by A. J. Downey
I burst into tears.
“Well.” Dr. Bitchypants leaned over and upped my pain meds. “That was unexpected. I came to wrap the casts, then I’ll discharge you. Are you up for that, or would you like me to come back later?”
“Get it done,” I told her through sobs, too miserable to think straight.
She got it done without much help from me. I laid on the bed while my new casts dried, trying to figure out where I should go and how I should get there. Dad practically threw me out, Prescott didn’t want me around, and I hadn’t heard from anyone else yet. They weren’t coming, either. Dad ran the garage and ruled the roost. No one would cross him.
By the time the lady came in to get my billing information, I was numb. I gave her the garage address. She said they had a program for people with no insurance and would send it along so I could look it over after I’d gotten some rest. A nurse handed me a prescription for pain meds, instructions for taking care of myself, and a crutch, then let me walk out the door.
I stood outside the emergency room, leaning on my new crutch, wearing faded pink sweatpants and a tie-dyed shirt from the donation bin. Fortunately, my boots and socks had survived the crash, though I could only wear anything on my right foot. My left boot and sock, the only possessions I currently owned aside from paperwork, dangled in a plastic bag wrapped around my right wrist. No idea what happened to my wallet. It must have flown for distance in the crash and gotten lost in marsh or mud.
Night had fallen while I was inside. Pools of yellow light dotted the parking lot, glinting off the sea of cars. With no money, no welcome at home, no ride, and no way to call anyone, I had no idea what to do. I could’ve used the phone inside, but I didn’t know anyone’s number. Even if I had, I didn’t know who to call.
Instead of giving up, something I’d never done before and had no intention of starting now, I leaned forward and took one step, then another. Pretty soon, I’d worked myself down to the sidewalk. Panting from the work, I told the curb to go fuck itself and kept going down the street. The bench at the bus stop looked pretty damned good, though, so I sat and took a break.
My stomach growled.
A bus trundled toward the stop and I waved it off. It stopped anyway and the door opened.
The driver gave me a friendly smile. “Do you need a lift?”
I shook my head. My pride wanted me to keep my mouth shut, but I knew I’d have to screw it to the wall sooner or later. I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t have the fare.”
He looked me over. His brown eyes reminded me of Prescott. My chest ached.
“C’mon.” He stood and offered me a hand. Prescott had way better abs than this guy. “Get out of the weather for a little while and keep me company. There’s no one else on board. This job gets kinda boring sometimes. I’m Mike.”
My eyes itched. I lurched to my foot and hobbled onboard with his help.
“Looks like you’ve got a heckuva story.” He drove the bus away from the stop and kept his eyes on the road.
Staring at the window, I could only see my own reflection. I looked like shit with some shit sauce on top. My hair, still crusted with blood, stuck out at odd angles, and bandages covered my neck and part of my face. Small cuts studded my lips and bruises darkened the hollows under my eyes. Though I couldn’t tell in the crappy reflection, I suspected they were also bloodshot. No wonder a random stranger decided to be nice.
“My boyfriend dumped me, I crashed my bike, and my dad threw me out.”
Mike whistled. “Damn. Change that to a truck and you’ve got yourself a country song.”
The sound that came out of me straddled the line between laugh and sob. “I lost my wallet and phone too.”
“I’m sorry. Do you have someplace to stay?”
“No.”
“And it’s too late to get into anything for tonight without money. And the banks are closed so you can’t get into your account with no card.” Mike sighed and shook his head. “I won’t get mad if you fall asleep on my bus.”
“Thanks.”
The bus trundled through the night, stopping for lights and passing empty stops. The weight of my situation pressed on my shoulders. Where would I sleep tonight? Tomorrow? Eventually, I’d be fine. I knew that. Mechanic ran in my blood and I could prove myself to anyone on that front. As soon as my bones healed, I could get a job. Until then...
Fucked.
I leaned my head against the window and dozed to engine noise.
