Gibson Boys Box Set

by Locke, Adriana

  A whistle screams through the air from Blondie as I lift the edge of my diesel truck logo shirt. I spin my hat around backward, the music just starting to feed into my blood when it shuts off.

  “Down, Peck,” Machlan barks.

  “Don’t blame me if you go broke,” I shout back to him.

  The bar is flooded with light. The front door opens, and Dylan steps inside.

  My stomach flip flops at the sight of her.

  She has on the same cutoffs that she had on the day she ripped my ass at Dave’s. A T-shirt falls easily off one shoulder. It has a rainbow across the front.

  Her eyes scan the bar, lighting up when she sees Navie. I stand still—both unable and afraid to move.

  “Hey, Navie,” she chirps. The door closes behind her. She makes her way across the room toward the bar. “Thought I’d check this place out tonight …” Her voice falls as her gaze lands on me. “What are you doing here?”

  I gulp.

  I’m not sure how to play this off … and in front of Navie, no less. I look at my friend and spy a quirked brow.

  “I’m volunteering to host a strip tease event on Saturday nights,” I say. “Want a preview?”

  “Get. Down,” Machlan says. Again.

  Dylan presses her lips together. Still, there’s a hint of a smile that makes me grin. I don’t know what it is about her refusal to be nice to me that’s so amusing, but it is.

  “I can’t believe they let you in here,” she says.

  “Why wouldn’t we?” Navie asks.

  I bow my head as I hop to the floor. The soles of my boots squeak against the concrete. If I look up, I’ll see the equivalent of a rainbow-shirt wearing iceberg get plowed by a few Titantic-esque truths that are probably going to hurt.

  Me.

  That’s who it’s going to hurt. Because she’s going to blame me for not telling her, and her fingernail poking my chest hurts like a motherfucker.

  Dylan pops her hip, a hand finding the bend right above it. Her eyes are glued to me as she sighs. “Well, at least he returned what he stole.”

  “Good thing we don’t kick him out over not paying for shit,” Machlan says, heading toward the storeroom. “Fucker always has a tab.”

  “I pay it off every month,” I yell at him.

  I turn slowly back around to see Navie and Dylan looking at me. Dylan looks defiant, as usual, but Navie’s something else. Curious, maybe.

  “I didn’t know you guys knew each other,” Navie says.

  Dylan raises a brow. “I told you I met him yesterday.”

  “Huh. I must’ve missed that.”

  My heart starts to pick up its pace as I feel the impending bomb drop hovering overhead. “I’m going to head out.”

  “You want me to add your beer to your tab?” Navie asks.

  Dylan’s jaw drops. “How can you be so nice to him? I mean, I know he brought everything back and all that, but seriously, Navie. Be mad. Be angry.” She balls her fists up and shakes them in front of her. “Stand up for yourself, girlfriend. Don’t let him ghost you and then just pop back up with that stupid charm and cute smile.”

  Navie cocks her head to the side. I smile sheepishly.

  “Tab. Yup,” I say, walking backward toward the door.

  “See ya later, Peck,” Navie says.

  My foot halts midstep as the realization I’ve been waiting to hit Dylan flushes over her face. Her eyes widen before they narrow. The apples of her cheeks turn the prettiest shade of pink as she starts putting pieces of things together.

  I retreat again, quicker this time—

  “Stop,” Dylan demands.

  Navie comes around the bar, a white bar towel fisted in her hand. “What’s happening here?”

  “Who is that?” Dylan asks, pointing at me.

  “I really gotta go,” I say.

  “What’s his name?” Dylan looks at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Little late to be asking that now, isn’t it?” I rotate my hat around again, pulling it snugly down as far as I can.

  “You’re Logan. Right?” Dylan watches me intently. “Tell me you’re Logan, or I’m going to flip tables.”

  “What are you talking about?” Navie asks, laughing at her friend. “That’s not Logan. That’s Peck.”

