“Thanks, man. That means a lot.” And it did. Him voluntarily touching me, that meant something, too, made something fluttery break loose in my stomach. “And I do appreciate your help. I know my dumb ass got me into this mess, but I’m grateful you’re bailing me out.”
“I haven’t bailed anything out yet.” Jasper’s laugh was warm and welcome.
“But you will,” I insisted. Our faces were much too close now, but hell if I was going to be the one to move first. “I’ve got a good feeling about this tournament.”
“Does your good feeling extend to the seventy-five-dollar entrance fee?”
“It could.” The money wasn’t nothing. My wallet felt every penny lately, but it also wasn’t five-freaking-K, so I’d happily take it. More peanut butter and soup, maybe, but I’d also get a chance at some cards.
“Okay. We’re on, then. You sure you want to spend yet another day slumming with the nerds?”
“Yeah. I am.” And I was. Gamers might be an improvement over another weekend of listening to James and Luther bicker. And if there was one particular geek I was really looking forward to spending the day with, well, I wasn’t going to tell Jasper that.
Chapter Nine
Jasper
“You didn’t warn me that gamers get up at the ass-crack of dawn.” Milo was waiting where we’d arranged to meet, at the campus parking lot near my dorm. However, instead of me needing to search out his car, here he was standing in the cold on the sidewalk, stamping his feet and looking down at his phone. His knit cap, same one he’d had at the game store, was out of place on his usually stylish head. One of his many aunts undoubtedly knitted it. And maybe it was the cold or the early hour, but I was oddly touched that he’d left the car instead of waiting for me to find him. As a result, I kept my tone light as I followed him across the parking lot.
“Gamers do when they want to win prizes. Or stand in line for new releases. We’re killer at standing in line.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for the next Marvel movie.” He came to an abrupt stop between a beat-up Toyota and a classic Mustang.
“You still watch superhero movies?” I reached for the passenger-side door of the Toyota, but to my surprise, he unlocked the Mustang instead.
“You don’t?” Smiling like he knew he had me, he gestured at the car. “You getting in?”
“Okay, now this is a car.” I slid into the passenger seat as he went around to the driver’s door, which also had a manual lock. The leather upholstery was butter-soft, and the car was super clean. Even the gear shift was dust-free and shiny. A car guy would probably call it pristine, and it seemed about as unlike the rest of Milo’s life as one could get.
“It’s all right.” Milo shrugged like he didn’t have the coolest car in the parking lot. Hell, simply the fact that he could drive a stick was impressive. His easy coordination as he backed out of the space and put it in gear made my body hum with awareness. But I didn’t need to be finding anything about Milo sexy, so I tried to keep my attention on the car. I’d learned to drive on a minivan with a wonky starter, but Milo would have had his pick of cool cars.
“Is this the one your dad was always tinkering with?” His dad had been a mechanic at a garage in the next town over and had always had a restoration of some kind going. Growing up, I’d liked going over to Milo’s, especially when his dad wasn’t home and we could sneak into the garage to check out what he was working on.
“One of them. First one he finished that wasn’t a job went to Bruno. Next one we fixed up together all through high school. All my cash went into parts. Got the keys graduation day.”
“Wow.” That was a lot of time and effort that I hadn’t realized Milo had in him. And cash. I wasn’t a car guy, at all, but I did know collectible items and this certainly had to qualify as one. “You know…this car would probably fetch a whole lot of cards. Just saying.”
“Nothing doing.” Milo’s voice hardened. “Dad wouldn’t let me or Bruno sell our cars. The whole eighteen months he fought that liver disease, he kept saying they had the bills under control. But they didn’t.”
I groaned at the all-too-familiar tale. “Oh, how I know that dance. My parents have been there with April’s medical bills more than once. Luckily, they’ve had resources like a fundraiser Dad’s work did and the foundation from the hospital to keep from total bankruptcy.”
“Yeah, well, not a lot of resources for my folks. Mom couldn’t even keep the house. But they both insisted we keep the cars since we built them with him and the titles were in our names. It was like…the only thing he could leave us.” Biting his lower lip, Milo didn’t glance my direction as he made the turn that would take us to the highway. Damn. That was terrible. Simply thinking about one of my folks dying made my stomach twist.
“Bruno kept his car too?” I found myself strangely invested in this tale, wanting Bruno to have kept that last link to his dad, too, wanting him to value it as much as Milo clearly did.
Milo nodded sharply as he merged onto the highway. “Yeah. His is in special storage with a buddy of Dad’s who collects classic cars and stores some for people. He almost… Never mind.”
“What?” I hated when people did that. They’d get all pensive and stare off into space and then try to act like they hadn’t been on the cusp of some big revelation. Spill already.
“Nothing.” Predictably, Milo didn’t finish his thought, but his expression stayed distant and sad. “Just that I owe Bruno for a lot. That’s all.”
“I get it.” I stretched to try to stay awake. This was weird, too, being on the road to an Odyssey event, especially without any of my usual crew along. The previous summer I’d had a trip cut short by April’s illness, and that missed chance made me more determined to get a win here for Milo. Play hero, like I did at the hospital and with my family. “Katie and Brenda have both paid a couple of bills when my folks couldn’t. It’s what family does.”
I probably should have let Milo stew in quiet, but I figured I could give him some conversation since he was the one doing the driving. Might be rude to fall asleep before we were even out of Gracehaven’s city limits.
“Yeah. Family’s good that way.” Milo didn’t sound all too upbeat about that. Probably still thinking about Bruno and his dad.
“I’m sorry about your dad. He…” I searched for a compliment that wouldn’t sound false. “He was a good guy.”
“You don’t have to pretend. Everyone knows his liver went because of the drinking. And he yelled at you personally. More than once.”