Joy Ride

by Lauren Blakely

Or me, for that matter, obviously.

  I fight off the envy with a full dose of sarcasm. “Have you ever noticed you never have a good pair of headphones when you need them?”

  She huffs. “Message received. I’ll just shut up and read a book.” She reaches for her phone on the seat, but accidentally knocks it to the floor of the car. I lean down to pick it up, and when I hand it to her I see her playlist.

  Nena’s “99 Luftballons.”

  The Go-Go’s “Vacation.”

  Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

  I smirk. That’s too fucking adorable. “You like bubblegum pop?”

  Her cheeks go red. “There’s nothing wrong with bubblegum pop,” she says as she tries to grab her phone from my hand.

  I. Can’t. Resist.

  I don’t know what comes over me, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s the way this girl needles me. It’s her French maid routine. It’s her pushing all my buttons. It’s the way she detests me.

  I hold her phone behind my head.

  “Max,” she says, in a perfect plea. God, it’s hot. I can hear her saying it in bed.

  I feign surprise. “Oh, did you want your phone back, tiger?”

  Her eyes widen when I use that word. Frankly, I’m surprised I said it. But she is a tiger, especially right now as she leans across the seat, reaching for it.

  Damn, I’m an asshole. And yet, I can’t seem to stop playing keep-away with her phone, jamming it far behind me so that it hits the side of the car. She lunges for it, thrusting her arm out, but only hitting my forearm.

  She swats me. “Give it to me.”

  My brain short-circuits. God, she would sound hot saying that bent over the bed.

  Then in a flurry, she unbuckles her seat belt and lunges at me.

  Foul play indeed.

  She’s on me. She’s fucking on me. She climbs, stretching high, her tits near my motherfucking face, so help me God. They are saggy, drooping, ugly breasts.

  Except they’re not.

  They’re perfect. Lush, ripe.

  Like her sweet perfume scent. Like her cinnamon breath that flutters across my cheek as she rises higher. As she reaches, her T-shirt rides up, revealing a sliver of her stomach.

  I’ve never seen anything so sexy in my life.

  I don’t move. I don’t breathe.

  I simply try not to grow more aroused. But then she wraps one hand around my wrist and pries the phone with the other as her breasts smash against my eyes.

  Man down.

  A second later, she wrenches back, dropping down to her seat, clutching her phone. She smooths her hand over her shirt. She won’t look at me. “Something secret on your phone?”

  She jerks her head and gives me a look that could kill.

  I should be pissed at her. I should torment her more. But I feel as if she’s got a legit fear, and I don’t want to be a dick. Nor do I want my dick to be in charge. He’s an idiot.

  I breathe a silent sigh of relief that Operation Deflation is underway.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  She nods as she stares ahead.

  I take my phone from my pocket, toggle over to my Google streaming music, and search for a song. I turn up the volume, close my eyes, and let Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” fill the silence between us.

  When the song nears its end, I open one eye. Henley’s not looking at me. She’s gazing straight ahead, but there’s a smile on her face that says she likes the song.

  And the sentiment.

  8

  The white ball screams across the table, straight at the purple one that’s mere inches from the corner pocket. But the cue ball misses, whacking the side of the table with a dull thud instead.

  That’s how my night has gone.

  I curse under my breath. Usually, I kill it at pool. Tonight, I’m a doormat.

  “Allow me to show you how it’s done.”

  My buddy Patrick takes a swig of his beer, sets down the bottle on the wooden side of the table, and lines up the pool stick. Narrowing his eyes, he takes aim. With a light tap, he delivers the white ball with a textbook stop-shot that sends an orange-striped ball neatly into the pocket.

  And gives him the game.

  “And that’s how you beat the resident pool shark,” he says, thrusting his arms in the air.

  I shake my head in defeat. “Man, I suck tonight.”

  Patrick laughs. “You do. But I’m also awesome. So maybe you want to give me some credit, too.”

  He’s right. And I’m sucking at that, too—basic human understanding. I extend a hand and give him a shake. “Good game. Apparently, I’m an asshole in all sorts of ways today.”

