Teach me to trust

42. Brakes

"Open the door for me" he coaxes, smiling hesitantly when my still shaking hand reaches up and opens the door, stepping out on weak knees and holding on to the side of my car for dear life.

It seems to just be sinking in, the magnitude of what just happened, what could have happened, and I feel light headed, flinching when a warm grip clasps onto my arm, pulling me forward, another hand lightly on the middle of my back.

"Come sit down" Rico tells me, sitting me gently into a comfortable chair close to the cars, wandering away briefly and passing me a plastic cup of water, telling me to sip it.

"I almost drove further" I whisper out, realising that my original plan was to drive twenty minutes out of town. Somewhere I'm not entirely familiar with and somewhere anything could have happened to me,

"What's that?" Rico asks, dropping to squat in front of me and looking up at me with furrowed brows,

"I almost drove further. But I came here to see Nate-" I say and choke on the words.

I could have been stuck anywhere. I could have crashed and seriously hurt someone.

"Do you ever do any fucking work, man?" I hear a familiar voice bite out and I note the pleasant surprise on Nate's face when he spots me here,

"Well, hey there" he says, striding over to me with a grin on his face, brows furrowing when he sees Rico's position in front of me. He quickly stands and steps over to Nate, but my mind seems to be closing itself off again at the first sign of fear and I only catch snippets,

"Drove in here" – "Panicking" – "Scared. I don't know dude"

I barely register the fact that Rico has shut the front door and is making his way over to my car before I'm out of my seat,

"Don't" I tell him, "Don't drive it. Please" his eyes dart to Nate, who has come to stand behind me and he nods his head slowly,

"I'm not gonna drive it, I just need to move it in so I can close the shutters. Okay?" and I nod my head, watching as he puts the car into gear and wheels it slowly into the middle of the garage.

"Sweetheart" I hear behind me, turning my head to see Nate standing behind me with his hand outstretched to me, inviting me to step into him and I take hold of his hand gently, sitting back down slowly and he takes Rico's previous place in front of me on his knees.

He rests his hand on top of my knees and look up at me,

"What happened? Talk to me" he encourages and I swallow the lump in my throat,

"My brakes" I mutter, watching his brows crease in confusion, Rico coming to stand behind him, arms crossed at his chest,

"What about your brakes, baby?" Nate asks, squeezing my legs and drawing my eyes back to him,

"They wouldn't work" I tell him, "I was going to drive a little bit out of town to the shop but came here instead. Thought you might want to come with" he sends me a small smile, squeezing my legs again and nodding his head for me to carry on,

"I tried to park down the street, but my brakes wouldn't work. Then my steering felt weird, like it didn't want to do what I was trying to do. I thought I was gonna crash, or hurt someone" I shake my head,

"I just drove into here, had to use my handbrake when I was turning cause my steering wasn't strong enough" I watch Nate take a shaky breath, turning his head to look at Rico, who nods at him then wheels something over to my car, pressing a button and watching as my car lifted above him on a platform.

"You're okay" Nate murmurs, seemingly more to himself than me and he stands, leaning forward to kiss me on the forehead and gripping my face in his hands,

"How are you feeling?" he asks and I nod slowly,

"Shaken up. More at what could have happened. I've never had something like that happen before" I tell him, watching as his words falter when Rico calls for his attention,

"Uh" he says, looking over at the both of us and nodding his head at us to join him, pointing a torch up at something above him,

"What the fuck" Nate spits out, hand tense in mine and I rub his forearm softly, stepping forward to look at what's going on.

"What is it?" I asks, looking over at Rico and watching as he clenches his jaw, pointing up and showing me what he's looking at,

"See that?" he asks, and I nod. Looks like a cut along some kind of pipe, "Been tampered with" he spits out and my head rears back, turning to look at the furious look on Nate's face,

"Someone's cut your fucking brake lines" he spits out and my stomach twists as I look back up at the damaged pipe, blanching when I realise how much worse the situation could have been.