“Or ask Ben to get it for you, more likely,” Renee teased. She bent down to pull a clean rag from the basket below, draped it over the edge of the counter, and then propped her elbows on it.“Don’t forget, Michael, I know how you are about your tools. I can wait until you’ve finished though.”
Nodding, Michael finished wiping the wrench in his hand, added it to the drawer at his elbow, and lifted a blackened socket piece from the scatter on the counter.“How was your day?”
“Fine,” Renee said, smiling softly. She watched as he painstakingly removed the grease from the socket, set it aside, and began work on another.“My class went well, but I don’t much like doing them in the park. Level ground is harder to find, and it was cool most of the day, so…” Her voice trailed away and she shrugged slowly.“Yoga just isn’t the same if you have to wear a sweater to keep from freezing.”
“Good thing you don’t teach hot yoga, then,” Michael answered, laughing.“No climate control at the park – you’d have been shut down entirely for the day.”
She laughed, daintily reaching out to collect the soiled towels as Michael reached for another clean one. She dropped them into the basket of dirty rags beside the counter, and turned away to scan the garage.“You must be proud of this,” she said.“Making it work all on your own.”
“I am.” Michael shrugged, placing the sockets neatly into their places.“And I know I don’t do it like everyone else does, you know? I care about my place, my tools, the quality of my work. Right on down to these,” he said, shrugging again as he held up a stray plastic zip tie.“I can’twork efficiently if I don’t know where things are, if my tools aren’t in good condition. They’re cheap enough, most of them, but I won’t pay overhead as easily if I’m always replacing things. So I put it away.” As he spoke, he knelt down to open a drawer below the counter, slipping the tie in amongst piles of others, each pile neatly sorted by color. He watched her eyebrows raise, felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment, and closed the drawer.“I just like to know where things are,” he said.
“That makes sense. You still have that one in here? It was here the last few times I was here, too, wasn’t it?” Renee wrinkled her brows, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the Camaro in the third bay.“And actually, now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t remember ever not seeing that there.” She glanced over at Michael expectantly before looking back toward the car, and as he finished his cleanup, she left the workbench and walked over to the Camaro.
“It’s the one I’ve talked about now and then,” Michael said, following a moment later. He watched her manicured fingernails glide over the chrome trim piece that edged the windshield, and smiled.“It’s only just finished. Looks alright, I think, but maybe she needs a paint job.”
“Maybe. Does it run? Or is it just for–“
“Looks?” Michael broke in,grinning.“Oh no, she runs. I’ve idled the engine over the rebuild process to check things, make sure it sounded right, ran right. She runs fine. Purrs, even.”
Her eyes twinkling with amusement, Renee bent at the waist and peered in through the passenger window.“Nice. You did all this? The inside, too?”
Michael nodded, embarrassed again.“I did. Well, most of it, anyway. I mean, someone else sewed the leather, but I put it on, put everything together. Bought the parts, put them in. It kept me busy, you know… after.”
Glancing briefly up at Michael, Renee nodded her understanding and then turned back to the car.“Can I see? Inside, I mean?”
“Have at it.” He laughed as she made a little excited humming noise, opening the driver’s side door as she slipped into the passenger seat.
“This is beautiful, Michael,” Renee said, running her hands over the leather interior. She looked over at him, smiling as he settled into the seat beside her, and twisted to look into the back.“You did a great job with this. How does it drive?”
“I don’t know yet,” Michael answered with a shrug.“I haven’t gotten around to driving heryet, just ran the engine to make sure everything was good there.”
“Wow, not even a test drive yet?”
“Not yet. I finished herright before my mom’s accident,” he said.“And then everything with me and you, and then… I just haven’t yet.”
“Oh.”