  Dylan lets out a little shriek as she flies in a half-circle to face Navie. “What are you talking about? That’s not your cute best friend here … until I moved here. Now I’m your cute best friend here. Anyway, that’s Logan. The jerkface that ghosted you!”

  Navie’s laugh fills with confusion. “No, it’s not. That’s Peck. Why on Earth would you think …” Her voice trails off. A lightbulb goes off as all the pieces in a puzzle are snapped together in her brain.

  “Yeah ….” I mumble.

  “Peck,” Navie warns.

  “Don’t Peck me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “The hell you didn’t,” Dylan interjects. “You let me think you were Logan. You brought Logan’s pots and pans … or Navie’s pots and pans that you—I mean, Logan—stole … Ugh. This is giving me a headache.”

  Both of them watch me for a reaction. Navie is mildly entertained, but Dylan looks mostly shocked. If I had the balls to laugh at her pretty little face scrunched up in horror, I would. Buuuut I don’t. Not even close.

  I shuffle my feet, unsure if I should get another beer or run before I get poked in the chest again.

  “That skillet was a good one, right?” I ask.

  It’s a stupid thing to say, but this is a stupid situation. Maybe the stupidest situation I’ve ever been in, and with Walker, Lance, and Machlan Gibson as cousins, I’ve been in a whole lot of them. So that says something.

  Navie’s features soften. “You bought those? For real?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Both of you hush,” Dylan says. She moves her weight from one foot to the other. “You aren’t Logan. You’re Peck.”

  “Yup,” I say. “I’m pretty sure we’ve made that clear—ouch!”

  She slaps my bicep. The sound echoes through the bar, catching the attention of Machlan as he reappears. I plead silently for him to help me. He laughs instead and disappears once again into the storeroom.

  Fucker.

  “What’s that for?” I ask, rubbing my arm.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You never asked,” I say. “And you didn’t give me a chance.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Bullshit what?” I say with a chuckle. “I was under a damn truck, and here you come roasting me for all this stuff, and I finally was like, ‘Okay. I’ll be the bad guy if it’ll make you stop talking.’”

  She gasps.

  “Only because you were confusing the hell outta me. I had work to do, and you were accusing me of being some asshole who ghosted my friend.” I blow out a breath. “So now that you know I’m not Logan—thank fuck—we can move on. Right? Are we friends here?”

  No one answers. It’s like they’re stunned silent.

  “Also,” I add since they’re being quiet. “I’m still the cute best friend here. I won’t relinquish that title.”

  Still … nothing.

  I slide my hat on backward again. “I’m going to figure out who is going to feed me tonight. Good night, ladies.”

  “I heard Sienna made Walker chicken noodle soup today,” Machlan calls as he comes out of the storeroom again.

  I jab my finger in the air as if to say, “Gotcha,” and head for the door.

  Six

  Peck

  “If you’re such a crack mechanic, why haven’t you fixed this yet?” Walker walks across the parking lot of Crank and wipes his face with a purple bandana. There’s a smear of grease along his eyebrow that makes him look a little like a pirate. “How does it take this damn long to take an oil pan off a machine?”

  “Simple. Some genius told me not to use penetrating oil because it’s for pussies. Could’ve had it fixed in ten minutes otherwise.”

&
nbsp; “Ten minutes, my ass.”

  “Okay, maybe twelve,” I joke. “But … watch and learn, Captain.”

  I smack the final bolt with a hammer to loosen it the rest of the way—hopefully—and then grab the wrench. A few twists, and it’s off. The oil, thick and black, splashes into the tray underneath.

  “Annnd done—the hard way, I’ll point out,” I say. “Which was stupid and a huge waste of time, but you’re paying me by the hour, so what do I really care?”

  Walker’s arms are smeared with grease too as he crosses them over his burly chest. He’s as big as a damn house and strong as an ox too. Regardless of how menacing he looks or assholish he sounds, he’s one of the best people I know. And now that he has Sienna Landry living with him—and on the verge of marriage, if I’m guessing, and I’d have to be guessing because Walker doesn’t talk about those kinds of things—his edges are getting a little softer too.

