Out Bad

by Janice M. Whiteaker

  Well, if he ever needed a part for his bike or a tool to do the work, he knew where to come. Gwen's basement was packed with items that would be useful to only one kind of person. A mechanic. More specifically, a bike mechanic.

  He shut off the light, taking one last look over his shoulder and gently closed the door and went back upstairs. Gwen was sitting at the kitchen table, her back to him, staring out the window.

  "Why didn't you call me? I would have come to help you."

  She didn't move.

  "I'm sorry about the other night." Her voice was flat.

  "Are you?"

  She jumped out of the chair and was two feet in front of him in a split second, her hands on her hips. "Do you think I just go around propositioning men?"

  "Isn't that what happened?"

  "No!" She shook her head. "I mean yes, sort of. But that isn't--"

  He cocked his head at her.

  "You don't understand." Her voice caught and she quickly turned away from him.

  "Then make me understand." He tried to keep his voice soft.

  She shook her head. "I can't." Her voice was barely a whisper.

  Her arms were wrapped tightly at her waist, as if she was holding herself. He stepped behind her until there were only a few inches between them.

  "Okay." He gripped her shoulders and gently spun her to face him. A single tear trailed down her cheek.

  "I'm sorry." She wiped at her face and tried to step away. He held her in place.

  "You don't have anything to apologize to me for." He slowly moved his hands from her shoulders to her face, giving her ample time to stop him. "Let's pretend the other night never happened."

  She nodded, her eyes avoiding his.

  "Gwen."

  Her eyes stayed fixed to his chest.

  "Gwen."

  "I'm going to come back and fix your faucet later this week and then I'm going to take you to dinner. Then I'm probably going to want to take you to dinner again."

  She stared at him for a minute, her eyes wide and, if he was correct, filled with fear. Not exactly the reaction he was hoping for, but also not completely unexpected. Everything with Gwen seemed to be unexpected.

  Eventually, she nodded.

  He held her a second longer, wishing now was the time he would find out how her lips felt pressed against his, but it wasn't.

  Unfortunately he had a bad feeling that time might not come for a while. He was quickly discovering as tough as Gwen appeared to be, tried to be, she was not. It was turning out that strong, intimidating Gwen was actually very, very delicate.

  He slowly dropped his hands, missing the feel of her soft skin instantly. "I'll call you, but if something else like that happens, you call me, no matter what. Okay?"

  She again nodded silently.

  He turned before he made a bad decision and pushed Gwen in a way he knew she wasn't ready for. He opened the front door and looked back. Gwen was standing exactly as he'd left her, both sadness and fear still etched in her face.

  He pulled the door closed and left. Getting over the walls Gwen had built was going to be a long, tough road. Luckily, he was in good shape.

  Ten

  Gwen grabbed her travel mug off her desk, tipping it against her lips. “Damn it.”

  She pried the lid off confirming her suspicions. Crossing her office she turned on the Keurig sitting in the corner. A flashing light at the bottom of the water reservoir indicated it was going to be a lot more work than she first thought to get another dose of caffeine running through her veins.

  Pulling it free, she headed out of her office to fill the tank. She’d tried to get them to upgrade the refrigerator in the break room to a new model with a water dispenser. Instead she was stuck with the clichéd water cooler in the back corner of the building. She stood, tapping her foot, listening to the glugging noise as the pale blue jug traded water for air, waiting for the slow trickle to fill her container.

  “Hey Gwen. Lookin’ great today.”

  She was three quarters full and that would have to be enough for now. She straightened, ignoring what Richard probably thought of as a compliment.

  “Have you finished going over the exact numbers from the company we acquired last week?”

  His shoulders slumped slightly.

  “I have. I’ll send them your way after lunch.”

  She checked her watch. It was twelve o’clock. Where in the hell had her day gone?

  “That’s not necessary. Come up with a game plan. We can go over it when you have that ready.” She turned and headed back to her office, not waiting for an answer. This cup of coffee had already taken way to much work and she needed to get on with it.

