14 Driver’s Ed

14: Driver's Ed

Posy

Ash and Wyatt wouldn"t even let me turn the car on during the first half hour of my "driving lesson," and I almost wished I"d taken Jayden up on his offer to join us. Ash and Wyatt had been so excited, though, and I told my dragon I was good. I was pretty sure he knew what I was in for because he kissed my forehead and wished me good luck with a little smirk.

So I endured patiently while Wyatt sat me in the driver"s seat, then crouched next to me outside the car and went over what every button and lever did. After that, Ash, who was sitting in the passenger seat, told me to sort out my seat and mirrors.

"That"s the first thing you do anytime you get in the driver"s seat of a car," he said with unusual seriousness. "In motion is the worst time to try to adjust either one."

I nodded, willing to trust them as the driving experts.

Goddess help me.

So I followed his directions on how to fix the mirrors, then moved my seat up enough to reach the steering wheel with my hands and both pedals with my right foot.

"But why can"t I use one foot for each pedal? That makes more sense to me."

Wyatt and Ash traded looks, then stared at me.

"I don"t know that there"s a reason you can"t," Wyatt said slowly, "but you"ll find it works best to train just your right foot to work the pedals. You won"t get confused in an emergency and accidentally hit both pedals, which might make you lose control of the car."

"And if it is an emergency, you can use your left foot to brace yourself for impact," Ash added. "But it originally comes from cars with a manual transmission. If you drive a stick shift, you have to use your left foot for the clutch. Since this is an automatic, and most people drive automatics nowadays, your left foot is just sitting there, probably bored out of its mind."

"Except for yours," Wyatt retorted. "You jog it up and down all the time."

"But if you want, cupcake," Ash ignored him, "we"ll teach you how to drive a stick shift, too."

Getting overwhelmed, I held up one hand and shook my head.

"Let"s master this car first," I said. "Do I need to get really fast at moving my foot from the gas to the brake?"

"If you have to stop quickly, I suppose so." Again, the two of them exchange looks before Ash continued. "Most of the time, you"ll know you have a stop coming up and have lots of time to take your foot off the gas before putting it on the brake."

"Am I asking too many questions already?" I looked at him with worried eyes.

"No, princess. They"re just questions we weren"t expecting, that"s all."

"Okay. Well, I think I got the basic idea of how everything works."

"All right," Wyatt said and rubbed his hands together. "Let"s turn it on and you can practice the wipers and turn signals and stuff."

I knew they meant well and were trying to teach me properly, but I just wanted to drive the car! Holding back my disappointment, I nodded again.

After a five-minute lecture on the importance of maintaining the wiper blades, they let me turn the car on. It purred to life, and I smiled to find it so quiet.

"I told you it was a quiet ride," Wyatt smirked. "Not much air noise when you"re driving, either."

When I turned on the wipers, the noise of dry blades scraping over the windshield startled me. Then, after I figured out how to spray the washer fluid, I accidentally knocked the wiper lever to high-speed and jumped when they burst into life.

Both good examples of why they"re being slow but thorough, I reminded myself, and that helped me not be so impatient.

Finally, Wyatt stood and shut my door, then stuck his head through the open side window.

"And now for the most important rule," he said. "Don"t do anything until we tell you, okay?"

"Okay."

"Posy, I mean it."

I turned to look at him and found his nose an inch from mine. Craning my neck, I kissed it before settling back in my seat with a grin.

"I know. I will. I"m a good girl."

"Yes, you are. Our goodest good girl." He tapped my nose with his forefinger, then stood up and moved to the back door.

While he was getting in, Ash produced the gray plastic clip for my seat belt with a flourish of his hand.

"Ta-da! I know Mase already showed you this, and I"m sorry I forgot it, but since he said it worked great, I"m going to get one for every vehicle. I"ll put them in the glove boxes so they"ll always be available when you go somewhere with us."

"Can I have one for my purse, too?" I asked. "That way, I have it if someone else is driving me in their car."

"Good idea." Ash nodded and helped me put the clip in place. "Wyatt, send me a text to remember to order enough to include that."

"Sure, dude," Wyatt said and, seconds later, Ash"s phone binged. "Now, cutie, when you"re driving, one thing you absolutely have to do is pay attention. You can"t let yourself get distracted by the radio or your phone or someone standing in their yard."

"Think of it this way," Ash chimed in, "you"re aiming a two-thousand-pound missile. One wrong move, and bam! Death and destruction."

I jumped when he shouted the bam! part. Wide-eyed with anxiety now, I reached down and turned the ignition off.

"I think I"d better just let other people drive me around," I murmured and reached for my door handle.

"Hey, hey, hey! I didn"t mean to scare you!" He quickly unbuckled and leaned over to cup my face - well, my whole head - in his enormous hands. "I"m sorry, princess. Please don"t quit yet. I won"t tell any more bad jokes or scare you, I promise."

"But what if I do hurt someone?" I frowned and dropped my eyes to the keys clenched in my fist. "You"re right. One mistake and I could hit someone. Or crash into them. If it"s a human, it could kill them. I don"t want that kind of weight on my shoulders."

"Baby, you won"t be driving alone any time soon, or even on real roads. We"ll practice up and down our driveway, then in a big parking lot somewhere. Stuff like that. No one will be nearby, okay?"

"And you don"t ever have to drive anywhere alone unless you want to and only after you"re confident in your abilities," Wyatt pointed out as he leaned up to poke his head between us. "Just give it a try here with us. We won"t leave the driveway. One of us will turn the car around when we get down to the main road. How does that sound?"

They not going to let you get above five miles an hour, Lark teased. What could go wrong?

Don"t say such things, wolfie! Especially when I"m with these two!

They is magnets for trouble, Wyatt especially, she agreed.

