He brought up a hand to rub his eyes, then winced. That many bruises on his face had to hurt.
“Anyway, I took it upon myself to have it towed to the shop and went ahead and fixed it this morning. Not the bodywork, it’s still got its dents and scratches. But I was able to get it running for you and fix the window.”
“You were? Oh my gosh. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. If I had been there Friday morning, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I appreciate it.” She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “How much do I owe you?” She prayed it wouldn’t be too much as she tried to calculate the amount of money Baby had paid out of pocket to help her.
“Did you get under the hood and try to fix anything yourself recently? Have you been having problems with steering or brakes?”
She could barely figure out how to get the hood open, much less fix anything inside. “I hadn’t had any problems with it until I was coming down the hill and both decided to stop working at the same time.”
He nodded. He looked like he was going to say something but decided not to. “Okay.”
“How much for everything?”
He took a step closer then stopped. “Roughly thirty dollars for the parts. Labor and towing are free since you were up there because of me to begin with.”
She deflated as she blew out a sigh of relief. Thirty dollars was less than the rental car was going to cost her for a single day. “Thank you,” she whispered around the lump lodged in her throat.
“Quinn, I’m sorry. It really was an emergency, or I never would’ve missed our date.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
He took a step closer, and she couldn’t help it, she took a step back.
“Quinn...”
She shook her head. “I believe you. I really do. Lexi said something about some emergency, and I don’t doubt that you were off playing hero. But let’s face it, this is probably the universe stepping in to stop things before they begin. You and I are from different worlds, so let’s not pretend that our date or non-date had anywhere to go.”
He handed Quinn her keys but didn’t let go of her hand. “Staying away from you is not what I want.”
She gave him a sad smile. “You know the one thing I discovered most clearly as I’ve turned thirty-nine? You don’t always get what you want in life. And Mick Jagger also got it wrong. Most of the time you don’t even get what you need.”
Chapter Eleven
Quinn’s words about not getting what you want or need still echoed inside Baby’s head five days later as he left Teton State College, his permanent withdrawal form in his hand.
He’d already withdrawn from the specific literature class a couple weeks ago when he’d realized he wasn’t going to pass, despite the new professor.
But this form was different. This was officially withdrawing from the college itself. Accepting that he wouldn’t try again next semester. If he hadn’t been able to pass the Composition and Literature courses individually, there was no reason to think he’d be able to successfully tackle all three simultaneously, so he wasn’t going to try.
Admitting defeat.
He had all the signatures he needed to walk away from college for good. All that was left now was to file the form and this charade of attempting to get his bachelor’s degree would be officially over.
He would’ve already turned it in if he hadn’t caught the name of that new literature professor that had replaced Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pritchard.
Dr. Quinn Pritchard.
There was no doubt in Baby’s mind that was his Quinn. That was why she’d freaked out when she’d found out his real name last week. Because it was Blake Bollinger who was listed on her roster, not someone named Baby. She hadn’t known it was him.
But seeing her name on his withdrawal form had given him pause, preventing him from turning in the final paperwork. He didn’t know why—he wasn’t ever going to have her as an instructor. He wasn’t going to have anyone as an instructor anymore.
He was going to have to find another way to keep the garage. But damned if he knew how.
He decided to stop for a bite to eat closer to campus before heading back to town where he would have to pretend that everything was okay.
Not that anyone would know he’d dropped out of college—nobody knew he’d been taking classes to