  “Aww.” He adopts an overdone frown. “Want to tell Uncle Patrick all about your rough day?” He racks up for another round, his brown hair flopping in his face when he leans over the table.

  Patrick lives in my building. I call him the half-timer since, well, he lives here only half the time. The rest of his days he’s on the other coast.

  From the hiking boots to the REI pullover shirts, Patrick is outdoorsy to the core. After offering wilderness camping, backpacking, snowshoeing, and cross-country ski trips and tours in the region, he recently expanded his adventure tour company to Northern California.

  I shake my head. “No, thanks. I’ll pass on the impromptu therapy session.”

  What’s there to say, anyway? That woman gets under my skin. Henley’s not just a thorn. She’s the thorniest thorn in the entire history of thorns. Two hours with her and I feel as if I’ve been cut all over. She’s like a kitten that paws at you and ten seconds later your wrist is bleeding.

  “Then I’ll tell you about my rough day,” Patrick offers, and that gets my attention. He doesn’t have rough days, unless you count a lack of snow or an excess of muddy trails. Though, in all fairness, those do sound like tough conditions, but the point is he’s one unruffled dude. He’s precisely the type of guy someone would want to guide them over trails and through wilderness areas. “I had to let one of my guides go today.”

  I make my way around the table, lining up my next shot. “Yeah? What happened? Did he turn left at a trailhead instead of right?”

  Patrick pretends to guffaw deeply. “Actually, he fucked a client on the job. A married client.”

  “Ouch,” I say, wincing as I nail a draw shot on the green ball. Maybe I’m back on my game. Maybe Henley hasn’t totally knocked me off-balance.

  “Gave him the heave-ho,” he says, miming slicing a finger across his throat. “I can’t have those kinds of problems chasing me as I build up a business.”

  That’s one of the reasons Patrick and I get along so well. The dude might be the definition of laid-back, but he’s no slacker. He works hard, he’s disciplined, and he doesn’t let his people get away with shit.

  “Right there with you, man. You need to run a tight ship.” Then I take a beat. “Screwing a chick in the tents is for management only, right?”

  “Hey, now,” Patrick says. “I haven’t done that in—”

  The sound of the door opening loudly interrupts us.

  “Honey, I’m home!”

  It’s Mia, and she stops in her tracks when she sees Patrick at the table. Patrick stops in his tracks, too. He blinks as he takes in my sister in her jeans, high-heeled boots, and pink sweater. Her arms are laden with grocery bags from Whole Foods.

  “I’ll just make my way out of here,” Patrick says in a time-to-help-my-buddy-score-by-making-myself-scarce voice.

  I laugh. “Dipshit. That’s my sister.”

  “Ohhhhh,” Patrick says, then he strides across the hardwood floor and extends a hand to Mia. “Nice to meet you. I’m Patrick. I live a few floors down.”

  Mia smiles brightly as she takes his hand. “Mia. I’m just in town for another day for meetings. Then I head back to the West Coast.”

  “West Coast, you say?” Patrick raises an eyebrow.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” I chime in, joining them as
I grab the bags Mia carries and peek inside to find fresh pasta, tomatoes, and a small bottle of vodka. “Penne with vodka cream sauce?”

  “And a pine nut salad,” she adds, then turns to Patrick. “Max and I were going to cook dinner. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach, and bigger than Max’s stomach, too. Want to join us?”

  My money is on Patrick saying yes. In fact, it seems to take a nanosecond for him to utter, “I’d love to.”

  As Mia heads to the kitchen, I clap him on the shoulder. “Like I said, don’t get any ideas.”

  Patrick puts his hands on his head as if they’re giant brain suckers. “There. All ideas have now disappeared from my head. I’m completely idea-less. Also, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I roll my eyes. “You do know what I mean, and don’t go there.”

  My concern isn’t over him. He’s a great guy. He’d totally do right by my sister. I say it to protect her. She hasn’t had the best luck when it comes to falling for my buddies.

  “Go where?” he asks as he follows my sister.

  “You did not do that.” Mia adopts a stern stare, her forkful of pasta poised midair en route to her mouth.

