Pop The Clutch: A Second Gear Romance

by Kristin Harte

  Lacey blanched and glanced around the room at all the people staring, her mouth hanging open as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Not that anything she had to say mattered. I’d made my point. I pulled a shaking Violet past the table, quickly yanking her in front of me so I could put my body between her and Lacey. Who wasn’t quite done yet.

  “You’d better watch yourself, Easton. She’s a liar and a cheater, though I don’t know why I’m warning you. I’m sure she told you what really happened at the bowling alley.”

  Violet stumbled at Lacey’s words, grew even more pale, if that was possible. I held on tighter, trying to keep her on her feet, but that only made the situation more obvious.

  Lacey spotted that moment of weakness and pounced, using that damned singsong voice to do it. “Aw, did the poor cowgirl forget to tell her latest fling the truth? C’mon, Vee, you’ve played the liar card too many times.”

  “Lacey,” I spat, pulling Violet as quickly as I could toward the back. “Give it a rest.”

  Violet tried to pull her hand from mine, but at the same moment, Gunner pushed his way through the small crowd that had gathered. He pulled Violet and me along with him, heading for the back of the restaurant. Just a few more seconds, and I’d have her out of the fishbowl the restaurant had become. Another minute, and she’d be in my car. I needed to keep calm, stay focused, and not hit the woman following us.

  The one who wasn’t done torturing my girl yet.

  “I thought Colton Bearn was the manwhore of the trailer park quartet, him and his brother, Wyatt. I heard he had a number of women in his bed while Dahlia Foster sat at home waiting for him to take her on the road with him. Isn’t that right, Vee? Those Bearn brothers have reputations almost as bad as yours. I would have guessed one of them would have been the one to try to hit on Cowgirl Vee, not you, Easton,” she said as we finally made it through the throng of people clogging our way. Would she ever shut her mouth? “Guess Colton passed that video around your shop. Did you need to see for yourself what it was like to have the cowgirl ride you?”

  “Fuck off, Lacey!” I yelled, unable to hold my tongue or keep my voice down.

  But some people didn’t know when to quit. “Oh, I see. You’re not just passing the video around. You’re passing the cowgirl around too?” She laughed, the sound wicked and cruel. Fake. “Jesus, Vee. Did you really go from bowling alley bimbo to garage floor whore? That’s a big step down—from Jace to the trailer park kids. You an employee of Second Gear Auto Repair now?”

  I spun, my hand clenched in a fist, ready to say fuck every rule I’d ever learned, but Gunner slid right in front of me.

  “Enough,” he said. “Let me handle it. Violet doesn’t need you going to jail right now.”

  It took a second, but I finally nodded, my neck stiff. That woman, that fucking beast, didn’t deserve my attention. Violet did, and it was time to take her home. As Gunner headed for Lacey, I threw my hand in the air, offering Lacey a one-finger salute as a parting shot.

  Violet, on the other hand, stayed silent. Eerily so.

  “You okay?” I asked, rubbing my hand over her shoulder.

  She flinched, taking a step away from me. Something that sent a blade of ice slicing across my chest. But this wasn’t the time or the place to discuss what had been said.

  “C’mon, baby. Let’s get you home.” I directed Violet through the back hallway, too fucking furious to dare pausing. Too worried about her non-reaction to even take a breath. So many things suddenly clicked, pieces of the past finally falling together. Jace’s refusal to help Violet battle the gossip once everyone found out, the guilt she continued to wear like a shroud. Her refusal to call Jace out for being an ass. She’d cheated on Jace. She probably felt like the one to blame, as if she deserved to be treated like trash for a decision she’d made as a kid. We needed to talk about all of it…and quick.

  Gunner caught up with us by the kitchen, though. “You two okay?”

  “Fine,” Violet whispered, refusing to look up from the floor.

  Gunner peered at me over Violet’s head, a pained expression on his face. Fuck, I needed to get her out of here. Especially now with Jace showing up any minute.