  I wouldn’t tell him that, though. Soft edges or not, he could still kill me.

  “That’s a good point,” he says, jamming the bandana in his back pocket. “Maybe I oughta pay you a salary. Then I could just give you a list of things to do every day and not give a shit how long it takes you to do it.”

  “Maybe I’d quit.”

  He snorts. “I’ve tried to get rid of you for years. Ain’t got ya to leave yet.”

  We exchange a smile because he’s right, and we both know it. I’d never leave him, and he’d never let me anyway. Somehow, our dynamic gets shit done. Four or five mechanic shops have tried to open in Linton in the past handful of years, but they close down fast every time. No one can compete with Crank because we don’t steal our customers’ money and actually give a damn about our work. It’s not exactly a cutting-edge business model, but it works. Well.

  “I’m gonna grab some lunch,” he says. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Where ya going?”

  “Home. Sienna made this beef thing her sister sent her the recipe for.”

  My ears perk up. “Oooh. Tell her to save me some. I’ll be by for dinner.”

  “Fucking hell, Peck. She’s my girlfriend. Not yours.”

  “Clearly,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But she likes cooking for me too. As friends. As family.”

  He heads to his truck. “If I didn’t need ya around here, I might strangle ya.”

  I laugh as I get back to the tractor. Satisfied that the oil is doing its thing, I head underneath the back end to check on a bearing. The gravel bites in my back as I get situated under the machine.

  No matter how many rocks I pick out of my hair or how scraped up my skin gets, I’d never trade this job for anything in the world. Every project is like a puzzle I can solve. I know I can. And when I do take something broken and repair it, it gives me a high. When a farmer calls and asks Walker to send me to a field to get his equipment back on track, it maybe even gives me a purpose.

  There’s nothing like it.

  There’s nothing like knowing you’re useful, that you’re good at something. That someone needs you around … even if it’s for something as ordinary as fixing equipment.

  I check the bearings and make sure they’re good. Climbing out from under the tractor, I watch a car pull into the parking lot. It’s a blue compact car with a cute little brunette in the driver’s seat.

  Leaning against the tractor, I grin as Dylan steps out of the car.

  “I’m Peck,” I call out. “Just thought I’d start everything off right this time.”

  She grins. “I got that. Thanks.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.”

  I press off the tractor.

  She’s so darn pretty.

  I take her in as she approaches and realize I’m not even looking at her physical traits. I’m smiling at the possibility of what’s going to come from her mouth. Despite her jazzing me, bantering back and forth with her and having her give as good as she gets is entertaining.

  I chuckle.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing. What’s up? Need to blame me for some other deviant’s mistakes?”

  “Ha-ha. No.”

  I rub a hand down the side of my face. “Then are you coming to blindside guilt me into making a purchase for some random housewares that really have nothing to do with me?”

  She drops her chin and looks at me through her lashes. “Really, Peck?”

  “Ah, that’s a good sign! You’re using my real name.”

  She tries not to laugh but fails. Finally, she gives in, and the sweet sound billows across the parking lot.

  A truck honks as it passes, and I wave without looking at who it is.

  “Your real name can’t be Peck,” she says.

  “And why can’t it?”

  The idea that maybe she’s just offended me flitters across her face. “Well, I guess it can. It just doesn’t seem like a proper first name. That’s all.”

  “Is there such a thing as a proper first name these days? You’ve got kids named after space dust and fruit and cartoon characters. I don’t think Peck is that crazy, to be honest.”

  She grins. “I dated a guy once—well, I don’t know if you could say I dated him, if you know what I mean. But anyway, his name was Prince. His actual God-given name was Prince. Who does that?”

  I mumble something. What? I’m not sure. I’m too busy trying to shove off this idea of her going at it with some dude named Prince.

  “Your name is Dylan,” I tease, rerouting my brain away from the guy I’ve decided I dislike. “What kind of name is that for a girl?”