  She passed a number of coworkers on their way out to lunch as she headed back to her office. Probably all going somewhere together. Good. That meant she would have at least an hour of a quiet building to get some work done.

  Four minutes later she was finally sitting down at her desk with a cup of coffee. Flipping up the lid on her laptop, she had just opened up a series of spreadsheets when her cell began to ring. The frustration of the interruption dissolved as soon as she saw the number. Her stomach flipped and all thoughts of work were trampled into dust.

  “Hi.”

  She should have said hello. Pretended she didn’t know who it was. She could act as if she didn’t have his number memorized. That she’d all but forgotten he’d promised to come back this week. But she didn’t want to. In some way, she wanted to be found out. Wanted someone to finally know what a fraud she was. To see the person hiding behind the hard shell she’d surrounded herself with years ago.

  “Hey.” He paused.

  She held her breath, forcing her mouth to remain shut while she waited for him to say more.

  “Will you be home tonight? I have a job right around the corner from you. I could come by when I’m finished.”

  She wasn’t surprised to find out he was working in her neighborhood. She’d posted his information on their HOA site with a glowing review. He deserved it. He’d been nothing but professional even when faced with her less than appropriate behavior. She owed him. “Okay. What time do you think it will be?”

  “I’ll probably be finishing up around six.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.”

  She hung up and set her phone on her desk, staring at it, her mind racing. She hadn’t expected him to call so soon. He said he’d come by later in the week. It was Monday.

  She drummed her fingertips against her knees. What was she doing?

  She shoved her chair back from her desk and walked to the window looking out over the parking lot as her coworkers filtered out to lunch. She tried to punch down the excitement growing within her. She was being ridiculous.

  There was no rational reason for her to be excited to see a man she barely knew. Her eyes fell on the computer screen.

  There was one way to learn more.

  So far she’d successfully resisted the urge to do too much investigating of him aside from her initial name search that found his business. The background search suggested at the top of the results had seemed so… intrusive.

  She twisted a strand of hair tightly around one finger, staring at the screen.

  All it would take was a few keystrokes and twenty bucks and she could know everything she’d ever wondered about Josiah Parker. He would never even know.

  Maybe there would be something awful that would squelch these unexplainable feelings she had toward him. It might actually be a good idea. She could find something that would end this before it took up any more of her time. Or worse.

  She quickly typed in his name and within seconds, was entering a credit card number.

  He was from Texas. Son of Calvin and Suzanne Parker. Born May 5, 1979. She scrolled down, her eyes landing on a picture of a younger Joe. A much different looking man than the one she knew. The hair and the face were almost exactly the same, but the look in his eyes was so very different. He looked cold, angry, thre
atening.

  It was a mug shot taken eight years ago.

  He’d been convicted of a string of felonies including withholding evidence, assault and trafficking that sent him to prison. He was released early for good behavior and from the list of addresses since then, immediately moved to Alabama and had been here ever since.

  She leaned back in her chair stunned. It seemed so unbelievable, but the truth was staring her in the face. She squinted at the picture on her screen. It was him, but in a way that seemed completely foreign. Like an evil twin.

  Gwen sat like that for a long time. Looking at the man staring out from her computer, waiting for all the feelings she was struggling with to begin to change and fade at this new, less than exciting information.

  She expected her opinions of him to flip. He was a criminal after all. But it never happened. The man she knew was not the same man whose life was laid out digitally before her.

  Never once had she felt threatened or unsafe around him. Quite the opposite actually.

  She had basically thrown herself at him and he walked away, not even taking a glimpse before he went. Then, in spite of her bad behavior, he came back, saving her from the watery mess he found her ankle deep in. And he had yet to charge her for any of it.

  Who was Joe, really? Was he the same guy he was eight years ago? Was he the guy she believed him to be? Was he someone else entirely?

  Gwen leaned her head back against the chair, closing her eyes. What happened? How did he end up where he did? How did he get where he was now?