  “Gunner,” I whispered, holding on to Violet’s arms. “I’m sorry about the food, but we need to go.”

  Charlie appeared as if summoned, handing me a paper bag with thin rope handles. “Your burgers.”

  “Thanks, man.” I reached for my wallet, but Gunner put a hand on my arm.

  “I got it.”

  The noise from the restaurant grew louder, and a voice I was pretty sure was that of Violet’s ex-boyfriend joined the din. As much as I wanted to argue with Gunner and pay at least the tip, I needed to get Violet the hell out of here.

  Still, I made sure to hold Gunner’s gaze as I promised, “I owe you.”

  “You owe me shit.” Gunner waved us down the hall, he and Charlie stepping behind us. “Go take care of your woman. I’ve got a party to ban from my restaurant for good.”

  There were a lot of reasons I called Gunner a friend, and that decision was one of them. I’d owe him for this. Big-time. But that would be handled another day.

  I directed Violet to the door, leaning past her to open it. The humid air was a slap in the face when we stepped outside, and the sunlight burned my eyes, but that didn’t even faze us. Violet strode for the car, not pausing, not looking back. Silent. So fucking silent. The sort of quiet that always foretold bad news.

  Sick to my stomach, I held the passenger door as she slid inside, then set the food on the floorboard next to her feet. Once she was settled, I shut her door and rushed to my side, silently praying she wasn’t crying when I hopped inside.

  She certainly wasn’t crying.

  “Violet?”

  Her face was slack, no emotion there. Nothing but dead eyes staring my way.

  “Baby, are you okay?” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away and turned to look out the front window.

  “I’m fine.”

  My stomach knotted. She was about as far from fine as she could be. “Okay,” I murmured, starting the Hellcat and throwing it into gear. “It’ll be okay. Let’s get you home.”

  I gripped the wheel tight, my foot pressing hard on the gas as I pulled onto Biddle. The engine responded, rumbling to life under the hood. We whipped past businesses and restaurants, past the golf course and the abandoned steel plant, but I made a quick right onto a street far earlier than I’d planned. And apparently, that small change in what was expected was just enough to wake Violet up.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, sounding a little more alive than before.

  “Home.”

  “This isn’t the way home.”

  I sighed, hating the detached coolness of her voice. “There’s more than one way home, Violet.”

  Her face was still slack, her eyes focused on something too far away for me to see. The sick feeling grew in my stomach. We needed to talk. I needed to make sure she knew Lacey was full of shit about everything. I also wanted to know what Lacey meant about the other guy and how he’d played into the release of the video. And I had a feeling Violet wasn’t going to want to talk about that at all. In fact, I knew she wouldn’t. She’d run instead.

  She’d already started.

  I drove the rest of the way to her Grandma’s house, holding her hand on the stick shift. That was the one small concession she allowed—her hand—though it sat lifeless under mine. She wasn’t giving me anything.

  When I pulled into the drive, I didn’t jump out right away. I didn’t even turn off the engine.

  “You okay with what happened back there?” I asked, bracing for the worst.

  She shrugged. “No. But what can I do?”

  “You want to tell me about what Lacey said?”

  “No reason to.” She turned her head toward me, still leaning it against the headrest. Her eyes were flat again, almost lifeless. Her voice matched them. There wa
s no denying what was happening here—she was done.

  “Violet, I want to talk about—”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow to go back to Chicago,” she said. No hesitation, no working up to it. Just dropped a bomb on me without consideration for how it would make me react.

  That girl was running hard.

  I clenched the wheel tighter, doing my best not to yell out a refusal. “So suddenly?”

  She shrugged. “I meant to tell you but never got the chance. I have commitments that I need to fulfill.”

  “Commitments.” I chewed on my lip, my leg shaking. “Is this because some girl talked shit at the restaurant?”

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s about my life. It’s about going home.”

  I waved my hand at her grandmother’s house, the place she grew up. The place where her family still lived. “Violet, you are home.”

