Damaged Goods

by Nicole Williams

  THE LIGHTS IN Will’s shop were still on when I drove up his driveway a few hours after leaving it. Both his and my trailers were dark as the night around them, but the lights at Will’s shop were almost like a homing beacon. Even if I hadn’t needed to return the Chevelle, I didn’t think I could have headed in any other direction.

  He stuck his head out from under the hood as I rolled up the driveway. He was shirtless again and still one greasy mess. His ball cap was off, and a good portion of his white-blond hair was streaked in the same black grease the majority of his body was. Really, a man coated in sweat and black muck shouldn’t have been sexy in any way, shape, or form. I had to remind myself of that repeatedly as I parked and approached him.

  “Did you enjoy your joyride?” Will slammed the hood closed and slipped into that gray tee of his before adjusting his hat into place.

  “I could have done with a little more joy, but the ride was pretty great,” I answered, replaying the night in my head. Thinking about everything that had happened made my head spin.

  “That bad, eh?”

  “That and more.”

  Will lifted his index finger and headed for an old, avocado-colored refrigerator in the back of the shop. I heard a couple of bottles cling together before the fridge door closed. A cold beer? My general rule was not to drink with any guy alone . . . but after the events spoiling my night, I was ready for a little rule breaking.

  “This might not be the magic cure-all, but it’s cold, and it tastes good, and when you’ve had the kind of night you have, a little relief goes a long way.” Will extended his hand, a bottle clutched in it.

  “A Coke?” I couldn’t not smile at the glass bottle of pop he was holding.

  “Mood enhancement in bottled form.” Will popped the top off and held it out for me. He smiled when I took it. “Come on, let’s have a seat. I need a break, and I’m guessing you need to talk. Or vent.”

  He motioned to a spot just outside the shop where an old truck bench seat was propped up against a few large rocks. It wasn’t facing anything spectacular like a bench in a park would. It was facing nothing but a field of weeds and boulders, and that made me smile again.

  A cold Coke and a view of a weed field. Who would have guessed that was what it took to get a smile out of me?

  I plopped down on the bench seat and got comfortable. Then I took a long drink of Coke and sighed. My circumstances hadn’t changed, but the weight of them had. Life didn’t feel so heavy anymore. I didn’t feel as though I was about to suffocate under the heaviness of my responsibilities.

  Will had gulped down half of his Coke before he moved toward the bench. He was almost there when he stumbled over a rock. He caught himself, but just barely. “And that is why I drink Coke.” He tipped the bottle at me after sitting beside me. “I’m clumsy enough without adding alcohol into the mix.”

  I clinked my bottle with his. “At least you know your limits.”

  “I’m starting to figure them out, I think.” Will slid down on the bench, propping his neck on the top of it, and stared into the sky.

  It was a clear night, but no stars could be found twinkling up there. Big surprise.

  A few minutes of quiet passed between us. It wasn’t an awkward silence, which was strange. Will was practically a stranger, and sitting next to cute strangers late at night should have made any silence awkward, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t.

  Will had finished his Coke and I’d finished most of mine before he broke the silence. “In case it isn’t obvious, you can talk about whatever happened tonight. If you need to . . . or if you want to. I’m not one of those guys who doesn’t know what to do when a girl starts talking a hundred miles an hour or is choking sobs deep into a meltdown.” Will lifted his shoulders and set the bottle on the ground. “I’m a pretty decent listener.”

  I slid down in the seat like Will to stare at the sky. Not because I was convinced I would actually see any stars, but because I was curious to know what he found so enthralling up there. “Hold up. You mean to tell me you know your limits and you’re a good listener? Inconceivable.”

  Will chuckled softly. “What can I say? I’m pretty amazing.”