Watching her face as she opened the glove box and peered inside, Michael’s heart warmed. Thinking she would likely be uninterested, Michael hadn’t mentioned the Camaro much over the years, but he could see now that he had underestimated her. She stroked the soft leather of the seats just as he had when they’d arrived, examined the controls in the dashboard and commented on the old style of the steering wheel.“Wanna take her for dinner?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question, hadn’t planned to ask, but as Renee turned wide eyes in his direction, he was glad the words were out.
“That would be so cool. Are you sure it’ll get us there?”
Michael felt his mouth twist wryly.“Relatively. We’re not going far though– Alfonso’s is close to here.”
Renee shrugged agreeably.“Alright then. Let’s do this.” She waited in the car while Michael got out to open the bay door, and he saw her smiling as Ben’s voice came over the loud speaker, telling Michael to leave the bay door open and go on, and that he’d get the door as he locked up. He could see her bending and twisting in her seat, examining the car, and she looked over at him with sparkling eyes as he got back into the car.“This is really amazing, Michael,” she said.“It’s beautiful.”
He couldn’t hold back a smile as he twisted the key in the ignition and listened to the engine roar to life, the sound echoing in the quiet of the garage. The smile didn’t falter during the drive either, as he and Renee chatted easily about the process of rebuilding the car, the varieties of interior colors he could have chosen, and the merits of the old American muscle cars. Michael was in his element, and the awkwardness between them slowly bled away. By the time he pulled into a parking spot at the restaurant they had agreed on, her hand was tucked into his as comfortably as if it had always been there, and he felt like he was losing a part of himself when he released her hand to get out of the car.
“Stay there, I’ll get your door,” he said, grinning as he got out of the car.“If we’re doing this old-school, you have to let me. No arguments.”
She didn’t answer before he closed his door, but he saw her smiling as he opened it again to push down the manual lock button. He was smiling too as he opened Renee’s door, and she stepped out with a courteous tip of her chin.“Such a gentleman,” she teased, laughing.
“That’s how I roll,” Michael retorted, slipping his arm around her waist as he led her into the restaurant.
Inside, Renee looked around, admiring the décor and commenting quietly in his ear about the quaint uniforms of the wait staff.“I can never get enough of this place,” she said quietly as they waited to be led to their table.“Cass told me about it after Drew first brought her here, and I’ve been a thousand times since. I think it’s my favorite place to eat, when I let myself come here. Maybe my favorite treat for myself.”
Michael grinned, nodding politely to the server who stepped up to lead them to their seats.“It’s a good thing you suggested this then,” he murmured to Renee, following as she fell into step behind their waitress.
Chapter Forty-Five
It didn't take long for Michael and Renee to find a sense of ease, once they had settled in at their table. Michael watched, smiling as Renee dunked a cube of roasted chicken into the simmering cauldron of beer, cheese, and sausage they had ordered for their first course. She closed her eyes in bliss, her lips curving upward in a smile as her mouth closed over the cheesy morsel.“I don’t let myself eat this kind of thing often,” she murmured around the bite of food.“I mean, I come here all the time with Chelsea or Cass, but we always just get veggies. Mmm. God, this is good.”
“I thought you said you come here all the time,” Michael said, still watching her. “How can you still be so thrilled wi
th it?”
“I do come here all the time. But I don’t usually let myself sit here and chow down onbeer cheese,” Renee answered, laughing.“It’s good, but you really don’t want to know what the nutrition label would say.” She shrugged, meeting his eyes briefly as she reached for her drink.“It’s much more healthy without the meaty-cheesy stuff.”
Arching an eyebrow, Michael speared a bite-sized cube of steak and swept it through the fondue mixture still simmering in the middle of their table.“You’re right, I don’t want to know.So don’t tell me, okay?” He grinned, popping the bite into his mouth and chewing slowly. “But we could have gotten veggies if you’d wanted– theyhave a sauce that’s got more broth and stuff in it, I think. Less fat and stuff.” Michael shuddered, forcing the words out as he dragged a cube of chicken through the thick cheese mixture between them.
