Chapter 1
Stevie
It’s the blue I’ll remember. Not the screech of tires. Not the scent of rubber sliding across sunbaked asphalt. Not even the moment of impact when my hair defied gravity and my body molded into the airbag like a rag doll in a dog’s jaws.
Everything is strewn across the freshly vacuumed mat of the passenger’s seat, decorating my hideous-but-perfect ’96 Saturn in a canvas of chaos. Everything inside my purse. Everything inside my oversize plastic cup of iced coffee. I would guess a little piece of my soul even lies among the latte puddles, loose change, and single tampon.
I fist the steering wheel with both hands, breathing unsteadily. My gaze pans from the sheet of white smashed against my face to the side mirror, bringing into focus a crumpled mass of shiny electric blue behind me. Expensive blue.
“What…”
Slam.
“The…”
Stomp, stomp.
“Fuck?”
Furious words travel through the open window, though I’m not sure why. All I was doing was minding my own business at an unassuming stoplight when the car behind me unleashed catastrophe on my ordinary day. More than ordinary, really. Today is the day I was finally able to take my new car for a drive after myparents pinched pennies to purchase it for me.
Granted, the car was only new in 1996, but nearly three decades later, it’s new to me. And now it’s been reduced to a misshapen mess, only suitable for a junkyard. Indignation pokes holes in my shell shock as I try to shimmy my way out of the airbag vise. Reaching for the handle, I shove the door open with my shoulder and stumble out of the vehicle, my eyes landing on a pair of posh black boots.
“I asked you a question.”
I blink down at the boots before swinging my gaze up and up and up until I’m met with more blue, disarming, oceanic blue to be precise. “Excuse me?”
The boy looks to be my age, seventeen or eighteen, his golden mop of hair making him look more angel than demon. But his eyes spew hellfire.
He narrows them at me. “What the fuck?” he says, repeating the “question.”
My head snaps back with disbelief as I pull to a stand. “What the fuck, me? What the fuck,you. You just rear-ended me.”
“The light was green.”
“The light wasred.”
“It was a little green.”
I gape at him. “My car was in a stopped, unmoving position.”
Folding his arms over a crisp white button-down, the stranger assesses me from toes to hairline. A look of distaste glimmers in his perusal, making me feel itchy all over.
Then he deflates, raking a hand through his floppy gold mane. “My father is going to kill me.”
I glance between his car and mine. The Saturn is in worse condition, but the cerulean-blue sports car did not come out unscathed. The front end is now a twisted wreck, the once-pristine paint splintered and dented, and the front bumper hangs loosely, barely attached.
My father will not kill me, but he’ll certainly be heartbroken.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear about your impending death, but this was not my fault.”
The ice returns to his eyes. “Collisions take two.”
“This wasn’t a fifty-fifty collision. You ambushed me in the middle of thestreet.”
Car horns blare, vehicles slowing down to take in the scene. The air is hot today, the humidity stifling. August in the northwest suburbs of Chicago is akin to a relentless furnace, baking the town in an unyielding heat.
My cheeks burn, a meshing of sun flush and audacity. “Do you have insurance?”