  I peeked over at him. Everything about Will begged to be stared at. When he was sitting so close, I could see the stubble on his face and smell the same scent rolling off of him that permeated the Chevelle. He was attractive right where rugged and beautiful met. Despite the exterior luring me in, that wasn’t what I couldn’t get past. I’d seen plenty of good-looking men, but they’d never been enough to hook me. Something that was inside Will, something I couldn’t see or put my finger on, had grabbed hold of me, and even though I knew I needed to figure out a way to free myself from it, I’d have been lying if I said that I wasn’t enjoying it.

  “So?” He nudged me gently. “Come on, let it out. I can feel it about to explode out of you. I can keep a secret if you need me to. I’m good at those too.”

  Only because I was still staring did I notice Will’s face fall. Not a lot, but enough for me to notice. I took a breath and let it out. He was right—I did want to talk to someone, and other than my sisters, I had no one around to talk to. It might have been foolish to trust a person who was one rung above a stranger, but I guessed I was a fool. Tonight anyways.

  “My sister, Reese . . . She was caught shoplifting tonight at the Gas n’ Grocery.” I didn’t do segues very well. Obviously.

  Will didn’t say anything. He just folded his hands over his stomach and studied the sky.

  “She wasn’t caught stealing anything teenagers are normally caught stealing. She was stealing essentials. Necessities. Things most people wouldn’t even think about stealing because they should just come standard for a teenage girl.” I closed my eyes to keep from getting teary. Will might have been able to handle me turning into a sobbing, emotional mess, but I couldn’t.

  “If she needed essentials, why did she steal them?” Will’s voice was soft, gentle . . . curious. That he had to ask that question told me how very little he knew about what had happened and was presently happening at the Bennett trailer.

  I slumped down farther. “She stole them because we didn’t have any money to buy them.”

  “Didn’t your mom have a job? Did she get fired or something?” Will really had been living under a rock if he hadn’t yet realized that Kitty had ditched us weeks ago.

  “Yeah, she did have a job, one that she really only worked to support her meth and crummy boyfriend habit.” I’d started with the truth—might as well get it all out. “But about a month ago, she decided to skip town and leave my two underage sisters alone with no money and pretty much no hope of making it on their own.”

  Will nodded. “I was wondering why things had quieted down so much. I didn’t realize your mom had left.”

  “She left all right. One of the few things she’s done well in her life.”

  A couple seconds passed before Will’s head tilted toward me. I would have met his gaze if I wasn’t scared of him seeing the shininess in my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must be hard. Is that why you came back? To take care of your sisters?”

  “So you don’t notice when Kitty, who’s lived in that trailer her whole life, leaves, but you notice when I show up? Are you selectively observant?” I smirked at him, which was harder to do than it should have been.

  “I must be,” he answered, gazing back up at the sky. “But really, Liv, you’d be hard to miss. Coming or going.”

  My heart stopped for a couple of beats. “Do I take that as a compliment?”

  “You can take that however you want, just so long as you know it’s true.”

  How had I gone from talking about Kitty one second to my heart playing tricks on me a second later after just a few confounding words from Will Goods? However it had happened, I needed to make sure it didn’t happen again. I couldn’t open myself to the kinds of things I felt for Will. I couldn’t stop myself from feeling them, b
ut I could keep them at bay until I’d either gone numb to them or he’d gone numb to me.

  “So your mom leaves, your sisters are alone, and you swoop in to save the day.”

  “I don’t know if I swooped, but I made it.” That was the honest truth. I hadn’t been eager to forfeit the life I’d made for myself and return to the one I’d never wanted, but I’d done it. It might not have earned me any gold stars, but it had to count for something.

  “And you left your life, wherever you were and whatever you were doing, behind?”

  I knew reading minds wasn’t possible, at least not in real life, but Will seemed to be sneaking peeks into mine.

  “I did.”

  “What did you leave behind?”

  It hurt to remember, so I stopped thinking about it. “A fresh start.”

  “Why can’t this be a piece of that? Why can’t coming back here be an unexpected detour to your fresh start?” Will’s questions flowed with genuine curiosity.

