by Leanne Davis
It isn’t like Wyatt needs me at his school either. He likes me and enjoys me. He finds comfort, care, and understanding in me. He knows I’m not with him for his talent or his name or popularity or anything so shallow. He values that in me. But he doesn’t usually need me.
“Wyatt… please tell me what’s going on. The specifics. Stop with the vagueness.”
“I’m really just tired. I don’t like the prick in my house who makes me feel like I can’t relax. That’s it. I swear. I’m sorry, I’ll stop being so pushy. But right now, I really liked how you felt.”
I melt into him. “I like how you feel, too, but not where parents and a stranger can see us. Okay?”
He grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles in a sweet apology that is so Wyatt. “Let’s go for a drive then,” he says, giving me wink and a grin that is much more like the old Wyatt.
“Let me just tell my parents that I’m driving you home.”
Chapter 6
WESLEY
“What are you doing?”
Ryder turns as I approach. It’s Saturday, and I’ve been given the day off, and I’m glad because it’s sunny and warm. Ryder has his boat on the trailer he pulled out from the barn. He’s been out there for over an hour with the engine cover off, looking inside the boat, under it, and crawling back out and leaning against it, his lips moving. I’m bored out of my mind. I’ve been binge-watching a show and now I’m antsy. The life I’m used to isn’t soft or easy or sitting around. So, seeing what he’s all about is at least something to do. As I walk up, he begins shaking his head and swearing. “You know how to work on jet boats?”
I shake my head to the negative. “No. Nothing. Never even been on one. What’s the problem?”
“Before this is all over, we’ll have to remedy that. But for the time being, sadly, no one is going on this boat. I’ll have to get it fixed before the fall Chinook start migrating up the river. Can’t miss that.”
He’s speaking a foreign language. “And the problem?”
“Crack in the block where the motor sits. See that water down there? I was taking on water when I launched, and the bilge pump was pumping out ridiculous amounts. I’ll have to take the engine out, get the crack in the metal underneath welded and set it back inside before I reconnect all the wiring.”
“That sounds like an impossible job. How are you lifting this thing?” I stare at the boat motor. It’s a square shape with wires, metal parts, big and small, that fit as snugly as a jigsaw puzzle in the box he swings up.
He rubs a hand over his head. “It’s not a pleasant one. I’ll have to hoist the engine from the rafters of the barn. Good thing they’re very strong.”
“How do you hoist an engine?”
“Follow me. That’s a good place to start. I could use your muscle and help. I’ll pay if you’re interested.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“It’s nothing I can’t teach you, and it’ll save me taking it into a boat repair shop. You have any idea the labor costs they charge? You’ll be far cheaper. What do you say?”
“Sure.” I follow him into the barn. He turns the overhead lights on. It used to have a hay loft that was removed. The rafters are all visible and the ceiling is arched and high overhead. Ryder drags a tall ladder from where it lay alongside the barn. I quickly grab the other end and we maneuver it underneath where the boat was previously parked. He goes to a workbench in back and returns with a rope and pulley-type gadget. “This is the hoist. We’ll hang it from the rafters; see that crossbeam? I put it there so the roof is reinforced for this. Then we’ll put the boat under it, hook the hoist to the engine and slowly pull it out of the boat, hoping it holds in one piece and doesn’t fall to the ground and wind up costing me ten grand.” He smirks. “Not like you could steal this. Who’d buy it, huh?”
I laugh. Ryder laughs, too. “Glad to see you got over your squeamishness about being a thief.”
“Or a helper to a friend.”
“Right.”
“So, what’s next?” Ryder starts climbing the ladder with the hoist, intending to thread the rope around a rafter.
Coming down, he calls for me to follow him. “Okay, now for the engine. Gotta unbolt it from the block first. Can you hand me the half-inch socket and ratchet?” he orders as he jumps over the side of the boat.
I stare up at him. Yeah, sure. He might as well have spoken French for how well I understand what he’s asking for. His head pops back up and he grins a little sheepishly. “Sorry. You probably aren’t familiar with those terms.” He bounces back out of the boat and walks over to his metal tool chest. Opening the fourth drawer where metal hardware lies on the padded shelf with smaller round things near it, he picks up what he wants and brings them over to me. “I’ll show you how to use this. Then we can both do it.”