Taking a deep breath, I told myself to be brave. And if we were only staying in the driveway, no one could get hurt. Well, except for us, and our wolves could heal us in a heartbeat.

"All right," I said at last. "I"ll try."

Do it trembling if you must, but do it, I thought. I can"t give that advice to others and not follow it myself.

"Our brave girl." Ash pecked my forehead, then sank back in his seat. "Go ahead and turn the car back on, okay?"

Nodding, I unclenched my fingers from around the key and did as he said.

"Every time you put the car in gear, you step on the brake. Remember what all the letters on the gear shifter are for?" he asked.

"P for park, R for reverse, D for drive. Don"t worry about the N. It means neutral and I"ll only use it if I need to be towed or pushed. Don"t worry about the M because I"m not going to do any manual shifting," I recited dutifully.

"Very good, cupcake!" Ash crowed. "Now put it in reverse and back up until you see grass in your rear-view mirror, okay?"

Nodding, I put my foot on the brake, pushed the button on the gear shifter, and moved it to the R.

Nothing happened.

"But I did everything you told me to do!" I pouted.

"Cutie, you need to take your foot off the brake and step on the accelerator to make the car move. But slowly!" Wyatt hurried to add. "Don"t push the gas pedal down very far or fast. Got it?"

"Got it."

Hesitantly, I followed his directions and the car began to move backwards. My eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and I gently pushed down on the gas until I saw the blacktop change to grass. Then I shifted my foot to the brake, but I pressed it too hard and we jerked to a sharp stop.

"Owie," Ash grunted and rubbed his head.

"Seat belt, idiot," Wyatt snorted. "You forgot to put it back on."

"Are you hurt?" Worried, I reached over to hug him. "Ash, are you okay?"

"Posy, put your foot on the brake," Wyatt said in a very calm voice. "We"re drifting backwards."

Looking out of Ash"s window, I saw he was right. Panicking a little, I hurried to grab the steering wheel and step on the brake, but I mixed up the pedals and hit the gas. The car lurched backwards before I got my foot on the brake, then I slammed it down, jolting us all forward.

"Owie!" Ash covered his nose with his hand this time.

"Posy, put the car in park now." Wyatt"s voice was even calmer than before.

Nodding frantically, I did, then unbuckled and tried to pull Ash"s hand away from his face.

"I"m sorry, I"m sorry, I"m sorry!" I chanted.

"I"m fine, cubcade," he insisted, but he didn"t sound fine.

And the blood dripping from his nostrils didn"t look fine, either.

"You broke your nose, didn"t you?" Wyatt began to laugh so hard, he fell onto his side in the back seat. "That"s what ... you get ... for not wearing ... your seatbelt!"

My eyes burned and two tears streaked down my cheeks.

"Don"t cry, cubcade. Wyatt, stob laughing and comfort our girl! And, Sid, stob giggling and heal me!"

Of course, I knew his wolf could fix a broken nose in seconds, but that was cold comfort when I"d been the one to hurt him.

"Cutie, it was an accident. They happen." Wyatt sobered up, reached around my seat, and wrapped his arms around me. "He didn"t have his seat belt on. It wasn"t your fault."

"But I hit the brake too hard—"

"Every new driver does that," he told me. "Even some experienced ones do. And if you have to come to a sudden stop, that"s what it will feel like, okay? Did it make your seat belt tighten up?"

I nodded and tugged at where it dug into the side of my neck, despite Ash"s plastic gadget.

"Yeah, that"ll happen. See? This was good for you to know so you don"t panic more in an emergency." He dropped his arms. "Go ahead and take off your seat belt and let it recoil, then put it back on and it should be fine again."

Sniffing, I did that and found he was right. Then I stared down at my white-knuckled fists, not daring to look at Ash.

"Posy. I"m fine. Sid healed me no problem, and Wyatt"s right. I did a dumb and forgot to buckle up again. It"s all on me."

"But I hurt—" My breath caught in my throat, and I couldn"t finish my sentence.

"You didn"t hurt me. The car did. Look at it that way. Come on, princess, please stop crying and blaming yourself. You"re breaking my heart!"

Wiping my face on the backs of my hands, I sniffed and saw a white tissue being waved in front of me. I took it and blew my nose, then steeled myself and finally looked at Ash.

There was a pile of red-stained tissues in his lap, but his nose wasn"t bleeding anymore. He smiled crookedly at me, then leaned across the console and kissed me very gently.

"I"m fine. I"ve had a thousand times worse. And it was my fault. Don"t worry about it anymore, okay? I want you to put it out of your mind."

I wasn"t happy with that, but I nodded and tried to let it go.

Despite the rough start, the rest of my lesson was smooth sailing. I practiced backing up, braking gently, and accelerating smoothly up and down our driveway. By the fifth time, I was surprisingly confident in myself, and Wyatt and Ash insisted they were very happy with how I was doing.

As I parked back in the lot, my other mates piled out of the house and waited for us on the front porch, so I knew either Ash or Wyatt had linked them that we were done. Ash got out of the car, came around the hood, and opened my door, then held my hand as we walked toward the house.

"Well? How did it go?" Mason asked as we walked up the steps, then his eyes widened slightly at the dried blood on Ash"s shirt. "What happened?"

"Did you get fed up and punch him in the nose?" Jayden snickered.

I pouted, but Ash put his hand under my chin and made me hold my head up.

"Dudes! She did awesome!" he hooted.

"Yeah, she"s a natural," Wyatt added as he joined us. "She"ll be driving like a pro in no time."

"Good job, honey!" Cole picked me up in a bear hug.

"Nice work, sweetness."

"I knew you"d do well, little flower."

And I smiled into Cole"s shoulder, proud of myself for pushing past my mistakes to continue growing.