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RUBBING my hands against the leather seat, I sat in Hagen’s truck for the second time in a week. Being around him made me feel safe. Whenever I thought about staying at my house alone, I kept dreaming up worst-case scenarios. I wondered what they would title the film of my short-lived life:
Taken: From My Bathroom
The Silence of the Suburbs
The Shining of the Marketer
Louisiana Chainsaw Massacre
I would have lost my mind if I’d had to spend the night in my house by myself. Hagen managed to move his status from “pesky neighbor” up to “knight in shining armor” in a few short hours.
I thought it would have been strange to wake up in his house this morning. Though I was confused when I woke up in his bed, I felt rested and safe. It felt right, sitting there talking with Hagen over bacon and terrible pancakes.
My favorite part of the morning was when I quietly peeked around the corner and watched Hagen dance while he cooked breakfast. I loved how embarrassed he was when he caught me watching.
Even though I nearly lost a tooth when I tried those pancakes, I didn’t want to be rude. It was one thing to have a prank war and give him a bloody nose, but it was something else to insult his cooking. My mom always had the rule that if you complained about the food she cooked, then you could take over the cooking chore. It didn’t take me long to learn that lesson as a kid.
Ironically, now I really enjoyed cooking, but the moral of that lesson was that cooking took work, and it was impolite to insult the food someone had worked hard to prepare for you.
Hagen pulled off of the highway to a small coffee shop. He smiled at me, and I gaped. He’d smiled before—his devious smile that made me look both ways and up and down when opening any door—but this smile was a genuine, happy-to-be-here smile.
It hurt to look at. It looked so good.
He pulled up to the coffee shop window and shut off the truck. The truck was a little taller than the window, and he leaned down to order a coffee from the barista.
A couple minutes later, we each had a coffee, and Hagen was pulling back onto the road. He reached over to try and steal the chocolate-covered coffee beans that sat on top of my cup. I slapped his hand away and shoveled them into my mouth.
He chuckled.
“Why the truck?”
“Hmm?” He took another sip of coffee.
“Why do you drive a truck?”
“So that someone asks me to help them move the minute they find out.”
I looked out the window so he wouldn’t see me smile. “Moving seems like a nice hobby.”
“You think I’m joking. I swear, people find out you drive a truck, and all of a sudden, they have a million favors to ask. They want the benefits of a truck, but then they want to lecture me on how terrible it is for the environment.”
The hot coffee scalded my tongue before I answered him. “Well, you’d fit in just fine in my family. It’s like a rite of passage to own a truck in the Boone family. Of course, we’re a bunch of blue collar workers and uneducated rednecks, if you ask anyone else,” I told him with a wink.
“You don’t drive a truck. Does that mean they kicked you out of the family?”
I debated how to answer that one. “Big trucks and I don’t get along?”
“Is that a question?”
“No?” I asked.
He laughed. “I bet there’s a good story to this.”
At least if I told him the humiliating truth, I’d give him a good reason to keep laughing and smiling, and that was something I wanted. “Every time I drive a truck, I hit something: lightposts, mailboxes, other cars, anything that can be bumped into. I don’t know why. I’m an excellent driver, usually.”
He raised his eyebrows but kept his eyes on the road.
“Don’t judge me—you’ve never ridden with me.”
“It sounds like I never should.”
“Pfft, you’d be so safe you’d be bored out of your mind. Besides, I have amazing reflexes. I can hit the brakes faster than anyone else I’ve ridden with.”
Hagen pulled into the parking lot of the hardware store and parked. He turned to me. “I hate riding with other people. So much that I’ll drive myself even if I’m meeting friends a couple hours away. Then, you just told me you hit all kinds of things. You’d have to drug me to get me in the car with you.”
He looked so serious it made me almost want to do it. “Okay. Let’s make a bet. If I win the bet, you have to ride with me somewhere. If you win—well, I don’t know—I guess I won’t make you ride with me anywhere.”
He tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “If I win, you have to bake me some muffins and cookies.”
“What if they turn out like your pancakes did?”
He smiled. “I’ve tasted your cooking before. It was really good.”
I studied him. I had never baked him anything, and I distinctly remembered bringing home my cookies that I tried to give him the first day I met him.
Then, I remembered that he had been in my house when he planted the snake in my bathtub. I had made cupcakes for Susan’s birthday. I thought I had been short a few cupcakes, but I figured it was all in my head.
I rested my elbow on the console and leaned toward him. “How many did you eat?”
Hagen leaned an elbow on the console, his arm brushing mine as he leaned close. “Five. They were amazing.”
He didn’t even try to deny it. I wasn’t sure if I should have been outraged or pleased that he thought they were delicious.
“So, what’s the bet going to be?” he prompted.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I wanted him to have to ride in the car with me, but I didn’t know how to go about it. “I’ll have to think on it.”
“Fine by me. Now, come on, we’ll find some strong chain locks for your doors.”
He jumped out of the truck and raced around to my side to open the door for me. I hadn’t expected him to be such a gentleman—or maybe I did.
He was destroying my preconceived ideas of him being a villain. It was hard to stay mad at someone who protected you, fed you bacon, and bought you coffee.
He held my hand as I climbed out of the truck. I was going to have to try and tuck my heart back into my chest if I wasn’t careful. I needed to find a fault of his to dwell on for a while.
It didn’t take long to find that fault. Turns out, he was horrible to shop with. Horrible. It was like shopping with my mother.
He asked the hardware store employees at least five hundred questions about chain locks while we were in the hardware store. I had enough time to organize my five thousand recipes I’d saved on Pinterest.
Tapping his muscled arm with my granola bar—thank goodness I always packed snacks—I turned his attention to me. “Hagen, I appreciate how thorough you are, but I’m sure if we just get one of these strong-looking locks, it will be fine.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to make sure this chain will hold for you.”
“You know what would make me feel safe? If you cooked up some more pancakes and let me use them like throwing stars.”
His lips twitched, and I knew I was on the right track. He was taking this shopping thing a little too seriously.
“If I put a sign on my house that says “Protected by Hagen’s Pancakes,” no one would even dream of trying to break in.”
He chuckled. The harried employee that Hagen had been badgering rushed over with a set of locks. “These are them. These are the strongest and are highly recommended by a local policeman who has them in his house.”
“But what about—”
“These will work perfect. Thank you,” I cut Hagen off.
I smiled at the employee, and his shoulders sagged with relief when I took the locks from him.
“Come on, Hagen, there’s a sale at the home store. You need some decor in your house, and I’m just the person to help you with that.”
He turned around as though he were going to head farther back in the store, but I grabbed his hand. “Oh no, you’ve harassed these good people enough for one day. We’re paying and leaving.”
With a sigh, he turned and followed me up to the counter.
He didn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t want him to.