  “Because I’m here. Back in this place. I’ll be the first to admit a person can make a fresh start wherever they see fit . . . except for this place.”

  Will’s eyebrows lifted. “If that’s the truth, that really sucks for you and me.”

  “Really sucks,” I repeated. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

  “So you’re here, your fresh start a thing of the past, and you’re taking care of your sisters.”

  That might have been the greatest over-simplification ever to go in the books.

  “What comes next?” he asked.

  “Next? I can barely figure out what comes right now, let alone next.” What was I saying? Why was I being so open? I might as well have just cut myself down the center and let him take a look inside me.

  “Hmm.” He nodded.

  “Hmm . . . what?” I couldn’t make out if that was a hmm of agreement or disagreement.

  “That was a, ‘Hmm, I understand where you’re coming from.’”

  “You understand what it’s like to have your mom bail on the only family you’ve got and have to look after two younger siblings?”

  “No, I don’t understand that. But I do understand what it feels like to lose the life you envisioned for yourself. I understand what it’s like to have your vision for your future erased before your very eyes. I know what that’s like.”

  I thought about Will’s mom. She might not have been a minor, but I didn’t doubt she needed as much, if not more, supervision and assistance as my two teenage sisters. I didn’t know what kind of life Will had had before coming back, but I was certain it was better than this. I was curious what his life had been like before, but I knew from experience that talking about that former, happy place was painful. Especially when one had little to no hope of returning to it. So, I kept my questions to myself. If Will wanted to talk about his former life, I guessed he would.

  “You know, Liv, if you guys are having a tough time with . . . money and stuff, I could help you out. I’m not a millionaire or anything, but I’ve got enough to help a few people get through a rough patch.”

  Will’s head didn’t turn, but I felt him watching me. I felt a couple of things right then. I felt a touch of relief. Not because Will was offering to help ease our money issues, but relief that some good had to be left in humanity if a neighbor guy I barely knew was offering to help me and my sisters, who he barely knew. So I felt some relief . . . but I felt a whole lot more of something else: anger. Partly because I didn’t like being seen as a charity case, but mostly anger with the whole situation. Anger at Kitty. Anger at the trailer. Anger at the town. Anger at the virtually non-existent job market. Anger that I wasn’t strong or smart enough to figure out a better solution than the one I’d arrived at an hour ago.

  “Thanks, Will, really, but I managed to find a job tonight. Finally.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You managed to get your sister off the hook for shoplifting and find a job all in the same night?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “That’s a productive night.”

  I caught myself studying Will’s hands again, clasped together over his stomach. When I started wondering what it would feel like to have them on me, I about jumped out of my skin. “It was a busy night, if nothing else, which is probably why I’m so tired.” I shoved up and off the bench, needing to put some space between me and Will and his hands and whatever other piece of his body my traitor mind started daydreaming about next.

  “So where did you find this lifesaver job?” Will continued to stare up at the sky, barely seeming to notice that I’d basically leapt off that bench.

  “I’m not sure I’m quite ready to broadcast where I’ll be cashing my checks from.” Wait, what checks? From the sounds of it, The Body Shop was an all-cash kind of place. I guessed the upside was that it would save me trips to the bank.

  Will chuckled. “That sounds like any and all of the jobs around here.”

  That was true. No job around there was worth bragging about, but there was still a hierarchy of jobs, and the one I’d just landed was smack at the bottom. Pond-scum level most likely.

  “I wasn’t picky. I’ll put it that way, but at least it’s relatively close by. I won’t have to commute two hours to get to it.” Talking about commutes, even as short as mine was, reminded me of something. “How about we try getting the Suburban up here to you sometime this weekend? Now that I’ve got a job, I’ll actually need a way to get there.”

  “Anytime. You just let me know when, and I’ll be ready.” Will spun his cap around and sat up.