  “Hey, now. That was my grandma’s name.”

  I jab at her with my elbow as I start to walk away from her. “I’m just kidding.”

  She follows me across the parking lot, sidestepping the mud puddles. Her nose crinkles as she touches the water with the side of her foot.

  I get to the door of Crank before her and pull it open. Watching her try to get by the last two holes—the deepest ones in the lot—will be the highlight of my day. She bites her lip as if calculating quantum physics as she studies the possibility of hopping between them.

  “Um, you could go around them,” I suggest. “Or walk through them like I did.”

  “Ew. No.”

  “It’s water. It’s not gonna kill you.”

  “It’s mud and oil and … stuff.” She sighs. “And I’m not going around them. This is my path, and I’m bending it to suit me.”

  “Well, if you could bend it a little faster, that’d be great. All the air conditioning is going outside.”

  She puts her hands on her hips. “You could shut the door.”

  “And you could just walk through the damn puddle.”

  Firing me a last playful glare, she tries to hop over the last two holes. Her shirt glues to her body as she bounces, her hair shifting around her shoulders. It’s playful and fun and fucking sexy, and I’m not prepared when she loses her balance. Her flip-flop must get wet because she slides to the side, her legs splitting apart into a wide stance, and she grabs my arm to steady herself.

  Her hands wrap around my bicep. They’re small and dainty, but her grip is strong. I flex without thinking, and her eyes light up.

  She looks up at me, her lips parted. My throat goes dry as I try to keep myself unaffected—or at least something other than grabbing her and kissing that look off her face.

  “Should’ve walked around it,” she says softly. She releases my arm and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay. Let’s go in before the electric bill is outrageous.”

  “After you.”

  She darts in around me, taking a wide berth so we don’t touch. The door closes behind me.

  “It’s so quiet in here,” she comments. “I expected it to be loud.”

  “Walker is on lunch, or it would be. The tools are pretty noisy.”

  She forces a swallow. “So I hate doing this. It pains me, really. But … I wanted to say I’m sorry for �
�� kind of … screwing up everything with Logan and you and all that mess. And I wanted to thank you for buying Navie those pans. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yeah, I did. You would’ve come looking for me if I hadn’t.”

  “So you bought them so you wouldn’t have to see me again?”

  There’s a twinge of a challenge in her voice. It sends me into overdrive.

  “No,” I say. “Not at all. I mean, yes. I did buy them so I wouldn’t have to see you like that again. Damn, girl. You can be scary. But I don’t mind seeing you like this.”

  The corner of her lips twitch, but a smile doesn’t come.

  I lean against the window that overlooks the shop bay. “Fine. I kind of like seeing you when you’re not pissed, okay? Does that make you happy?”

  She grins. “Yup. Thanks.”

  She walks around the lobby and takes in the magazines, sample tires in the corner, and candy machines. She wants to say something, but I don’t know what it is.

  Guilt. It could be guilt. Maybe she’s feeling bad about me buying stuff out of pocket for the stuff for Navie.

  It has to be.

  I consider letting her feel bad but can’t. There’s no way in the world I wouldn’t help Navie out after that asshole took her stuff.

  “Just so you know,” I say, “I would’ve bought all that for Navie without your guilt trip had I known.”

  She looks at me over her shoulder.

  “I would’ve. Really,” I insist. “Navie’s my buddy. I had no clue she was dating Logan at all, or I would’ve convinced her not to—which is why I didn’t know. She didn’t tell any of us.” I suck in a breath. “Probably a good thing because Machlan would’ve killed him.”

  Dylan turns to face me. “He’s your cousin, right?”

  “Yup. Him and his brothers, Lance—a teacher—and Walker. He owns this place. And they have a sister, Blaire, who’s an attorney in Chicago.”

  “Machlan seemed really nice last night.”

  It’s a statement. Not a question. An observation that lingers in the air for me to pick up and take off with.