  She stared for a moment, her face hard, silently regarding me. Her expression sent chills down my spine. There was nothing there, no Violet. All that was left was the scared little girl putting on a show, hiding behind a mask of indifference. One I had no idea how to break through.

  Without a word, she opened the door. And she ran.

  “Shit.” I threw the car into park and hurried out the door. She was already halfway up the driveway, walking fast with her shoulders back and her head up. Running from me.

  “Violet, wait.” I hurried after her, leaving the car idling behind me. “Don’t go like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Mad.”

  “I’m not mad.” She shook her head but turned, that damn vacant expression back in place. Her mask unbreakable. “I’m not mad because you want things that aren’t realistic.”

  “Not realistic? How is us together not realistic?”

  “Downriver…Chicago. There’s three hundred miles between them. It’s not feasible.”

  The hairs on my arms stood on end, my body going cold. This was the end. Whether I liked it or not, she was running. But I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I do. Long-distance relationships don’t work.”

  “We might.”

  She stopped moving away, staring at me with an expression of hurt on her face instead. “Are you willing to give this all up? Leave your family, walk away from your business, and move to Chicago to be with me?”

  Somehow, I hadn’t expected that question. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer her. There was no way I could just go. My entire life was here, the business I’d built and bled for, all the responsibilities that fell squarely on my shoulders were right here. She knew that. But still, the very thought of walking away from her made my heart feel as if it were being ripped from my chest. I wanted both—my girl and my life here. I just didn’t know how to manage that.

  Violet shook her head as she began to cry. “That’s what I thought. You want me but only if I’m local, and that’s not going to work for me.”

  She turned to leave, but I lunged for her. Not willing to let her go. Needing another minute to think. “Baby, don’t do this. Give me a chance to figure this out.”

  “There is no figuring needed, Easton. I’m not something broken you need to put back together. I’m just a girl with a life I’m not willing to give up.”

  “You…you’re hiding again.” I pointed at her, my voice growing louder as the reality that she wasn’t going to try crashed into me. “You don’t want to tell me the truth, so you’re avoiding the conversation. You’re running away even after you told me you wouldn’t.”

  “No, I’m not running away. I’m going home.” She leaned up on the balls of her feet to give me a small kiss, then turned toward the house. “Goodbye, Easton.”

  My heart fell into my shoes. “That’s it? A kiss on the cheek?” I asked as she headed for the front door. Leaving me behind. Leaving us behind. And I still wasn’t ready to give up. “Violet, don’t you know how much I love you?”

  The words were out before I could stop them, before I could even think them through. And though they were the truth, I knew I’d royally fucked up. Violet wasn’t ready to hear that yet. She wasn’t ready to admit her feelings for me either. I’d just pushed her even further away without meaning to.

  “You don’t love me, Easton. You can’t—I’m not worth it.” She glanced over her shoulder, giving me a look that froze my heart into a ball of ice. “I’m done being the butt of every joke.”

  The slam of the door was like a gunshot to the chest. My heart cracked, shattered, disintegrated as I stood in her driveway staring after her. As my world crumbled around me. I waited there for minutes, maybe hours, just staring at the house. Wishing she’d come back outside. Wishing for all the things I’d just lost.

  “Easton?” Dahlia walked up behind me, placing a hand on my arm. “Everything okay?”

  I licked my lips, still staring at the door, having no idea when Violet’s cousin had pulled up. “No, Dahlia. Everything is about as far from okay as it can be.”

  Dahlia glanced from me to the door and back again. “Something I can do for you?”

  “No.” I turned for my car, stopping just before I reached the door. “Actually, yeah. Tell her…tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I’ll be at the shop when she’s ready to talk.”

  I climbed into the driver’s seat, ignoring the confused look Dahlia shot me. Finally, she hurried up the steps and into the house, leaving me alone once more.