***
Warmth pressed against my bare back. Scotty twined a hand in my hair and tugged my head back. Kissing my neck, he breathed on my flesh and gave me goosebumps. I held onto the belt loops of his slacks. He thrust his hips against me and slid his hand down my side to my thigh.
“Take your bike and get away from me,” he mumbled into my skin. After one more kiss, he tightened his grip and shoved my head to the road, scraping my cheek across the rough asphalt. “So long and thanks for the sex,” he growled. He stomped his shiny dress shoe onto my arm, snapping it in half.
“Hey.” Mike poked my good shoulder and withdrew his hand. “Sorry to wake you, but my shift is almost over and I’m taking the bus in for the night. This is the last stop.”
Rubbing my eyes to chase away the weird nightmare, I groaned at the aches and sharp pain across my body. The painkillers had worn off. My broken bones hurt like a motherfucker, and I must’ve lost a layer of skin off my neck and face.
“Okay. I’ll get out.”
Mike helped me stand and use the wheelchair ramp. “Good luck, Angelfish.”
“Thanks. Have a good one.” Sleep fogged my head. I hobbled to the nearby shelter and sat on the bench. The memory of Prescott’s hands on my flesh—and the cool night air—made me shiver. How long would it take to get over a stupid one-day fling? Why did I have to be the one stuck on a rebounding guy? Shouldn’t he be the one stuck on me?
I had to stop thinking about him. Bigger problems needed my attention. Like the immediate future. Dad might cool off enough to go home in the morning. His tirade in the exam room replayed in my head, and I couldn’t decide what he really meant.
All my life, he’d done everything he could to keep me safe without hovering. Every lesson he’d taught made sense. Wear a helmet. Check your work, then double-check it. Look both ways. Don’t shit where you eat. Be home by dark. Kick assholes in the balls and run. Own up when you fuck up. Call when you need a ride.
This needed too much brainpower for the amount of pain I was in, and sitting and worrying wouldn’t solve anything. I lurched to my foot and used the crutch to wobble up the street. If I walked far enough, I’d wind up at home. Once I got there, I’d figure out what I needed to do. Either Dad would yell or not.
Walking took effort. Every hop jolted me with agony. An eternity after I got up, I paused, panting and trembling. I looked back and saw I’d gone maybe fifty yards. At this rate, I’d get home sometime next week.
Fuck my life.
I kept going, determined not to roll over and die. No way, no how, would I give up because something got hard.
Maybe I should have thought of that before I rode away from Prescott. I didn’t have to leave just because he asked me to. Except that felt shitty and stalkery. If I told him to go away, I’d want him to go away.
Fuck my life.
A honking horn startled me enough to make me jump, which made me lose my balance. I hit the sidewalk. On my left side, of course. I also screamed at the searing agony. Because fuck you, that’s why.
“Are you okay?” Prescott dropped to a knee beside me and touched my shoulder.
He had a lot of nerve, showing up and asking moronic questions. “Do I fucking look okay?”
Prescott recoiled with a grimace.
“Christ, I’m sorry, Angelfish.” Combo, my big brother, crouched at my back. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I lay gasping on the ground, hoping against hope I hadn’t cracked my casts. “What do you assholes want?�
��
Combo snorted. “She’s fine. Help me get her into the truck.”
Prescott leaned close and used a finger to brush hair off my forehead. “This is my fault.”
“It’s not,” Combo said. He shoved Prescott in the arm. “She did something stupid. That’s on her.”
“Fuck you,” I snapped. At both of them.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Prescott said with a sigh.
I wanted to strangle him and kiss him at the same time.
“Grow the fuck up,” Combo growled. “If you can’t handle her when she’s pissed and in pain, you aren’t good enough for her. She’s a woman, not a fuckbot. You want her, you get all of her, not just the fun parts.”
“Go fuck yourself, Combo.”
Combo smirked at me. “Shove it up your ass.”
Prescott heaved a sigh and scooped me up into his arms. It hurt, but everything hurt. “Let’s get you home.”
“Great,” I groaned.
