Dirty Thoughts

by Megan Erickson

  “We’re talking, Cal.” Still with that stern look. “Go. Wash. Your. Body.”

  He huffed and turned on his heel sharply.

  After making sure Asher was okay (he was) and that he didn’t need anything (he didn’t; Jenna had already given him water and food), Cal went upstairs.

  He stripped on the way to the bathroom, leaving his clothes where they lay. He took a five-minute shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and then crawled into bed. He was out seconds after his head hit the pillow.

  THE SOUND OF a clattering on his nightstand jolted him awake. The sun outside his window had begun to descend. “Shit.” He rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Six,” Jenna said from somewhere behind him. He heard a rustle of clothes and then the sound of them hitting the bottom of his hamper.

  “I slept that long?” he asked.

  “I didn’t wake you. Figured you needed the sleep. There’s a sandwich on the nightstand for you.”

  He squinted at it. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

  “Glass of milk is there too.”

  It was. And this small talk was painful.

  “Jenna . . . ”

  The bed dipped beside him. “Asher’s been asleep for about an hour. Do we need to wake him?”

  Cal shook his head and sat up, reaching for the plate. “Doctor said no. They don’t really do that anymore for concussions.”

  Her hazel eyes blinked. “Okay.”

  As he took a bite of the sandwich, he was acutely aware that he was wearing only a towel. And Jenna’s hand was right next to his naked thigh. “So . . . ”

  “I quit.”

  So there it was, the closure. The I can’t do this. The I can’t believe you punched my brother at my company party. The I don’t love you back. At this point, did he even want to dispute the facts? It would be so much easier to let her think he did it. To let her go.

  “I can’t do this again.” Her eyes were on her fists clenched in his comforter. The peanut butter sandwich plastered to the roof of his mouth tasted like sawdust. “Last time was bad enough, but what happened this time was . . . way, way worse.”

  Last time Dylan had stood in front of him, bleeding, they’d at least been in private.

  “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, dropping the half-eaten sandwich on his nightstand and gulping down milk.

  “I’m sorry too,” Jenna said. “I mean, Dylan and I were never close, but now . . . well, I think I need to cut ties completely.”

  Cal’s head shot up. “What?”

  “Did he mean to hit his face on the bathroom door?” Jenna fidgeted with the ends of her ponytail. “Or was it an accident?”

  Cal’s head was spinning. Did Dylan tell the truth? There was no way.

  “Cal?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  She frowned. “Dylan. He tried to say you punched him, but when I called him on the lie, he finally ’fessed up.”

  Cal blinked. “You called him on it?”

  Jenna was doing that thing again, where she was looking at him like he was an idiot. “I knew you wouldn’t hit him, Cal. Not—” Her eyes grew wide, impossibly wide, and then she shot to her feet and narrowed those eyes to slits. “Oh my God. You thought I believed Dylan, didn’t you?”

  He couldn’t suck enough air in his lungs. “I . . . I . . . yeah. I did. What was I supposed to think? You stood there in the hallway with that fucking look of disappointment on your face.”

  “Hell, yeah, I was disappointed, Cal! I couldn’t believe this was all happening again. And maybe for five seconds, I thought you punched him. But then I saw your face and . . . I knew you didn’t do it.”

  “But last time, you chose—”

  She shook her head, hair flying in her face. “I chose you!” She swallowed and then lowered her voice, sinking back onto the bed. “You have to know that, right? I chose you when I made that decision, even though it didn’t seem like it. If I hadn’t loved you, Cal, I would have let you take that hit. I would have let you fuck up your future. I loved you, so I chose you. And that meant I had to let you go.”

  He needed water. And alcohol. And a bath in nicotine patches.

  “But this time, I don’t have to let you go,” she said. “I quit, because I won’t work with my brother who uses you to carry out some stupid vendetta against me. Who won’t accept you. So that’s it.”

  He reached for her, but she pulled her hand away. “You told me the first time I saw you again that you weren’t the same eighteen-year-old kid. And I believed you. So why can’t you believe that I’m not the same eighteen-year-old girl?”

