowan eased up on the gas and coasted up to it.

“We have to get around it,” I said. Were tractors allowed to just take over the road?

Addie, don’t panic. Don’t panic. We were already late. How was this happening?

“How?” Rowan raked his hand through his hair. “It’s too big to even pull over to let us pass. It takes up the whole road.”

“There’s no way it can stay on the road for long,” Ian said calmly, but his knee burst into full bounce. “Rowan, they can’t stay on the road for long, right?”

“Well . . . ,” Rowan said. He grimaced. “Maybe I should turn around. There’s got to be another route to the freeway.”

The suggestion made me nervous. Another route sounded messy. And risky. A rumble behind us made us all whip around.

“Feck!”? This time it was Ian who yelled it. The tractor’s twin was coming up the road behind us. Just as big, just as slow.

“What is this, a tractor parade?” I demanded. Tractor number two was pumpkin orange, and the driver returned our scowls with a cheery wave.

“Great. Tractor buddies,” Rowan said.

“I’m going to talk to them.” Ian rolled his window down, and before Rowan and I realized what he meant, he’d scrambled out of the still-moving car, stumbling when he hit the ground. “Ian! Get back in here,” I yelled. But he ran full speed to the first tractor, mud flipping up behind him.