Rene shook her head in mock disgust, snatching a carrot spear from the side of the vegetable platter. “That’s just not fair. I bet you could eat here every day and it wouldn’t change your body at all. I can eat here just once and I have to buy bigger bras and change my dress size.” As she spoke, she poked the carrot spear into the center of another bite of chicken, dunking it carefully into the cheese before snapping the bite off between straight, white teeth.
“Oh yeah, that would be terrible,” Michael teased.“So I’ll meet you here tomorrow, right? Same table, same time?”
Rolling her eyes, Renee swallowed, washing the bite of chicken down with a sip of her wine.“Clown.”
“This is fun though, you gotta admit.” Michael signaled the server who was hanging in the shadows several feet away from their table; at his wave, the server stepped forward quietly and filled Renee’s glass.“Makes you wanna second-guess the dumping me part, doesn’t it?” Winking in response to Renee’s exasperated eye roll, he raised his glass in a toast.“To cheese boobs.”
“Cheese boobs,” Renee responded, giggling. But she raised her glass too, and sipped quietly, watching him over the rim.“Tell me something.”
“Uhmm,” Michael responded,“I still hate green beans?”
“Why do you think we came here for me to dump you?”
Michael shrugged.“Didn’t we?”
“If you think that, then why’d you come?”
Winking again, smiling to mask the fear he was sure she could see in his eyes, Michael speared another bite of steak and held it under the fondue, fishing for a bit of sausage. He took his time, stretching seconds until Renee raised her eyebrows, watching him impatiently.“Because,” he said.“I hoped the man food would make me feel better while I plied you with wine, and that the girly service would soften you upso you’d change your mind.”
“That’s not true.” Rolling her eyes, Renee shrugged her shoulders and reached for her purse.“But alright, if you won’t take this seriously, I’ll just leave you to it and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Surprised, he dropped the drenched bit of meat off the end of his fondue fork, and as a puddle of cheese slowly spread out around the uneaten morsel, Michael reached out to catch her by the wrist.“You’d just walk out on me like that?”
Amused now, Renee settled her purse beside her thigh again and sat back, twisting her wrist to force Michael’s grip to loosen. She didn’t pull away though, she only drew her arm back enough to allow Michael’s hand to slip into hers as she watched him from the other side of the table, a challenge in her eyes.“Isn’t that what you’re accusing me of doing?”
“Alright, I deserve that.” Michael dropped his eyes to their joined hands, watching the dark pad of his scarred thumb tracing circles over the fine, translucent skin of her wrist.“Simply put, I came because I wanted to be here. With you.Specifically.” Now that they were down to their reason for being there, down to the subject of the dinner, he felt his stomach curdle around the few bites he had eaten. He fought to stay outwardly calm, but his nerves were like live electrical wires, sending jolts of anxiety through his body as he waited to see what she would say next.
“That’s honest; it’s a start. So then, tell me why you think we came here for me to dump you.”
Shrugging, Michael looked away. On the other side of the dining room, a young pregnant woman working earnestly to quiet an increasingly impatient toddler. She looked exhaustedly toward the man across from her, who Michael assumed must be her husband, the children’s father, but the father was disengaged, busily clicking away on his cell phone. Michael shook his head and brought his eyes back to the issue at hand. Hard as it was for him to vocalize what he was feeling, he was just going to have to suck it up.“There’s a couple over there,” he said quietly to Renee.“A man and woman. She’s pregnant, all swollen and tired and unhappy-looking. Maybe she’s near the end of her time;she’s pretty big.” He watched emotions flicker over her face as she listened, trying to figure out what he was really saying, and he went on.“I guess the man there is the father, and she’s trying to get his attention so he’ll help with the kid.”
“Okay…” she was still watching him raptly, but she dipped her eyes then and peeked over her own shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the table he was talking about without being obvious.“I can’t see,” she said finally, shaking her head.“What’s the point?”