  It was dark out, but the bill of his cap managed to shade his face even more. He could have been glaring at me with unbridled hatred, or he just as easily could have been staring at me with unequivocal passion. Or maybe he wasn’t looking anywhere near me. I couldn’t tell, and that made standing there, under his relentless or oblivious stare, much more uncomfortable.

  “What’s your plan for getting to work in the meantime? Before I get the Suburban up and running?”

  I hadn’t had time to think about that yet. As my options were limited to nonexistent, the answer was simple. “I’ll walk.”

  Yes, ten miles each way was a trek that would consume hours of my time, but it was only temporary. I’d easily clocked ten miles a shift back when I was working as a cocktail waitress. One of the other waitresses and I’d even worn a pedometer a few nights just to see. The most I’d ever clocked was twelve.

  “You’ll walk? I hope you just landed yourself a job at the tobacco shop down the road because if it’s anywhere else, you’re insane for thinking you can walk back and forth.”

  “Insane, huh?” Will might have been on to something. Plenty of my actions lately could have been classified as insane.

  “Insane,” he repeated. “But I know how to remedy that.”

  Of course he did. “And what remedy would that be? Do I even want to know?”

  “I’ll lend you the Chevelle until your car’s ready.” Will folded his arms behind his head and shrugged like it was the simplest, most obvious solution in the world. To him, it might have been, but to me . . . it was anything but simple.

  “Thank you, but I can’t.” For five million reasons—the first being that I didn’t want to be in his debt and the last being the feelings I had for him that I was trying to extinguish.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  I crossed my arms. “Won’t.”

  Will exhaled, sounding equal parts exasperated and amused. “Why not? It’s really not a big deal, so I don’t see why you’re making it one. You need a car to get to work. I’ve got one. I’ve got a car I’m willingly lending you—a sweet, kick-ass car no less—and you’re turning this offer down because . . .?”

  Exasperating. That was one word to describe Will Goods. Exasperating in all the right and wrong ways.

  “Because,” was my intelligent response.

  “Fine. Then I won’t fix your Suburban.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “Unless you borrow my Chevel
le in the meantime. That’s the only way I’ll take the job.” His hat might have been shadowing his face, but it couldn’t hide his wide smile.

  I should have argued for another round or two, but I was tired. I needed the Suburban fixed, and despite knowing I could do it, I wasn’t looking forward to walking twenty miles a night. “Fine.” I bit my cheek and made myself say the next words. “And thank you.”

  Will tried stifling his smile. It didn’t work. “Good. That’s too fine of a vehicle to be sitting around as a lawn ornament, and it’s not like I’m getting very much use out of it.”

  “That’s because you spend all of your time working on cars instead of driving them.” I waved at him and started backing toward our trailer. “Thanks for the Coke, the car . . . and the talk.”

  “Thank you for the Coke, the car, and the talk.” He waved before leaning his head back on the bench. “Holler up at me when you make it to your place.”

  I paused, my eyebrows coming together. “Holler up at you?”

  “Just so I know you made it back safely.”

  That was a random request that caught me off guard. Will being concerned for my safety wasn’t something I could decide how I felt about. “You want me to holler when I’m just outside the front door? Instead of watching me slip inside and turn on a few lights or something?”

  “From where I’m at, I can’t see your trailer.” Will extended his arms wide. “Just give me a holler, okay?”

  I sighed but smiled through it. “Okay. I’ll holler to you in a few.” I turned and headed down the hill, glancing over my shoulder a few feet later. Most of me wanted to turn my back on him and leave, but not every part. “Good night, Will.”

  I was too far away to see it, but his tone gave his smile away. “Good night, Liv.”

  I bounced up the front steps of my trailer a minute later. Clearing my throat, I glanced up at the Goods’s. I could just barely make out Will. From the looks of it, he was watching me, but who knew? Maybe he was focused on nothing but the darkness around him.

  “I made it, Will,” I shouted up the hill. I twisted the doorknob, and before I stepped inside, I heard his reply.