Pop The Clutch: A Second Gear Romance

by Kristin Harte

  Dahlia handed me the hoodie I’d hung on the doorknob, something I’d brought for sitting in air-conditioned medical offices with Grandma. Something I’d barely had the chance to wear. She was giving up, a fact that only made me want to go home even more. I needed time to process, to think, to accept. And I couldn’t do any of that here.

  Or, at least, that’s what I told myself over and over and over again.

  “When are you leaving?” Dahlia asked, leaning against the door with her arms crossed. I could hear the irritation in her voice, the disappointment. Maybe this was better. Maybe if I just left, I’d get out of everyone’s way and stop dragging them down.

  I finished folding the jacket and set it in the bag, avoiding her eyes. “Tonight. Now. I’ve got that sweets table job coming up, and I need to get started on what I can.”

  Her pause was long and tension-filled, and when she spoke, irritation was replaced with outright anger. “So that’s it?”

  I huffed and grabbed the sides of the bag, trying to keep my hands from shaking. “It’s good money.”

  “It’s not about the money, Violet, and you know it.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, it’s about the fact that Grandma’s dying.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Really? Fine, then it’s that you’re in love with Easton Cole, and that thought terrifies you.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, trying so hard to deny her words. But I couldn’t. I did love him. Loved him more than I knew how to deal with. But there were still so many things left unsaid, so many obstacles in our way. So many questions and possible pitfalls. I just couldn’t deal with all that.

  “I have to go.” I zipped the bag and pushed past her, refusing to meet her eyes. If I stopped, I’d stay. If I stayed, I’d just keep being forced to run into the people who’d helped ruin my life over and over, and I’d drag Easton down with me. I needed out. I needed to go back to Chicago, where no one knew me, and I could melt into the crowds. I needed to be invisible again.

  I needed to get the hell away from Easton Cole and death and Downriver.

  I grabbed a T-shirt off the floor that I hadn’t noticed, ready to toss it into the bag with the rest of my stuff, but something about it caught my attention and made me freeze. It was big and black, softer than anything I owned. When I turned it over, the Second Gear logo on the front made me catch my breath. I ran my fingers over the letters, letting the roughness of the printing guide me, taking one moment to truly allow myself to feel all the hurt I’d caused myself. Giving myself permission to experience the ache of loss before I had to pull myself back together again. Before I locked away every emotion I had left.

  I folded the shirt with careful hands, placing it on top of the rest of my clothes and resting my palm over it for a few seconds. That was my goodbye to this place, to that shop, and to the man who ran it. I couldn’t do more. I took one final look at the shirt before closing the lid on both my emotions and the suitcase.

  It was time to go.

  “Slow down,” Dahlia said when I picked up the bag and moved for the hallway. “What the hell is going on? Why are you running?”

  “I’m not running. I’m going home.”

  She stood taller, her expression going flat. “Home? As in not here.”

  “Yes, home as in not here. As in Chicago. As in where my job and my life are.” I sighed, trying hard not to start crying again. This wasn’t how I wanted things to be. “I’ll be back in a few weeks to spend time with Grandma. Tell her I—”

  “I’m not telling her anything.” Dahlia glared for a moment before letting out a breath and stepping closer. “Fine. I’ll tell her you’re a stupid chickenshit who needs a swift kick in the pants. She’ll probably agree.”

  I let myself have one hug, allowed myself enough time to curl into her for comfort, wrapping my arms around her. Being in her hold made the hurt flare bright and hot, though. Made me remember all the things I was leaving behind. Again.

  “I have to go.” I braced myself to separate from her, to shutter all those emotions back beneath the surface. To tuck that pain away until a time I could better deal with it.

  “You don’t, but I know you think you do.” Dahlia pulled back, holding me in place by my shoulders. Refusing to let me go. “What about Easton?”

