Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-15-

Hot sun beat down on the truck as it hung halfway out from the cover of the Delilah's daddy's carport as Ryan killed the engine. Zach was already at the door, key in hand, messing with that asshole of a mostly broken lock on the front door because he insisted he had to go check on Silverado and her puppies and definitely not go run to his room to evade whatever punishment his father would come up with for stealing his truck. Delilah however, was still in Stitches next to Ryan, listening to his offer to help pick up her Excursion and her dad's truck, though she knew she wouldn't take it. She couldn't, he's already helped her out enough by dropping off her and Zach, which he didn't have to do.

"Really, it's okay, you ain't gotta."

"How're you gonna get 'em home then?"

Delilah glanced over at the now open front door, the house still halfway hidden behind the screen door and the dark brown wooden pillars to the wraparound porch. Two dark silhouettes were hidden in the foyer she assumed belonged to her brother and dad.

"I'll figure something out."

"Oh come on," Ryan nodded towards the long, green grass in the yard where an indentation was, clearly a trailer had been parked there. "Y'ain't even got a trailer, what're you gonna do? Carry a Ford Excursion home?"

"If I had to, I'd carry it like a baby, so yeah, guess so." Delilah said with a cocky grin, her mocking tone obvious to the redhead beside her.

"I can at least help you jump start it, I got jumper cables under the backseat."

"Jump starting that thing might work, but it might not. I think it needs a new battery." She said with a sigh, the last sentence more less a huff of air instead of words. Admitting her truck had broken down was like admitting she was wrong, and she hated both those things.

Her eyes trailed to two thick lines of tire tracks in the grass that led behind the house where she knew her two Chevys sat, one of which down because it needed its transmission rebuilt, making it basically an overpriced lawn ornament.

I could wait 'till aunt Lynn brings back the trailer and use my Duramax to go get the trucks, one by one, but I can't get 'em loaded up by myself.. shit.

She looked back at Ryan. "Give me a minute an' I'll be back, okay?" Her hand was on the handle, grasping it like a lifeline of sorts though it wasn't.

Ryan nodded and Delilah slipped away and inside the trailer house where her dad and brother were.

—

Delilah stood at the door with a smile plastered on her face, hand on the screen so it wouldn't shut by itself as she spoke to a tall, lanky man with a head full of graying hair on the couch. A young looking black pitbull stood with its nose pressed against the screen, staring straight at the unfamiliar white truck parked in what the dog considered his territory. Another dog, a more plump, shorter silver lab sat at Delilah's feet right by her side, panting with its tongue hanging out of its mouth.

"Yeah, I'll be back in an hour or two." She nodded at something behind the cover of the walls. "Bye, love both of y'all too."

Just as she turned to leave, the door swung open and the big black dog shot out of the house faster than a bullet, and ran straight towards Stitches.

"Diesel! No! Bad dog!" Delilah ran after the dog—after making sure the door was closed good behind her— and within seconds made her way to where the dog was.

Diesel had his front two paws up against the door, sniffing the white paint and occasionally barking as if it would scare the hunk of metal off.

"Bad boy, down!" She scolded, slipping her finger through the silver loop on his collar. "You know better and you still do this shit." She pried the big dog off the truck as gently as she could, but still stern enough he couldn't break away from her grasp or slip out of his collar.

Diesel sat down in the swaying grass, his cute heterochromia (one blue eye, one brown) eyes narrowed slits at Delilah, while his tail slowly moved side to side in the grass as his little doggy way of saying sorry. That young pitbull was too smart for his own good, in the words of Sam-Delilah & Zach's father.

Delilah looked up at Ryan and swallowed, hard, before nervously raising her forefinger, indicating she'd be back outside in a minute.

Diesel happily followed Delilah back inside, though he whined at her when he realized she wasn't coming inside with him, and was instead already halfway back to the white truck he considered a threat mere moments ago.

She slumped down inside her seat after she climbed into Stitches and buckled herself in, embarrassed over the fact Diesel had broken out of the house and essentially ruined the nice white paint on his truck, one she knew he loved.

Delilah rested her elbow on the door, and her chin in her open palm. "I'm sorry about-"

"Hol' up, the hell are you apologizing for?"

"Diesel. He probably scratched up your paint."

"My dogs do things ten times worse than that sweet lil' pit, Mary Jane puked on the carpet when she was a puppy, another scratch won't kill ole Stitches."

"Shiit, my dog, Silver, had her puppies on my bed a couple weeks back. Didn't even know she was pregnant, I just thought she was getting fat."

"You got puppies in there?"

"Yeah, nine of 'em."

"You gotta show 'em to me sometime, I love puppies," he said as he turned the key in the ignition. "What breed are they?"

"Well, the mama is a silver Labrador and the daddy was Diesel, that black pitbull that got out a few minutes ago, so a pitbull and Labrador mix."

"Betcha those are gorgeous." He said, almost to himself, as his words were mostly a whisper as he carefully watched the gauge cluster on the dashboard. He let Stitches warm up for a short while, the two talking about pretty much anything they could come up with.

"...Yeah, I think it only needs a jump, and it'll run just fine on the way home, it ain't far."

Ryan nodded, placing his tattooed right hand on the gearshift and dragging it down until the truck was in reverse, then he let his foot up off the brake and Stitches idled backwards out onto the road. Ryan straightened the truck back out and down the road they went, their words flowing easily between them as they drove.

                                         —

Authors note.

Tomorrow I'll probably be going back through old chapters and re-writing some parts, and fixing some spelling errors, etc, so if you get any update notifications for this book that's what they'll be.

Happy St Patrick's day! ☘️ hope y'all had a great day today, I know I did.

I'll try to chapter 16 out sometime next week, and hopefully update at least once a week from now on. :)