  “What’s the big deal?” I ask with a shrug.

  “Max,” she admonishes me before she takes a bite of the pasta dish we whipped up.

  “She was getting under my skin,” I say, defending my actions in the town car as I spear a piece of penne with my fork.

  “Some women can do that to a man,” Patrick says, chiming in as if he’s my attorney. I feel as if I need one right now. Once we sat at the table, Mia asked me about my day. After I mentioned the car ride with Henley, Mia broke me down, wheedling all the details out of me.

  Not the sordid ones about my thought process. But the ones about how I played hide-and-seek with Henley’s phone. Which was, evidently, a violation of some girl code I’m unaware of. You know, not being a girl and all.

  “You took her phone,” Mia says. “You held it above your head. There’s only one woman you can do that to, and you shouldn’t do that to her either.”

  Patrick furrows his brow. “I didn’t think you could do that with any woman.”

  Mia looks at him and nods, as if she’s approving his statement. “This guy is smart. Follow his lead. And what I mean is that’s the kind of stuff a brother does to a sister.”

  “Trust me,” I scoff. “I do not think of Henley like a sister.”

  “Trust me. I’ve never done that to my sister,” Patrick says, puffing out his chest like he wants to win all the gold stars tonight.

  I smack his shoulder. “Dude. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

  Mia jumps right back in, womansplaining. “Women are private people. Henley might have photos on her phone she didn’t want you to see.”

  My eyes widen. “Like dirty photos?”

  She rolls her eyes as she takes another bite. “I just mean pictures of friends. Maybe a selfie from the gym. I’ve taken pictures of myself to chronicle my progress when I hired a personal trainer.”

  “You do have really nice arms,” Patrick says in an admiring tone, reaching for a glass of water.

  She flashes a smile as she glances briefly at her arms, since she took off her sweater as we cooked. She wears a light blue tank top now, and her arms are indeed toned. But those strong arms belong to my fucking sister, so I shoot Patrick another hands-off stare.

  “You think Henley was annoyed because she didn’t want me to see shots of her arms?”

  “Shots of her arms, pictures of her friends, photos of her cat. Maybe work information. Maybe she has contracts or memos on her phone. All I’m saying is no matter how much she needles you, you shouldn’t have pretended to abscond with her phone. Just apologize.”

  I groan as I drag a hand over my jaw. “Crap.”

  “I agree with Mia,” Patrick says.

  I sneer at him. “I’m shocked you concur with my sister.” I meet Mia’s eyes. “I sort of apologized to Henley in the car.”

  “You need to do it all the way, Max. Say it and mean it. It’s a small world, as you’re learning, and chances are you’re going to run into her again.” She sets her fork down and smirks. “I have to say, though, hats off to that girl. The feather-duster maid charade sounds hilarious.”

  “Yeah, it killed me,” I say, deadpan.

  When we’re done with the pasta and salad, we clear the plates and Mia returns to the table with a pint of coconut ice cream. She serves it, sliding a bowl to Patrick.

  He points at the scoop, adopting an inquisitive expression. “Coconuts have hair and produce milk. Ever wonder why they aren’t mammals?”

  Mia catches his conversational volley and lobs it right back to him with, “By that same token, why are sweetbreads anything but sweet? They’re organ meats. Glands, of all things.”

  Patrick shudders.

  “Shouldn’t sweetbreads refer to something like sweet, like monkey bread?” Mia adds, her tone intensely serious.

  Patrick takes a spoonful of coconut ice cream. “I do love monkey bread. So much that I have a theory.”

  “Please tell us your monkey bread theory,” I chime in, but Patrick and Mia ignore me.

  “Hear me out.” Patrick’s eyes are on my sister. “My theory is this—it’s impossible to dislike monkey bread. Just try not to like it.”

  “You can’t dislike it,” Mia seconds. “Honestly, it’s fair to say monkey bread can bring about world peace.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “World peace?”

  They nod in unison.

  Maybe they’re onto something, because that gives me an idea.