  Her words should have hurt, should have made me feel something like guilt or pain, but they didn’t. Couldn’t. I was dead inside, completely emotionless as I walked out the front door and headed for my car with Dahlia on my heels. The first time I’d left this place after graduation, I’d sobbed halfway to Kalamazoo. Not this time. I wouldn’t let the pain overwhelm me. Wouldn’t let the guilt get in my way.

  Still, the words felt like broken glass in my throat as I said, “Easton deserves better than what he’d get with me.”

  I wasn’t even half a block away when I pulled over and grabbed my phone from my bag. I couldn’t leave without a word to him. Not after everything. I typed out a quick text, giving myself over to my tears for that one painful moment. Once I hit send, though, I turned the phone off, took a deep breath, and readied myself for my drive. No pain. No crying. No…feeling. This was what needed to be done.

  It was time to go back home. Alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EASTON

  “Put the fucking phone down.” Brogan smacked his hand on the table, interrupting my daydream of the damned device actually making a sound. I slid my finger across the screen, reading the last words Violet had sent to me for the hundredth time.

  I’m sorry. I know I said I’d try, but I’m not ready for something like this. I’m not ready to be back in this place.

  Fuck, those words still killed me. I’d sent a ridiculous number of texts since I’d received that message, all met with silence. Just like right then. Brogan was right—I needed to let it go for a night, but that didn’t mean I’d tell him that. I set the fucking thing down and glared some more. Brogan didn’t flinch, though I hadn’t expected him to. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d caught me obsessing over my phone since Violet had left me standing in her driveway.

  Brogan sat next to Gracie on the other side of the booth at Moose McGregor’s, both of them staring at me. Pitying me. It’d been three days since Violet had sent that fucking text message. Three days since she’d run. Three days of me wishing for a redo on so many things. Brogan had dragged me out to our usual dive bar just to get me to leave the shop, not that I was feeling much up for socializing. How Gracie had ended up with us I still didn’t know, but I didn’t care either. I didn’t want to be there.

  “She won’t answer me,” I said, looking from my phone to him and back. “She’s gone completely silent. How can we fix things if she’s silent?”

  Gracie glanced at Brogan before shooting me a serious frown. “What if you can’t fix this?”

  And goddamn, wasn’t that a bucket of cold water? I wasn’t ready to go there yet. Wasn’t ready to give up. I sat back and shook my head, knowing I was being stubborn but too far gone to care. “No fucking way. And don’t even give me that look, Brogan. This isn’t some random need to fix people’s problems. This is Violet. My Violet. This is fixable.”

  Brogan sighed. “Not if she doesn’t want it to be.”

  I grabbed my beer and downed it, wishing for some kind of pain relief. For some kind of way to clear my head enough to figure this thing out. When I hit the bottom of the bottle, I slammed it down, eyeing the room like a panther on the hunt. Though I was hunting for a waitress, not a meal. “I need another.”

  Gracie scowled. “Right, like you need another hole in the head.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Hey,” Brogan spat, sitting up in his seat and leaning across the table. “You don’t get to talk to her like that.”

  “She’s my sister. I can talk to her however I want.”

  “Stop it, both of you,” Gracie said, looking more irritated than ever. “Easton, I’m not the one you’re angry
with, so quit being a jackass. And Brogan, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

  Brogan grunted his displeasure, but Gracie wasn’t one to back down. She winged that eyebrow up and kept a firm frown on her face until he conceded defeat. It took some time, probably longer than it would have taken me to give in to her, to be honest, but she held firm.

  After a couple of awkward moments, he gave her a head nod and broke the staring contest they’d been having. “Fine. But I don’t like it.”

  “I appreciate the concern.” Gracie put her hand on his arm, and he smiled. The two were sitting a little too close for my tastes, leaning toward each other in a way that wasn’t their norm. Without Colton here to round us out, it probably looked to the other patrons like Brogan and Gracie were on a date while I was some loser third wheel. Shit, that wouldn’t do.

  “You two want to find a room until Colton finally gets his ass here?”