  “Stupid, stupid motherfucker.” I slammed my fist against the steering wheel, wishing I’d just opened my mouth when she’d asked me about moving to Chicago. That I’d told her…something. That I’d been able to think of a way to compromise, to make this work. To meet her somewhere in the middle.

  But I hadn’t, and now she was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  VIOLET

  I barely made it through the door before the tears started. No gentle crying for me this time, no sir. This was a full sobfest filled with gasping breaths and knees that no longer worked. I stumbled twice, clinging to the wall as my world shattered, before finally falling to the floor.

  You’re not just passing the video around. You’re passing the cowgirl around too?

  Did you really go from bowling alley bimbo to garage floor whore?

  I curled into a ball in the middle of the rug, unable to process his words against hers. Every person in that restaurant had heard all my dirty secrets. Every one of them had watched as Lacey—

  I couldn’t even think her name without wanting to vomit.

  And Easton…sweet, kind Easton with the manners and the charm. Would he have lied to me? Would he have told me one thing, then gone and laughed about it with his friends later? It certainly didn’t seem like him, but apparently, I’d been had before.

  Don’t you know I love you?

  My heart broke over and over again, shattering within me with every breath. Why did Easton have to say those words at that moment? When my past had torn a hole right through the middle of us, when the woven pattern of lies and deceptions had finally begun to unravel in his presence? Easton couldn’t love me. He didn’t know everything about me. He didn’t know anything, really.

  But as I lay there on the floor, feeling worse than I ever had before, the hardest thing to accept was the fact that Easton’s not knowing was all my fault. Again, I’d made decisions that caused a total upheaval in my own life. And again, it had affected others in the worst way.

  And I’d suffer from that knowledge forever.

  “What’s going on?” Dahlia rushed through the front door, zeroing in on me immediately. “Violet, what happened with Easton?”

  Just hearing his name sent another stab of anguish through my gut, and I curled tighter to try to soothe the ache. This hurt. And it was my fault. All my fault.

  “Violet?” Dahlia rubbed a hand over my hair, crouching on the floor next to me. “It can’t be that bad. He was out there looking like a love-sick hound when I walk
ed up, so it can’t be that bad.”

  She was so wrong. “He said he loved me.”

  “Yeah?” she asked, drawing out the word.

  “Lacey implied Easton, Colton, and Brogan were passing me around…like they did with the video of me in the bowling alley.”

  “Shit,” she spat, the word sounding like a warning. Shit was an understatement.

  I couldn’t stay on the floor doing nothing. It was time to take control, time to move forward. It was time to go. Pushing myself to my knees, I crawled for the couch. I needed to end this, to give myself some space to deal, and to get the hell out of here so Easton could get over me and move on or quit playing whatever game this whole thing was. A thought that had me almost doubled over again. It’d be better, though. Easier for me. The pain would fade with time and distance. I’d figure out how to see my grandma more without coming back. There were other places, other areas we could meet. Ones where I wouldn’t have to see Easton or his friends again.

  When I finally reached something to hold on to, I pulled myself to my feet and headed down the hallway. Wobbling. Barely able to see past the tears that refused to stop. Past the boulder lodged in my gut that refused to let me breathe.

  “Violet?”

  I shook my head, stopping only to peek in Grandma’s room. She napped soundly, looking small in her big bed. Small but peaceful, something I envied. Peace wasn’t something I’d been able to find in life, and especially not back in Downriver. It was time for me to escape. I needed to go. Needed to get back home. Needed to find a place where I could think and breathe again.

  I closed the door to Grandma’s room, and then I hurried into my bedroom and grabbed my suitcase.

  “What are you doing?” Dahlia asked, sounding awfully accusatory.

  “Packing.”

  She stood in the doorway and watched as I dealt with the things I had sitting on the furniture. I’d never truly unpacked when I’d arrived, so there wasn’t much to grab. A random shirt, a hairbrush, a few rubber bands. The stuff I hadn’t tossed back into the bag over the last few days as I’d started preparing to extricate myself from this house.