  9

  The next day during my lunch break, I run a quick errand to the Sunshine Bakery uptown and return to the shop, working hard the rest of the afternoon on a restoration. Tonight is the meeting with David—drinks at Thalia’s to discuss our next steps. I should be able to patch up the Henley situation before then and cruise into business.

  Since we start early in the day, once the clock ticks past four, I say good-bye to the guys and take off.

  But my feet feel heavy, and a vague sense of dread courses through me as I walk. When a cab with an ad for a hot new action flick cruises by on 11th Avenue, I contemplate hailing it and heading to the nearest movie theater. As a leathered old woman leaves a bodega with a steaming cup of coffee, I consider ditching my plan and grabbing a French roast at a cafe somewhere else . . . anywhere but where I’m going.

  But cafes aren’t my style, and avoidance isn’t either. I pride myself on being upfront and facing problems. Most of all on fixing problems. Ironic, in a way, since I thought I was pretty damn direct with Henley five years ago when I explained the problem with the ’69 Mustang Fastback she’d been working on while I was gone. I’d left the car in her capable hands, but the final work didn’t exactly go as planned.

  I told her so when I saw what she’d done—a full-on paint job in champagne gold, but the client didn’t want that color.

  The guy wanted lime gold. Subtle difference in shade, but to a Ford loyalist, it’s everything.

  Her brown eyes had welled up with tears, and I’d felt like an ogre because she said she’d done what I told her to do. “You said it was champagne. I wrote down the paint code.” Those watery eyes had tugged at my heart, but I knew she didn’t want to be treated any differently because she was a woman, so I couldn’t let her tears sway me. Or her insistence. She grabbed her notebook and shoved it at me, trying to show me her notes for the build. But it didn’t matter that she wrote it down—she wrote it down wrong, and it had threatened my reputation. The client didn’t want his car in a different color, and he sure as hell didn’t want me delivering it late.

  “I said lime. This is the kind of stuff you need to get right, because this is going to require a complete redo and that costs time and money,” I’d told her in my best stern voice. My job was to teach her, not take her into my fucking arms and comfort her.

  She’d swatted a
way her tears, raised her chin, and implored me to give her another chance. I gave it to her, fixing the Mustang with her, side by side, stripping the paint and starting over from scratch. Maybe that was my problem—being so damn close to her. It messed with my head, and every day I told myself, “Don’t treat her any differently just because she smells so goddamn sweet.” Every day, I grew more stern with her. Tensions between us were already frayed thin, and they unraveled even further. A little later, when it was time for me to choose which apprentice to move up, I told her it wouldn’t be her.

  I stood by the decision at the time. I still stand by it today. She wasn’t ready. Plain and simple. My decision had nothing to do with her talent—she had more raw ability than anyone I’d ever worked with. It was all natural, too. Henley didn’t come from a family of mechanics, and she wasn’t raised by a dad who built cars. She was like me—drawn to cars in a bone-deep way from a young age, and that was why she studied engineering in school, and that was why she sought me out post-graduation so she could learn the trade.

  My issue was simply that she needed more discipline to balance her talent. After the lime gold fiasco, I told her she could stay on with her apprenticeship and keep learning. I promoted one of the guys instead. She didn’t like being passed over one bit, and she parked those hands on her hips and stared at me like I was Hannibal Lecter.

  “Maybe I should have gotten it right the first time, but I bet if I were one of the guys, you’d forgive the lime gold mistake a lot more easily, wouldn’t you?”

  I’d blinked in shock and held up my hands, as if I needed to fend her off. “Whoa. This has nothing to do with you being a woman.”

  She’d shot me a pointed stare. “Are you sure it doesn’t?”

  I didn’t like the way she was making accusations. I narrowed my eyes. “No. It has to do with you giving me attitude. Like you’re doing right now.”

  “I’m not giving you attitude. I’m giving you the truth. I’ve worked my butt off for you, and this is ridiculously unfair.”

  “And you’re acting ridiculously out of line.”

  “Why can’t you give me another chance to earn the promotion?” Her voice shook as she asked that question, her eyes threatening to fill with tears again. “I told you it was an honest mistake. I showed you that I wrote it down wrong. Are you that cruel that you can’t let this go?”