Peyton swore. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
The rain was pouring down and drenching her to the bone. Rivulets ran down her neck and under her shirt, not that her shirt wasn’t already wet through. She gripped the lug wrench and pulled, willing the nut to loosen so she could replace the tire and get the hell off the side of the road. All she wanted to do was go home and sink into a hot bath with a glass of wine and a good book. She did not want to be stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire in the pouring rain after the shitty day she had already had.
It’s not that she hated her job, but ever since her ill-advised YouTube drunken rant, nobody was making her life easy. She saw the snide looks and heard the barely contained sniggers when she’d walked in that morning. Thankfully none of the kids knew anything about the incident and once she was in her costume, none of the parents did either. Dressing up as Wonder Woman was meant to be empowering, but today it just felt like an excuse to hide.
“Fucking hell!” she yelled to the universe as she stood and paced away from the damned tire.
The bloody nuts were so tight that there was no way she could loosen them on her own. She liked to think of herself as an independent woman and her dad had shown her how to do basic car maintenance, but none of that was any help when she didn’t have the upper body strength required to get the stupid wheel nuts undone. The temptation to take the lug wrench and start beating her car with it was strong, but that would only result in causing more trouble than it was worth. She could call someone except that her phone was dead. She had been getting so many stupid calls and notification and emails from that stupid fucking video that she had been shoving the stupid thing down in the bottom of her handbag and trying to forget it was there. That also meant that she forgot to charge it and now it was not much more useful than a paperweight. And of course stupid women’s lib came to bite her on the arse again because no one was willing to stop and help a woman stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire. Although, that probably couldn’t really be laid at the feet of the suffragettes; they were only campaigning for equal rights for women, not the total breakdown of civilised society.
Peyton clenched her fists and took a few deep breaths. She could do this. She just needed to apply the right amount of force at the correct angle – or some such shit that was once explained in physics class that she never actually listened to. Maybe if she positioned herself at the side of the tire instead of directly in front of it and maybe if she put her whole body weight into it as she tugged she might get enough force to break the seal and get the nut loose. With a deep breath, she approached the tire and got herself situated so that she could pull on the lug wrench using her body weight. She gripped the wrench and took a deep breath as she pulled. She planted her feet and pulled with everything she had, using the weight of her body to try and budge the nut. She grunted with the effort.
She felt her fingers slipping. The rain was coming down in sheets now and the wet metal wrench combined with her wet fingers meant that her grip wasn’t as secure as she would have wanted it to be. She tried to hang on, she really did, but the universe was against her. Her fingers slipped from the wrench and due to the fact that she had been using her entire body to get the damn nut undone, when she let go of the wrench, her body went flying backwards – in the direction she had been pulling. She landed with a splash in a muddy puddle and just to add insult to injury, at that exact moment a car went flying past, hitting a different puddle and drenching her anew with filthy water from the road.
Peyton sat in her puddle, her red hair plastered to her head, dirty water dripping down her face and mud seeping into her yoga pants, and wondered what in the hell she had done wrong to be punished like this. From the moment she had found out about Dale, it seemed that everything in her life was conspiring against her. Even Mrs. Feeney, her downstairs neighbour, was trying to make her life hell. She had already had complaints from the body corporate about the noise in her apartment that night – no doubt from Mrs. Feeney – not to mention the other complaints piling up because of the press that had gathered outside her apartment building hoping to get a comment or shot of her losing her shit at them. It had been tempting. There was nothing more she wanted than to go full-on crazy at the paparazzi that seemed to have nothing better to do than stake out her apartment in the hopes of photographing her in a compromising position. They had even tried interviewing her neighbours and dear old Mrs. Feeney had taken great pleasure in telling the world what a sad little life she led. If only they’d followed her today and got a shot of her sitting in a puddle in the rain then her humiliation would be complete.