  He didn’t know what to say. His head was foggy, and his stomach still cramped from everything that had happened last night.

  Jenna stood up, her on hand on top of her head. “Why aren’t you saying anything right now?”

  Maybe if Asher hadn’t gotten hurt. If Cal hadn’t failed at that. If Jill hadn’t gotten her act together, he could have done this again. But his heart was raw, and he’d already begun building up that iron wall that had protected him for ten years. He didn’t belong in Jenna’s world, in her future. Cal didn’t belong in anyone’s future. He swallowed. “I don’t know if this can work.”

  She blanched. “What?”

  Now this pain, this was real, but if he could just get through it, he’d be back behind that wall that had served him so well. He had to walk over hot coals to get there but then never again. “I tried with Asher, Jenna, and I failed. And it would just be a matter of time before I actually fucked us up too. I thought I could do this again, thought I could dream for the things I once did. But I can’t. I’m not the same guy I was at eighteen, and I don’t want to be. No matter how much I try to pretend. It’s been too long, and I’m too used to keeping everything on lockdown, surrounding myself with things I can control. And I can’t control this. Any of this.”

  Jenna stood frozen; the only indication she was alive was the rise and fall of her chest. “You can’t be serious right now.”

  “I have never felt so hopeless as I have in the last day. Between your brother and Asher . . . ” He clenched his fists. “I’m dry, Jenna. My well has run dry. I got nothing left, no reserves. I’ve reached my limit. I thought I could give you what you need, but I can’t.”

  She didn’t move. Her eyes were huge in her face, and fuck, Cal was getting burned, scarred. Why couldn’t this all be over so he could suffer in peace?

  “And I’m not enough?”

  He jerked his head up. “What?”

  “That’s what you’re saying, then. That I’m not enough to give you what you need. To fill you back up.”

  He didn’t know how to answer that, not at all. So he stayed silent.

  She blinked rapidly, and her lips trembled. “So everything we’ve done—the late-night talks, my bringing you lunch at the garage, the movies, everything—that wasn’t enough to get you through some hard times?”

  The last month flipped through his mind, but right now, none of it was getting through to him. It couldn’t cover the searing pain tearing through him now. “It’s not your fault, Jenna. You’re always enough. I just got a leak I can’t fix.”

  She turned away, her ponytail flying around her face. When she reached the door of the bedroom, she stopped and said over her shoulder, “Thanks for being honest. Just so you know, I do think you’re good enough. But I’m done trying to convince you of it.”

  And then she walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “WE GOT MATCHING scars.” Max grinned and touched his head to Asher’s. “Head-trauma power!”

  Asher laughed.

  Cal didn’t find any of it funny. “You each took about five years off my life, so I’ll thank you not to make a joke of it, assholes.”

  The whole family was over at Cal’s house to see Asher as he recovered. Max had driven down with Lea. Gabe and Julian were there, even though Cal spent most of his time glaring at Gabe, who stood in a corner lo
oking uncomfortable.

  Julian sat on the couch with Asher, their shoulders touching, and Julian looked so genuinely broken up about Ash’s injuries that Cal decided he’d let the brothers live.

  It’d been three days since Asher got home from the hospital. Three days since Cal had managed to fuck up his relationship with Jenna again. When he finally got his head together, he replayed the conversation. Over and over and over again. And each time was another cut in his skin. He wished he had more time after Asher’s injuries to get his head together before he spoke to Jenna. He didn’t think the outcome of his conversation with her would have been any different, but maybe he would have made more sense.

  And now, she was everywhere in this house. The bed, the kitchen, the shower, the couch.

  He’d finally found a place where nobody was around, yet he was going to have to move again to be alone. Because this house was far from empty.

  He’d been in a shit mood. A throwback to his early twenties, when the pain of losing Jenna was still fresh. Asher seemed half scared of him. What did it matter anyway? He’d be going home to his mom soon. Brent had called him on his mood, but then Brent told him he was a grumpy asshole every day, so Cal didn’t think that counted.