I follow him to the engine, and he gives me a quick tutorial. Clumsily, I start to help, kneeling like Ryder. Copying his every move, I still handle the tools like I have six thumbs and no fingers. I drop them a lot. Ryder comes closer and adjusts the bolt and my grip. “It just takes a little practice. Like this.”
I glance at his profile near me and look down, straining to grasp his instruction. I’ve never been taught how to use tools before. I don’t know anything about engines, especially boat engines. I’ve never been shown how to do anything mechanical, and why? Just because. I start working the tool until it finally stays where I put it and he’s right—in no time I’m keeping up.
“How do you know how to do this?”
“I don’t. We just gotta be careful taking it apart and putting it back together the same way.”
“Without any instructions? Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“Nah. I often work on the engine. But I never pulled it clean out.” He grins, and there’s a spark in his eye. Lord, he’s having fun. We keep working. He has to unhook wires and connections and keep all the details readily available. The parts he’s already undone make me sweat with nerves. I can’t imagine how we’ll put all this back together the way it was. A few more hours go by. He has more pieces carefully laid out in some kind of order that makes sense to him on his workbench.
“You like this?” I stare down at the workbench, organizing some of the tools we just finished using.
“I find it a challenge. I like to see if I can build things that work and hope they don’t crash to the ground and bust into a million pieces.”
“And you think you can just put it all back together?”
“Well, I’ll have to. Tell me when I’m under the hoist hooks,” he says cheerfully. Then he jumps out of the boat, gets into the truck and backs his boat up to his contraption.
Guiding him as he backs up the rig, I shout at him to stop. Ryder comes back to the boat and hooks his hoist to the rope he jerry-rigged around the engine. It feels secure when we pull on it, but the engine weighs far more than we do. “Okay, then.”
We’re just about to test his contraption when Wyatt comes striding into the doorway. “What are you doing?”
“Crack in bottom of the boat, just under the engine block, we have to take the engine out to even take it in and get it welded.” Wyatt nods his understanding quickly. He barely spares me a glance. He sheds his hat and steps next to his dad, guiding the rope on that side, letting Ryder work the hoist lever and shuck it up and down. They move fluidly without speaking, working through eye glances and talking without words. I’ve never done that with anyone. Like a well-oiled machine, they are a team obviously used to doing stuff together, even if neither of them has ever done this particular thing before. It was both complicated and it had lots of steps and parts that require some expertise and direction. I’m a little awed by Ryder’s ability to spit-ball his way through this and be confident he won’t risk having his precious, expensive engine crash to the barn floor.
Wyatt should appreciate his dad more. How nice to have a dad that shows him this type of stuff. Then again, maybe I’m just jealous
. I shift back, holding my side of the engine steady while Ryder works the hoist. No, that’s stupid. Nah, I’m not jealous of Wyatt and his time with his dad.
“You ready?” he calls out to me, since we don’t have that eye-talk thing. I kind of resent Wyatt coming in. We don’t need him. We have this. Ryder starts at my nod. This time, his neck strains with nerves and his eyes bug out. At last, something actually makes the man nervous. He should be. This equipment cost lots of stupid money and I can’t believe it would be insured for falling from a barn roof. How would one explain that?
Ryder starts cranking the hoist and finally, yeah, sure enough, the unit lifts off the boat platform. An inch, then two, three, and a foot until it’s clear of the boat. It’s slow and seems to be taking forever. All three of us sweat and strain, mostly from our nerves and fear that the hoist or the rafters will fail to support the weight of the engine. The rope is stretched tight into the chain that runs into the hook. Ryder ties it off and carefully releases the hoist handle. We all collectively hold our breath. It stays. The engine hangs there, unmoving. Ryder lets out a triumphant call of glee. So does Wyatt as they hug with a hearty back pat and more cheers.
