To normal people, the Shop-Rite in Renlow Park was probably just another grocery store. But to me, it was so much more, and that made all the difference.

From the moment I stepped inside, I was in love with the place. For one thing, it was part of a long chain. There were other stores just like it across the state and not a single Mom & Pop vibe could be found anywhere. It wasn't owned and run by the same person who'd owned and ran it since their great grandad passed it down a million years ago. The cashiers and bagboys weren't the same people you went to highschool with or the kids you grew up babysitting.

Everyone was a stranger. The store was strange. The whole town was strange to me and in the best kind of way.

As I walked the much longer aisles than I was used to and took in the larger variety of groceries, I scolded myself for not venturing out sooner. The shelves were brimming with specialty items and brands I'd never seen before, stuff that never made it into small-town stores. It made me wonder what else I'd been missing out on all this time.

What else did other towns have to offer that mine didn't? Why had I never branched out before? I mean, what did it even say about me to hate my hometown so much and yet, never go anywhere else?

The answer was simpler than I wanted to admit: obedience and fear.

Fairhaven was home, that's what my dad always said to me and Mom. We were safest there and never had a reason to leave. I believed his lie for so long, but "home" no longer felt safe. Safety had become synonymous with a distinct lack of freedom. Safety felt more like the devil we knew.

The boundaries were finally slipping away, though, and I smelled freedom in the Shop-Rite. Felt it deep in my bones. It was ridiculous and thrilling.

In the produce section, I did a quick scan for the Cosmic apples. They were right up front in a fancy display, and I grabbed a couple bags of them before glancing around to see if anything else looked worthwhile.

When my eyes snagged on rows and rows of perfectly yellow and beautiful lemons, a little flutter rushed up my spine. It had been years since I made lemonade.

It wasn't because the market in Fairhaven didn't have lemons or anything. It's just that whenever I saw them there, I never felt the urge to bring them home. But there in the Shop-Rite, surrounded by that newfound freedom and the hope of endless possibilities, I found myself reaching for them without hesitation.

I was going to make lemonade from scratch. My day was only getting better. My mood was flying high.

Once the lemons were secured, I decided I wasn't done. I wanted to ride the wave of motivation I was on, since it came around so rarely. And that's when I found myself in the baking aisle, scouring the options for sugar cookies.

I didn't want to commit to the whole process of making those from scratch, worried I'd lose steam and the wait wouldn't be worth it, so I grabbed a bag of the easy pre-mixed stuff and practically skipped to the checkout area.

A pretty girl with a lip ring, dark black hair, and the best eyeshadow job I'd ever seen greeted me with a warm smile. I didn't know her and she didn't know me, and I loved that for both of us.

Her name tag said "Jillian" and she didn't give me any sidelong glances, knowing I was the girl whose father was incarcerated for his work with the hometown crime syndicate. Or the one whose brother had been shot in Chicago.

She wasn't Leann's cousin who'd talk my ear off for an hour at the register. She wasn't Debbie's sister who would call my coworker up and tell her all about our interaction later that night. And she wasn't the wife of a crooked politician, passing out voting propaganda to get her husband re-elected where people were trying to buy groceries.

She was just Jillian, the pretty lip ring girl who knew her way around a makeup palette. She had me in and out of the Shop-Rite in record time because small talk wasn't a necessary add-on to the purchase of fruit and sugar cookie mix.

My flip flops slapped with glee against the blacktop as I made my way across the parking lot and back to the car. I was ready to get home and start creating. I was ready to smell the cookies baking and let the lemon juice saturate my skin as I squeezed them by hand.

What I wasn't ready for...was getting a flat tire before I ever left the parking lot.

Fuck.

My.

Life.

I had no idea what I hit, but it sounded like a bomb going off when my tire exploded. I was near the end of the lot, and I pulled off to the closest parking space, cringing at the rumble coming from underneath my car as it sank lower to ground and a weird flapping sound rang out behind me.

"You've got to be kidding me," I mumbled under my breath as I threw it in park. Was this punishment for leaving home? For hoping? For branching out? For being excited about something for once?

I stepped out of the car and turned to inspect the vehicle. Sure enough, the back driver's side tire had bit the fucking dust, the rubber as sagged and deflated as my spirit.