  The front door opened, and Jack walked in, a cap pulled low on his forehead, gray eyes dilated from the harsh sun outside. He didn’t say a word to anyone, instead walking directly to Asher and hauling him upright with a grip on the kid’s biceps. The chatter in the room dimmed as Jack’s eyes roamed Asher, taking in the stitches and the arm cast and a couple bruises and road rash.

  Asher’s eyes were huge, staring up at Jack. The big man’s jaw clenched, and he patted Asher roughly on the back of his neck. He let him go, and as Asher sank slowly back onto the couch next to Julian, Jack’s head whipped to Gabe. “You!” he shouted and advanced on him like a predator.

  “Oh, shit,” Gabe said under his breath and squeezed himself into the wall like he could melt into the plaster.

  Cal heaved a sigh and went after his dad, because blood was a bitch to clean up.

  “Dad,” Cal began as he reached his dad’s side, but the guy had his finger in Gabe’s face. And Gabe was pale and quivering.

  “You little shithead,” Jack said. “Please explain why the hell the kid’s got a fucking broken arm and had to spend the night in the hospital.”

  Gabe licked his lips. “Well, uh, he fell off the back of the my bike, and—”

  “I know that, ya moron. I want to know how it happened. You can’t drive the thing?”

  “No, I . . . I, um, had a problem with it, and I took it to a shop in Brookridge, but they, uh, fucked up, I guess. The thing backfired, and—”

  “Why didn’t you give it to Cal to fix?”

  Jack’s question made Cal pause. Since when did his dad take any interest in Cal’s ability to fix motorcycles?

  Gabe’s eyes shifted to Cal, like he wanted help with this conversation. Cal just stared back at him. He’d been under his dad’s evil eye enough. Someone else’s turn. And no way was he helping Gabe after what he did. Gabe heaved a sigh. “Cal was busy, and I heard this guy did good work but clearly not.”

  Cal stood motionless as Jack turned his head, piercing him with his eyes that were so like his own.

  Jack shook his head, exhaling slowly, and then walked away. Gabe looked like he’d dodged a bullet. And Cal wasn’t sure what to think.

  He followed his dad, who’d gone out to the garage to get a beer out of the ice chest. The door was open, the sun lighting the inside of the garage. The chrome of Cal’s bike gleamed in the middle, like a huge metal elephant. His dad took a drag of his beer and then lit up a cigarette. Cal stared at it longingly. He could smoke again now, right? No reason to quit; no one to quit for.

  Cal scratched the patch on his arm. “What was that look for in there?”

  Jack took another pull of beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before sticking his lit cigarette between his lips. “I’m not so good at this.”

  Cal waited.

  Jack hollowed his cheeks and blew the smoke out, staring out of the garage doors. “Takes me time to get used to new things. Thought Max would be working with us, but he ain’t. He’s off working as a big-shot teacher, and that’s great. But it threw me for a loop that he didn’t want to work at the garage with us.”

  That had been a point of contention when Max was a senior in college. Cal thought he’d get a business degree and then come work at the garage, but Max had other plans. It’d taken his being laid up in the hospital to get the guts to tell Dad what he really wanted to do. And it’d taken his son getting injured for Dad to accept it.

  Again, Cal waited.

  “So I wasn’t prepared for things to change again.” Jack’s jaw was tight as hell, grinding his molars. Cal could imagine this admission was a little painful. “I like your tools with me and your body in the bay beside mine. I know I can rely on you.”

  Cal’s body went hot. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “So I’m stubborn. I know that. And every time you asked about changing things, about working on bikes, I dug my heels in more.”

  Cal held his breath, waiting to hear what came next, because this seemed really important.

  “So if you wanna hang out your shingle at the shop, then we’ll make it work.”

  Cal’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  “I didn’t see a need for it until today. But I’m not having the people of this town go to some hack. You know what you’re doing.”

  Cal blinked. “You really changed your mind?”

  Jack squinted at him. “I did. I’m old and set in my ways. Cut me some fucking slack.”

  Cal stared at the stained concrete under his boots. He knew a thing or two about being stubborn. Change sucked; he got that. Hell, that’s what he’d hid behind to drive away Jenna.