Michael smiled softly, tearing his eyes away from the frustrated young mother on the other side of the room.“You know, it’s crazy because I want everything he has, but I don’t want to be that.” He watched her face soften as she watched him talk, her mouth pursing sexily as she took in his words.“I built my business early, working hard even when all I was working for was myself. And I worked hard when I got married too, but I put my heart into my marriage, Renee. I worked on my business, and I tried hard to grow the shop so I could support Nicolette and the kids we always talked about. But I gave my heart to her. Sure, I worked at work, but I gave my everything to her. And to lose it all… it hurt to lose that. It hurt.”
“I know it did. I could see it when I met you, and it wasn’t long after your divorce, right?”
“Yeah, just a little while. Maybe a year or so, when we met while Drew and Cass were planning their wedding. It’s crazy, it had been a year already. I’d slept around, spent more time drunk than sober. I was fine, everybody thought I was fine. I told them I was. But… I was wrecked.”
“What’s that have to do with the family behind us? Or us, for that matter?Or why you thought I wanted to break up?”
“Well, you said you didn’t want to feel like you have to compete with the past, right?”
Warily, she nodded.“Ye-es.”
He nodded, reaching out to take her hand again.“I want you to understand why, even though the past matters– and I won’t deny that it does, because I tried that and you saw through me like a new window,” he said, smiling back as she grinned at his words.“Renee,you aren’t in a competition. I want you to be able to get what I’m feeling… and I don’t want you guessing, because I don’t ever want a woman to leave me guessing again.”
“Alright.”
“And I don’t want you thinking somehow you can let me down like she did, by not being whatever you think I want you to be. I want you to know that this is what I want. This, right here.” He could feel the ferocity in his expression, could feel the waves of tension rolling down her arm and into her hand, through his palm and up into his own body. Closing his eyes, he turned away from Renee and glanced back at the family across the room; the little girl was content again, her hand completely covered by her mother’s larger hand, guiding her as she ate. Her father glanced up briefly and then went back to his phone, hardly noticing his daughter’s pride as she managed to bring her food to her mouth without dripping.
“Okay.” Renee squeezed his hand reassuringly, meeting his eyes across the table.“Then talk to me, Michael. Don’t shut me out.”
“Look, when I saw Nicolette, a thousand things went through my mind, and I didn’t know how to explain it all without sounding like an asshole. Realizing she was p
regnant, I wondered if she lied, if she got remarried, if she left me for… someone else.” He swallowed against the tightness in his throat, tried to force air into– and then out of– his lungs.“And to have you standing right there, and know you felt awkward because I couldn’t keep it together?”
“I was fine,” Renee said softly.“Curious, mostly. Keep going.”
Michael sighed, glancing down at their hands, still together on the tabletop.“She’s still beautiful – she looked exactly the same as the day she left. I remember her laugh, her… smell. I remember fighting with her over the countertops in the kitchen. I remember letting her win, how smug she was, and how she gushed when I covered those countertops in flowers one year for her birthday. I didn’t marry her for a year, Renee, or for two or three or five. I married her for the rest of my life, and then suddenly I was alone again. So yeah… it was hard for me to see her.” He tightened his grip on Renee’s fingers, shook his head as if to shake away the sting of tears at the backs of his eyes.
“But how do I tell you that, and watch you feel intimidated by it when you’re so much more than that already?” She smiled, opened her mouth to respond, and closed it again when he shook his head to silence her and kept talking.“Yes,” he said,“I still look at you and see my best friend, the girl who would have sat with me and watched me cry like a bitch and probably still managed to respect me as a man. I see the girl who isn’t afraid to eat popcorn with me all night long and watch stupid movies and who doesn’t get mad when I talk shit the whole time, because we can always just watch it again.I look out past today, to Harmony’s wedding coming up, to Evan’s wedding one day, to… whenever. And I see you, the girl who doesn’t care when I talk through the movie.”
More Than Friends (Kingsley #4) Page 22