Between the two men, they got me into Combo’s tow truck cab. I hated every second of it. Prescott climbed in beside me but clung to the door, leaving me as much room as he could on the bench seat.
The truck rumbled down the street, jarring every bone in my body. My teeth hurt from clenching my jaws so hard.
“So we’ve been driving around the city, looking for you, for about three hours now,” Combo said. “Dad didn’t say anything until Prescott here showed up and asked where you were. Then Dad told us he’d been waiting for your dumb ass to call for a ride.”
Prescott held up my wallet, crusted with dry mud. How he’d gotten it didn’t matter. My eyes watered. I leaned against him and he draped an arm around my shoulders. His gentle touch riled up the swirling doubts I’d been nursing since this afternoon, but I didn’t have the energy to indulge them.
“We went to the hospital,” Combo continued, “but you’d already walked out. On one foot. Jesus, you can be stubborn-ass bitch. We drove around there for a while. Called the cab companies. Prescott had the bright idea you maybe caught a bus. We’ve been checking stops on the routes that serve the hospital since then.”
The urge to continue snapping at both of them faded under the onslaught of Prescott’s fingers brushing my upper arm. I settled and focused on breathing. Combo pulled the truck into the garage lot, navigating through the cars in need of repair and the line of motorcycles.
As soon as Combo shut off the engine and stepped out, Prescott leaned down and kissed the side of my head. “You abandoned me in kind of the middle of nowhere. Do you have any idea how much the cab ride cost to get back to the garage?”
Sparks shot through my body, pushing the pain into the background. I geared up for the fight that would finally drive us apart and stop all this uncertainty. Knowing what to expect let a weird kind of relief pour in. “You told me to go away.”
Combo yanked the door open. It screeched loud enough to keep Prescott quiet. “C’mon,” Combo barked, “let’s go. She looks like shit and needs to get some sleep.”
The asshole had lousy timing.
Frowning, Prescott pulled away. He stepped out of the truck and turned his back on me. Combo raised an eyebrow and flicked his gaze between us. I scowled and struggled to get myself to the ground from two feet up. Combo helped keep me steady and fetched the crutch for me.
I stumped to the outdoor stairs and glared at them. My dad and I shared the apartment over the Grease Dragon Garage offices. Twenty steps up to the front door might as well have been twenty miles with how crappy I felt. If Prescott would just pull the trigger and say it, I’d feel better. Sort of. No, I’d feel twenty thousand times worse.
But the sidewalk hadn’t defeated me and neither would some set of goddamned stairs. I shoved the crutch at Combo’s chest and leaned on the railing instead.
“You could ask for help,” Combo said.
“Fuck off.” I hopped up the first step. The landing jarred every inch of my body and I whimpered.
Combo stood directly behind me, following each hop. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“Go fuck yourself.” I gritted my teeth. Hop. Hop. Hop. Prescott could go fuck himself too. Fucking coward. Hop. Hop. Hop. Sweat soaked my lower back and my muscles screamed. Hop. Hop. Hop.
Halfway up, I leaned against the railing at the landing to catch my breath. Prescott caught up to us. He edged past Combo and faced me, his expression so uncertain I wanted to laugh in his face. The guy still didn’t know what he wanted.
Then I squawked because he scooped me up into his arms and carried me up the rest of the way. I thought about struggling, but I’d do that after the fucking stairs. No sense wriggling my way out of a ride.
Combo hurried ahead of us and opened the screen door with a metal screech, then the front door. “Dad, we found her.”
Dad sat at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper with the overhead light on. In the middle of the night. He grunted without looking.
Prescott stepped into the kitchen behind Combo. Though I squirmed, he tightened his grip. I gave up to avoid hurting myself more if he decided to dump me on my ass. No one moved for several long seconds.
“She’s okay,” Combo said.
“She’s not okay,” Dad snapped. He slammed the paper on the table. “She’s fucked up and she gave me a fucking heart attack. Some strange woman called the garage to tell me she almost got killed, then I find out she wasn’t wearing her helmet like a moron, and then she fucking disappears from the hospital because she’s too goddamned like her dad and could’ve been splattered on the pavement like her mom! Jesus Christ, Angelfish. You’re supposed to be the responsible one.”