My formerly good mood did a drastic plunge into the depths of asphalt below me. For one thing, I knew only the mechanics of changing a tire. While Dalton and Spence had shown me how to do it a couple years ago when Dalton hit a pothole at high speed by the drive-in theater, I'd never actually executed the job on my own.

Neither of them were too worried about that at the time, insisting I was never too far from someone who could do it for me. I probably could have, and should have, been more determined to learn on my own, but they were kinda right.

Since all my time was spent within the confines of Fairhaven, help was always one call away. At any given time, someone was approximately a five minute drive from wherever I was, be that Spence or one of my brothers. Worst case scenario, Pete, the guy who ran the local auto shop, would come to anyone in need.

But all of that felt exceedingly useless right now, as I stood in a parking lot far more than five minutes from all the help I'd always known. Even if I were close to home, my options were dwindling with Dalton being gone, Dante being busy, and Spence being...not the person I should call about these things anymore.

Did I even have anyone to call if I were in Fairhaven? Besides Pete, that is...

Briefly, I wondered if he would drive all the way to Renlow Park. No, Davina.

I hated myself for even considering it. Poor Pete didn't need subjected to such an inconvenience.

I'd never felt like such a damsel.

Wiping my sweaty palms against the fabric of my jeans, I took a deep breath before inspecting the damage a little closer. Squatting down beside the blown tire, I looked it over with a sigh.

Yep, still flat at fuck.

Since the next logical step was to locate the spare tire, even if I wasn't sure how to swap it out, I moved to the back and popped the trunk. I remembered my mom's car having a latch in the bottom that lifted up to reveal where the spare tire was stored, so I figured mine would have the same thing, but all I found was more bad news.

As it turned out, my small, newer model compact car didn't come with a spare. It came with a flat repair kit. I held it up and studied the sleek green and black packaging, reading over the instructions. It seemed easy enough, if the damage was minimal. But I would have no such luck.

My eyes flashed down to the busted tire I was dealing with, and it didn't take long to realize this repair kit was for tires that hadn't completely blown out the way mine had.

"Fucking hell." I slammed the trunk shut, leaned over it, and buried my head in my hands.

I needed help.

I needed help and I didn't know anyone here, which made me feel stupid, honestly.

While enjoying my little adventure inside the store, I'd been so quick to romanticize Renlow Park and the strangeness of it. I found comfort in not knowing anyone, but the reality was sinking in fast that I was stranded in a parking lot and I didn't know anyone.

As nice as it all seemed before, as friendly as Jillian with the lip ring truly was, that didn't mean anything. Bad things always happened. Bad people were all over the place. Every single person out here, running errands and returning their shopping carts like seemingly good people, could easily be just a wolf in sheep's clothing. They could be a fucking serial killer for all I knew.

Calm down, Davina. Though horrifying, the thought of that was also hilarious and, for the most part, unlikely. I had to remind myself that the majority of people really were good. My viewpoint was just more cynical than most.

My chances of running into someone helpful had to be far higher than the serial killer scenario.

...right?

Either way, it was time to get moving.

After wallowing in my troubles for about ninety seconds, I took a deep breath, stood up, and looked around. I surveyed my immediate surroundings in the Shop-Rite parking lot, finding just a few people here and there, none of them looking my way. And then I scanned the other stores in the plaza, up and down the nearby streets, and the busy main road that would lead me home if I didn't have a flat ass tire right now.

By the time I circled back to the parking lot, I had no new ideas, so I pulled my phone out, knowing it was time to bite the bullet.

I was running through work schedules and trying to decide who to call between Spence, Dante, and Leann, when I noticed someone walking straight toward me and my car. I held my breath as he approached.

It was a tall someone, dressed in dark clothes but wearing a bright smile. As he drew closer and closer, I took note of kind blue eyes shining underneath a head of black hair, a smattering of light freckles around his nose.

He also had a large rusted tool I couldn't immediately identify in his hands.

Most people are good, I reminded myself. Again.

Some people are serial killers though...

Handsome as he was, the hair rose on the back of my neck, and I mumbled under my breath, "Please don't be a serial killer..."

He stopped two feet away from me, and that already bright smile of his spread wider as he let out a warm, humored laugh.

"I'm not going to kill you," the stranger said with a voice like butter, holding up the tool in his hands. "This is a tire iron. My name is Alex. And I'm only here to help." He winked one of those crystal blue eyes at me and added softly, "I promise."