  The realization flushed through his body like a bucket of ice. He was just like his fucking dad, wasn’t he? A gruff mechanic who wasn’t willing to take on anything new because of the fear of the unknown. And hell, a couple of weeks ago, Cal was well on his way to smoking a pack a day like his dad. He’d spent all his life, determined not to become his father, and that’s what he’d become.

  Alone. Stubborn.

  An asshole.

  Oblivious to Cal’s crisis, Jack took another pull of his beer. “You’re all assholes for riding bikes, but at least you’ll all be safe assholes if you fix shit.”

  Call tried to focus back on the conversation. “Appreciate the confidence. Dad, I’m still going to be in the shop. I’ll still work on cars with you.”

  Jack picked at the label on his bottle. “Guess you’re right.”

  “Yeah, I am right.”

  “Need a new hire.”

  “Brent said we can afford it, and I’ve actually been gathering résumés.” Jack shot him a sharp look. Cal decided not to mention the place he’d been about to rent. “Just in case.”

  Jack was willing to risk this, take on a whole new business after forty years in the business. Cal had thrown in the towel and declared bachelorhood at thirty. What the hell was his problem?

  Gravel crunched under tires, and Cal looked up to see a car pulling into his driveway. He squinted but didn’t recognize the car, so he walked out of the garage, his dad on his heels.

  A silver sedan parked and a sandaled foot stepped out of the driver’s side. When the woman stood up, she brushed her brown hair over her shoulder and looked right at Jack.

  “Hey, Jill,” his dad said. And Cal almost swallowed his tongue.

  He’d been a kid the last time he’d seen his mom. And she’d been that young woman in his mind this whole time. Jill now was . . . well, she was older, with fine lines in her brow and crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was streaked with gray. She walked slowly toward them, and Cal was surprised at how short she was. Must be why Cal wasn’t anywhere near as tall as his dad.

  “Hey, Jack,” she said, her voice wo
bbly. “How are you?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  Jill’s eyes were on Cal now, taking him in, those warm brown eyes—so like Max’s and Asher’s—coasting from head to toe. “Calvin,” she said, a little in awe.

  He could only nod. He’d thought he’d feel . . . sadness. Or anger. Or something when he saw her again. But really, he felt only a mild curiosity.

  Cal looked at Jack out of the corner of his eye. He did look sad. And Cal wondered if he still loved Jill, despite what she’d done to his family.

  A door opened behind Cal, and then a deep voice said, “Well, holy shit.”

  Cal braced himself, because the brother with no filter had just appeared.

  Jill’s smile was shaky. “Hi, Brent.”

  “An appearance! By God, let’s make a float and parade down Main Street.”

  “Shut up,” Jack growled.

  Cal elbowed Brent in the stomach, who made a small oomph sound but then kept his mouth shut.

  Jill’s eyes flicked to Cal, her nerves clear in her rigid posture. “Is Asher here?”

  “You interested in seeing him now?” Cal asked.

  Jill wrung her hands. “I just . . . I figured he was in good hands, but then a friend said . . . well, she said I should go see him.”

  It was amazing how this woman could have zero maternal instinct. Jenna had more sense when it came to Asher than his own fucking mother. She’d would make a fine mother.

  “I-I’m trying,” Jill muttered, almost to herself.

  Cal didn’t know what to say to that. He was past the point that trying would make a fuck of a difference in his life, but Asher still craved attention from his mom. So Cal turned to walk back into the house. “He’s inside. Come on in.”

  Even though it was awkward as hell to have her there, Cal knew it was worth it when Asher’s face lit up when he spotted Jill. “Mom!” he cried, standing up. “You came!”

  Jill’s smile wasn’t forced anymore. “Yeah, I’m, uh, here.” Her eyes darted around, to Max, whose jaw was hanging on the floor. Her smile fell a little. But Asher was walking briskly toward her, his arms already rising from his sides to embrace her.

  Cal looked around—at his family, his employees—and his heart ached, because he knew Jenna should be here. Asher had asked about her, but Cal had been honest, telling him they’d broken up, and the kid looked as upset as Cal.