In the middle of his rant, the meaning of it dawned on me. I’d scared him. He knew I could crash. We all rode that risk. Everything had been kind of routine until he discovered I’d been reckless, then he realized I’d almost gotten myself killed for no reason. And that scared him. Now he blamed Prescott for making me do something stupid that nearly took me away from them both. Because the alternative—thinking I didn’t respect him enough to listen to him—hurt more.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” The words came out smaller and quieter than I expected.
Prescott set me on the floor. “I’m sorry too. This is my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” I let go of him to lean on the table and swallowed my pride. “I did something fucking stupid. I’m lucky as fuck I didn’t crack my head open on the road. And there’s just no excuse. You raised me better than that, Daddy, and I fucked up, and now if you want me to get my own place because you can’t stand to see me anymore, then I will.”
We glared at each other.
Dad raised his newspaper and held it between us like a shield. “Don’t do it again,” he grumbled, his voice rough and thick.
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
That settled that. Using the wall, I hopped down the hall to my bedroom.
“See you tomorrow, Dad,” Combo said. I could hear the fucker smirking while I quaked on the inside.
The front and screen doors opened and shut. Maybe Prescott would find someone to tow his car someplace else and get it fixed. Maybe I should check on the part it needed in the morning and take care of it. Yeah, I’d do that. No reason to force him to deal with me anymore.
Steadying hands on my hips while I stood in my doorway shocked the hell out of me. I would’ve hit the floor if not for them. Except he made me fall in the first place. Before I could snap at Prescott, he pulled me close from behind.
He breathed warmth on my neck. “I asked you to go park your bike,” he murmured into my ear. “I did not tell you to go away. It never occurred to me that I needed to explicitly ask you to come back.”
Goosebumps marched down my limbs, but I wouldn’t let him screw with my head more than he already had. I powered through the tingling in my fingers to reach for that fighting stance I’d found in the truck. No way would I forget how little we had in common, along with all the other reasons I cou
ldn’t quite remember. “Maybe I didn’t want to come back.”
“You left your helmet. Even if you thought you didn’t want to come back, your subconscious did. You’re just too much of a pain in the ass to listen to it.”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
“Not now. You just want to hatefuck, and that’s no fun.”
I scowled at having my own words thrown back at me.
He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off my foot then set me at the foot of my bed. “Do you have any spare pillows to stuff under your leg?”
With his help, I sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. “No.” My gaze landed on his zipper. Even though I hurt too much to even consider sex, I still wanted what was behind it. This sonofabitch had, in one short day, managed to crawl under my skin and make me need him. “I have a stuffed animal in the closet. Back corner, on the floor.”
He turned and gave me a great view of his ass straining against his slacks. Between that and the soft mattress under my butt, my anger faded. My eyes drifted shut. I snapped them open. This conversation needed to get finished. Except I had no idea how to do that anymore. If he wanted to leave, he would’ve done it sometime between Cooper’s Point and here.
“This is adorable.” Grinning, he held up my one stuffed animal, an angelfish bigger than my head. “I should’ve known this is what it’d be.”
“Yeah. Why’re you here?”
His smile dimmed. “You look about ready to fall over. Maybe we should talk in the morning.”
“No, dammit.” I yawned. Stupid fucking body, giving up on me when I needed it most. “Now.”
Kneeling at my feet, he tugged my boot and sock off. “I think you’ve done enough for one day.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” My eyes drifted shut again.
“Angelfish, you’re hurt. You need rest to heal.”
My ability to resist existed only in my head. I fell asleep sitting up.
***
Chirpy cell phone buzzing woke me to warmth and pain. The bed shifted and the noise went away. Weight settled on my hip. The mattress under me kept moving, rising and falling, and I noticed I lay at an odd angle—not quite on my side and not quite on my back. Also, I was naked aside from the two casts.