  Gracie spun toward me looking like a viper ready to strike. “You want to worry about your own failed love life, brother?”

  Yeah, I probably deserved that. Still hurt, though. I sighed, putting up my hand in surrender. I knew to give up when Gracie got mean. That temper of hers was too strong to fight against. At least for me.

  I grabbed my empty beer bottle, signaling to a passing waitress to bring me another. “I probably shouldn’t even be around people tonight.”

  Brogan caught the waitress’s eye and made a motion for another round, then dropped back against the booth seat. “We’re celebrating you finishing that time-suck of a Land Rover rebuild. How you got that thing running again without missing Rick’s deadline, I have no idea.”

  Yeah, neither did I. But spending all day, every day in the shop had given me enough time to finally get the beast of an engine purring again. Okay, not purring—more like chugging along after decades of a two-pack-a-day habit. Whatever, Rick was off my tail, and that piece of crap was out of my shop.

  “Besides,” Gracie said as she pointed my way. “You shouldn’t be wallowing alone. It’s not good for you.”

  She had a point. “I just want to talk to her, you know? Make sure she’s okay.”

  I ripped the label completely off my beer bottle, unable to sit still. Unable to forget every second of the scene with Lacey at Gunner’s. Unable to stop hearing every word she’d said. The ones against Violet, the ones against me and my friends. Against us as a business. It was all so fucked up.

  I’d almost forgotten about one particular comment—about Lacey calling Violet Cowgirl and saying something about her yearly rodeos. I still couldn’t figure out what that meant. Of course, I’d been too pissed off about the accusation of passing Violet around between us to focus on something that seemed so small. At least, I had been for the first two days. This morning, I’d woken up with questions ringing in my head—what were these rodeos Lacey hosted, and why the fuck would Violet have anything to do with them? I’d figured it would be easy enough to find out, so I’d called Colton right away. That guy knew everybody’s business—plus he’d screwed around with some of the girls in Lacey’s circle. He had to know. Fucker hadn’t answered me, though. Ten calls, even more texts, and still…nothing. The longer he avoided me, the more my temper frayed too. It was a bad fucking day all around.

  “I’m going to kill Colton when he finally finds his nuts and returns my calls,” I said as I pressed the home button on my phone to light up the screen. Still nothing. From either of them. I really hated being ignored.

  “No, you’re not,” Gracie said, smiling up at the waitress as she brought over our next round. “You’re going to get Violet to listen to you so you can stop sulking over her.”

  “How do I do that?” I tipped the bottle, gulping down the beer. I was too far into the night to be able to count how many I’d had, but by the way my head was starting to swim, I’d guess at least five or six. I was going to be pissed at myself in the morning.

  Gracie shrugged, looking at her own bottle with a frown. “No clue.”

  “Fix the shit you can, and let go of what you can’t,” Brogan said, sounding way more let down than I would have expected. He lifted his beer bottle, taking a few long gulps before setting it down again. “Or obsess over the things you can’t do anything about, and suffer in silence like the rest of us.”

  His words had an air of personal knowledge about them, enough so that even Gracie turned to stare at him with wide eyes. I would have asked—maybe, if I’d cared enough to at that moment—but right then, Colton came strolling into the bar with Dalton at his side. Both looking far more serious than I would have expected. Not that it mattered.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said just before I polished off my beer. Suffer in silence? Not my style. I wiped my mouth with my wrist and slammed the bottle back down on the table. “There’s something I can fix, all right.”

  I jumped up and stormed across the bar, greeting Colton with a hard shove to his shoulders. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  He stumbled, looking as if he had no idea why I was so pissed. As if he hadn’t gotten all my voice mails and texts. “Yo, man. Go get your dick sucked so you can calm down, then we can talk.”