“Fuck, yeah!” I yell, staring up at the engine hanging from the barn. Ryder high-fives me, and I do it back while grinning. I am smiling at Ryder the cop. And Wyatt his son. Wyatt and I realize we’re grinning at each other and immediately stiffen our backs and turn away.
“What are you cat-calling about?” We both turn at the sound of a female voice. I immediately sober up, straightening my back. Dani.
“Dani-girl, look at what we did!”
“You decided to make a swing out of your boat engine? This some new kind of mid-life crisis?”
“No. I’m saving thousands in service repair fees. I’m doing it all myself.” Ryder beams. In this moment, it’s hard to imagine him threatening me or being intimidating.
“Do you guys have any idea what you’re doing?” She smiles at his glee before her gaze travels over me and quickly away.
Wyatt steps towards her, wrapping an arm around her and resting his hand on her waist as he leans in and kisses her hairline on the side of her head. I turn away. Why? Who cares if they kiss? Hell, they could go fuck right there for all it matters to me. Right? Totally right, I remind myself.
“No. But it’ll all work out. I’ll just put it back in the boat exactly how we took it out.” He sweeps a hand towards his pile of boat parts and small nuts and bolts and straps.
“Does Tara know you started this?” Dani sets her hand on Wyatt’s stomach and her arm around his waist in return. She leans into his side and grins casually with Ryder.
“Well, noooo. But I don’t have to ask her. It’s my boat.” He sounds like a petulant child defending an extravagant purchase he made with his lavish allowance.
“Don’t have to ask her what?” Tara’s voice comes from the outside of the barn until she peeks in and squeals. “What the hell? Why is the engine hanging from the rafters?”
“It’s completely under control. I’m fixing the boat.”
“How?”
“There is a crack in the weld under the engine. I needed to get it out so it can be taken to Todd at the machine shop. See? Already handled.”
“Are you sure that roof is strong enough to support it?”
“Totally.” Ryder glances up, his head nodding. “Yep.”
“You don’t really know.” Tara rolls her eyes. He grins sheepishly with half the enthusiasm he had with Wyatt and me while telling us about the rafters’ ability to support the engine’s weight. “Well, while the engine dangles from the ceiling, come and eat lunch.’’
“Yeah, sure.” He turns to us. “Great. If you’re hungry…”
“I’m fine.”
They are always so worried that I won’t eat. Meals are a big thing around their household. They make them from scratch and check in on each other when they’re eating—it’s all so strange to me. Why coordinate with each other so often when you’re just hungry?
“I’ll clear up the ladder and tools.”
“Excellent. Thanks.”
I turn and look upwards at the ladder before I start to fold it up. Wyatt lets go of Dani and comes towards me. Dani’s still standing there and I’m well aware of her. She watches me after Ryder saunters out and, she clears her throat. I swipe the sweat on my face with my shirt tail. Wyatt has trails of it streaming down his face, too. The day is hot, but the barn is stifling. The work isn’t so much physically demanding as it is nerve-wracking and with the excessive heat, we feel like slicked-up seals. Wyatt turns to me. “Don’t mess up the engine parts or you’ll fuck over Dad’s boat for good.”
I roll my eyes. As if I would even go to the workbench where the engine parts are laid out. I know better than that since I helped far more than Wyatt did to get them there. “Duh,” I huff to myself and then add, “fucking jackass,” under my breath as I swing the ladder from being upright to its side. I move to the center of gravity and start to drag it towards where Ryder pulled it out from.
“What?” Wyatt moves from Dani. She grabs his hand, but he ignores her and the freaking asshole, who I haven’t seen since the night of football, comes towards me aggressively. I set the ladder down and straighten up.
“I said, duh, asshole.” I don’t stand there preening as he shifts and struts his frustration. I move towards the hammer, sockets, and other tools that were left strewn about in the brief frenzy of the final moments of work.
Wyatt follows and is now all but chest-bumping me. “Who the fuck are you? Oh yeah, a traveler. Hitchhiker. Bum. Fucking addict too lazy to work a real job.”
I stiffen, gripping a wrench in my right hand. I tap it to my empty hand. “Careful,” I warn him softly.