Flynn saw the stranded car and the blinking hazard lights before he saw the woman. He probably wouldn’t have stopped except that she looked so…pitiful. She was sitting in a muddy puddle wet to the skin and looked about ready to burst into tears with a moment’s provocation. He slowed and pulled over, coming to stop behind her car and contemplated the situation. She had a flat tire and it looked like she had been trying to get the wheel nuts loose. Her spare sat beside the car ready to go and the lug wrench was still attached to the wheel nut.
He opened the door and stepped out into the rain. He quickly pulled on his waterproof jacket, although the summer heat made it uncomfortable. He locked his car and walked over to where the woman was sitting. She looked up at him and blinked resolute blue eyes at him. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her.
“Do you need some help?” he asked.
“Thank you Captain Obvious,” she muttered and he raised an eyebrow at her.
“I can go if you like…”
She sighed and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m having a shitty day but that’s no excuse to take it out on you.”
He held out his hand to her and she looked at it like it was a cockroach. He didn’t flinch and kept offering her his hand until she sighed again and lifted her muddy one and grasped his. He pulled her to her feet and she stumbled into him, her wet body plastering itself against him. She blinked up at him and he was momentarily struck by the look in her eyes. He’d swear that she wanted him to kiss her, but that was probably just his imagination running away from him. They didn’t know each other, had never met and she was having a shitty day. The last thing she’d want was a stranger planting one on her, even if he was more than tempted to do it.
She took a shaky breath and stepped away from him, averting her eyes but not before he saw them drop to his lips. He kept his grin hidden and looked towards the tire.
“Flat tire,” he said inanely.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “and I was just about to change it except that some behemoth tightened the wheel nuts so tight that I don’t think even Thor would have a chance of getting them loose.”
“Well, I’m not Thor,” he said, “but I can give it a try if you like?”
“Have at it,” she said magnanimously.
Flynn shook his head at her attitude and squatted down in front of the tire. He gripped the lug wrench and with a bit of effort, loosened the nut.
“For fuck’s sake,” the woman said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Of course! Of-bloody-course!”
Flynn ignored her ranting and went ahead and loosened the others. She continued to rant. Mumbling something about men and how everything came so easily for them. Something about her hysterical warbling triggered recognition in his brain. She was the woman from the video, he was sure of it. He wouldn’t have recognised her if not for the nonsensical railing at men and their apparent uselessness.
He pulled the tire free and slid the spare on. It was one of those skinny things that wouldn’t get her much further than the nearest tire and auto place. He tightened the wheel nuts and lowered the car on the jack. Meanwhile the crazy woman kept pacing and cursing and he was just about sick of it. He packed the jack away in the back of her car and lifted the flat tire in as well before closing it and turning to face her. It took her a minute to realise that he was finished. When she did, she turned to him and blinked as if she were coming out of a trance.
“You’re going to have to replace this spare,” he said conversationally. “It’s only an emergency tire and shouldn’t be driven on for too long.”
“Thank you for man-splaining that to me,” she said with a curl of her lip.
Was it irrational for him to want to wipe that sneer off her face with a hard kiss? Her snarky attitude shouldn’t be turning him on, but it was. Even though he now knew who she was, he couldn’t help remembering how she had felt plastered against him and he couldn’t deny wanting to experience it again.
“The usual thing you say in a situation such as this,” he said, his voice calm and nonchalant, “is thank you.”
She huffed out a breath and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. She really did look like a drowned rat and he felt pity for her. She was obviously having a bad day and he could understand the whole ranting to the universe, he just didn’t appreciate her railing against the whole male species because of her stupid fucking fiancé.
“Thank you,” she said. “I do appreciate your help, even though it might not sound like it.”
He grinned at her. It was his trademark grin, the one that had never failed to soften up a woman and get her interested in what he had to offer. She just rolled her eyes.
“It was my pleasure,” he said. “I never caught your name, though.”
“That’s okay Flynn,” she said. “You don’t need to know my name.”
She slid into her car and started it before he realised that she knew his name. How the hell did she know his name?
“Thanks again Flynn,” she called out the window as she waved to him.
The window closed and she pulled out onto the road leaving him standing there watching her drive away.
“What the fuck?”
Shaking his head, he got back into his car and started the engine. She was an enigma.