  The room went red as fire blazed through what was left of my control. Was that a shot against Violet leaving? It sure felt like it. Without another word, I dipped down and swung hard, my fist making contact with his face. He fell back, only keeping his feet when he knocked into a table behind him. He didn’t stay down, though. Can’t say that I expected him to, really. We were scrappers, both having been in enough fights to know how to win. No, he didn’t give up from one hit. He popped up and rushed me, ducking low to wrestle me to the ground. My back slammed into the floor, my breath rushing out in a single groan, and then it was on. I didn’t know how long we fought or who threw how many punches, but before we were done, Dalton was shoving us out the door as the bar owner threatened to call the cops. A sobering moment for sure.

  “Damn it, Easton,” Colton said as he stumbled away from me. He wiped the blood from his chin and spat on the concrete once the door closed behind us. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Why haven’t you been answering my fucking calls?” I yelled every ridiculous word, knowing how I sounded, too deep into my anger to care. The rage inside me had become a physical thing. It pushed and scratched, wanting to be let out, wanting to hurt someone else. Even if that person had been my best friend since we’d been in diapers.

  “I’m not Violet, man. I wasn’t ignoring you.” Colton put both hands up and took a step back as I lunged for him again, this time being stopped by Dalton. “Hang on. I had shit going on today, and then I figured I’d get an answer for you before I bothered calling you back.”

  “Guys. Stop,” Brogan said as he hurried out the door. Always the peacemaker, always trying to get in the middle.

  But I wasn’t having it tonight. I shoved him out of the way, earning a curse from Gracie but not caring. This was between Colton and me, no one else.

  “I’ll stop when he starts talking.” I managed to get a palm against Colton’s shoulder and shoved him again, still too wound up to care about anything but causing him enough pain to match my own. “Violet ran away from me because of something to do with Lacey and those fucking rodeos. I need to know what they are.”

  Dalton jumped right in my face, blocking me from Colton, no fear in his gaze. “Don’t go attacking my nephew, son. Violet ran because she was afraid. You know what makes a woman afraid?”

  As much as I burned for some sort of retribution, I couldn’t take that out on Dalton. He’d never done a thing to me, had never pissed me off in the slightest. I’d watched him struggle after my cousin had cheated on him, watched him fall apart and pull himself back up.

  The first crack in my temper—the first bit of calm and quiet—appeared inside my mind, growing larger as Dalton kept looking at me with those gray eyes of his.

  “Don’t know,” I finally said, forcing myself to take a step back. To get out of hi
s face. “Your naked ass in the morning?”

  Dalton didn’t back down, even though his lips turned up just a little into one of his off-center smiles. “No, you jagoff. Not knowing whether their man has got their back is what makes them afraid. Violet ran not because of what some girl said, but because she assumed you couldn’t handle the truth.”

  My brow tightened as I tried to make sense of his words. “What truth? What are you talking about?”

  Dalton didn’t even flinch, looking me square in the eye when he said, “She cheated on that boy she was with.”

  “I know that,” I spat, pulling away, hating that her secrets had to be laid bare like that. “I figured that one out already.”

  It was Colton who answered. “Charity was at the bowling alley the night Jace and Lacey got even with Violet. The night before the video went screaming through the school.”

  The night I’d picked Violet up on the side of the road—her tear-stained face and dead eyes staring back at me. Lacey, Jace…they would have been looking for revenge, and that bitch was just plain cruel. Everything in my body tightened, and my voice came out as more of a growl as I asked, “What did they do to her?”

  “From what Charity told me, it was an ambush planned by the sister,” Colton said, shaking his head. “Fuck, even I’m not as much of an asshole as that Lacey chick.”

  “Could have fooled me,” Dalton murmured from where he stood next to Brogan and Gracie.

  “Fuck off, old man.” Colton huffed, facing me down. “They set Violet up, told her it was a party, but really, they were watching her video on the overhead screens. All the screens. It was nothing but naked Violet all over that joint.”

  “Fuck me.” I ran a hand through my hair, tilting my head back and growling at the sky. “That’s why she was in the rain the night I picked her up. She’d walked into a viewing party of her having sex.”