“No name jerk-off, whose mama didn’t love him enough to even keep him, huh?”
“Wyatt!” Dani exclaims behind him. “Stop it.”
His chest is puffed out, and the muscles in his arms flex as he puts his hands on his hips. “Well, aren’t you? Can’t tell us his name because he’s some kind of foster care reject, right? Warrants for his arrest more like it. Fuck—I come in here and there you are, trying to play house. Pretending my daddy is yours.” He steps closer. “You might have charmed everyone else in the family, but not me.”
I bristle and step around the tools. “Jealous, little baby boy? Someone stepping on those precious, little privileged toes?” I hate what he says to me. I wasn’t playing house. I don’t think some old couple is my long-lost ideal of a father or mother—No! I resent the goading, even though I know better than to engage. He’s purposely provoking me, and I’m not letting him. Fuck, I really want him to. I’m primed and tense. My muscles are at the ready, my legs poised to spring and my arms raring to swing. This little pissant country boy. Does he think I’m a poor beggar on the street unable to take care of myself? Damn, he really shouldn’t fuck with me. I have ripped muscles from lugging the equivalent of a small woman on my back every day. I sleep on the ground or pavement while soft little Wy-Wy sleeps in his childhood bed with the matching paint from his bedcovers to the carpet. Fuck. This dickweed knows nothing. Is nothing. Could never take me.
Yeah, I fight. I’ve fought for my place in a bed. In a room. In a house. Since I was five years old. I’ve fought for a patch of grass or a foot of sidewalk. Damn, I’ve had knives sliced into my leg and cigarettes put out on my back. And this little baby thinks he can intimidate me?
I don’t back down. I won’t back down now. I have so little in my life, but I have my strength. My strong back. My sharp mind. My sharper reflexes. I live hand to mouth. I haven’t touched a chemical substance in my entire life. I watched countless other kids get fucked up on drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of their lives, lives that were so much like mine. I saw how they became weak and sad and victims. They became vulnerable, and soon were addicts. Junkies. Lost souls.
Not me. I stay sober. Clean. Strong. Primed. Able and ready to defend myself.
Never to be anyone’s victim again.
Dani rushes behind Wyatt, grabbing his bicep with both her hands and trying to pull him back. She is the only thing capable of pulling my gaze from its magnetic lock with Wyatt’s dark black eyes and sneering mouth. “Wyatt! No! Stop it. You’ll get yourself in trouble. This does nothing. Stop it!”
He tries to shake her off. She won’t be shaken. She’s latched to his side like a tick on a dog. “Wyatt, please! Why are you doing this?”
Wyatt doesn’t take his gaze off me. We’re seconds from locking our horns like two ferocious bulls. “Because he’s using them.” I assume “them” refers to Wyatt’s parents. “He’s a degenerate who’s going to hurt them somehow. Mom thinks she’s responding to him out of some misplaced kinship. Well, this asshole isn’t anything like her.”
“That doesn’t excuse this. Stop!” Dani calls at us as Wyatt steps closer to me and she pulls him again. I drop the tool. I don’t need to go to prison for assault or murder. Fists? Sure. I can claim self-defense… maybe. But a weapon? Hell, I’ll never justify that. “Noooo!” Dani’s screaming now and yanking his arm. She’s small and thin so she has little or no effect on Wyatt. He’s gone. Zoned in on me. His rage makes him deaf, dumb, and blind to his girlfriend’s panic.
I don’t glance at her either. I’m not backing down. Smart or not. I’ve had enough shit thrown at me in life to never give up or give in. It doesn’t matter to me when I’m challenged if I’m in the right or wrong. I’ve suffered too much to back down. If you back down, they’ll sniff out your weakness. They’ll pounce on it, manipulate it, and make you weak and vulnerable. I won’t be any of those things again.
Dani swings around between us. I’m aware but neither of us glance down at her. We’re all but baring our teeth and snarling. Wyatt jumps at me and I respond, our arms locking. His fist is drawn back and mine is ready to grab it as I start to punch his gut, when suddenly there is a cry.
