“Babe, that man is literally just waiting on you. Call him.”

“I fucked him, ate his food, and then basically iced him out, Julia.”

“You can come back from that!” My best friend the eternal optimist. “I believe in you and your magic cooch!”

I groaned as one of those rogue images of his head between my legs by that pool flashed through my mind. “You are the worst cheerleader ever!”

“I’m a fantastic cheerleader. Now, go call the man for a ride. It’s going to get dark soon and you said the tow company can’t get to you for at least two hours.”

“Maybe I should just keep trying ShareRide,” I sighed as I refreshed the app. And nope, there were still no cars near my location for another thirty minutes.

“Alba, are you, a woman raised in Queens, really considering getting in a car with a random stranger with no underwear on in rural Texas?”

“I don’t know why I told you that about the underwear situation,” I moaned.

“I swear to God, Alba. If you don’t call Theo I’m going to, and I will tell him you’re out there with your chocha in the wind. So help me God.”

“Jesus Christ, Julia! Aren’t you at work?” The horror in my voice was not at all fake. “Fine! You’re coming off my emergency contacts list!”

“As if.” My friend laughed off my threat and ended the call with more of her own.

It took a couple of minutes of giving myself a pep talk before I actually called him. By the time he picked up on the fourth ring a bead of sweat was sliding down my back.

“Alba.” Okay, he sounded a little put off, but he did take the call, so that was something.

“Hey, how are you?” Just get on with it.

“I’m all right.”

“That’s awesome,” I answered a little cheerier than necessary, and screwed my eyes shut from embarrassment at my own idiocy. “So, are you busy right now?” The silence stretched for so long I actually pulled the phone from my ear to see if the call hadn’t dropped.

“What do you need, Alba?” I unclenched my teeth at his assholic tone and reminded myself that I had blown him off and ignored him for almost two weeks and that he was my only shot at getting out of my current jam.

“Well, here’s the thing. I was on my way to pick up something for a Bookish makeover and sort of blew out my two back tires.” A sound that was a mix of humor and exasperation came through the phone and hey, it wasn’t rage, so I could work with that. “I called Triple A but the earliest they can come is two hours. There are no ShareRides around, I tried,” I added at the end just in case.