  She, better than anyone knew a past could change you. Sometimes for worse. Sometimes for the better. Maybe Joe wasn’t like her. Maybe he was one of the lucky ones it changed for the better.

  ****

  Joe packed up his van and pulled away from the large house just around the corner from Gwen. The man who hired him said he found a review of Parker’s Plumbing on the neighborhood’s Facebook page. Surprising considering he'd only been to one other house in the area.

  He pulled up in front of her house and put the van in park. He had just gotten to the back doors when her sleek black BMW coasted past him and turned into the driveway.

  He walked behind it as Gwen pulled into the garage. A couple of tires sticking out from beneath a cover on one side of the garage caught his attention. The discovery would have been a little more surprising if he hadn't already found a room full of motorcycle parts and tools when he shut her water off over the weekend.

  He looked as he got closer, thinking maybe he’d be able to figure out what she had under there, but the sight of a pair of long legs swinging out the open door of her car made the bike seem much less interesting.

  As she stood, the hem of her dress scooted down, exposing much less skin than he’d been able to see just a second ago.

  He shouldn’t be looking at her like this. He took a deep breath as he tried to remind himself he had to be careful. Very careful.

  “Sorry. I got stuck in a meeting. I meant to beat you here.” She reached back in her car to grab her purse off the passenger seat, giving him the opportunity to check out her ass. He was a little proud of himself when he chose not to take it.

  “I just got here myself.”

  She straightened up, stepping towards him as she closed the car door. Back in the tall heels she seemed to always wear to work, they were almost eye to eye. For just a second, he caught uncertainty in the depths of her pale green irises before she quickly turned from him and walked to the entry door leading into the house, those shoes making her sway in a way that would set off all the things a man likes to focus on.

  Instead, he chose to look at her car as they stepped around it. It was immaculate. Not a speck of dirt anywhere he could see. One thing was for sure, the woman took care of what she had.

  He followed her through the door as she pushed a button on the wall, closing the garage behind them. They entered a small room off the kitchen. Custom benches and cabinets lined the walls designating it a mudroom. He imagined it had never seen any of its namesake. She slid her purse into one of the cubbies on the wall before continuing on to the kitchen.

  “Want something to drink? A coffee or something?” She stood at the counter chewing on her lip as her eyes slowly came up to meet his, that same uncertainty from before still lingering.

  There were so many things he wanted to ask her. He wanted so much to understand this woman and he felt she needed desperately to be understood, but some questions weren’t meant to be asked.

  “Coffee would be great. Thank you.” He nodded to the back sliding door. “Is it okay if I let myself out? It shouldn’t take long.”

  Her shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly, the tiniest flash of disappointment running across her face.

  He almost smiled. "Then we can go have dinner."

  “Um, yes.” She took a deep breath. “Yes. Go ahead out. I’ll bring your coffee out in a minute.”

  He crossed the kitchen, trying to step lightly to keep from sounding like a herd of buffalo in his work boots on the hardwood floors. A few minutes later, as he was pulling the broken faucet free of the water line, he heard the light clicking of Gwen’s heels across the brick and looked up as she handed him a travel mug.

  “I forgot to ask how you take it. I made it the way I like it, but I can make a fresh cup if you’d rather have it differently.” As the last word escaped her lips she clamped her mouth shut, the full line of her lips thinning under the pressure.

  He took the cup from her. “I take it however you made it.”

  He sipped the hot liquid letting the sweet creaminess swirl around his mouth. He’d been drinking it black his whole life and just this one sip had him rethinking that decision. Cream and sugar made one hell of a big difference.

  He looked across the cup at the pretty blonde staring out into her backyard, hair blowing in the gentle breeze. Maybe it wasn’t just the cream and sugar making the difference. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  He set the cup on the ground beside him and went back to work. He expected her to go back inside to wait for him to finish. Instead, she sat down on the ground beside him. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she maneuvered herself down, careful not to scoot her dress or her shoes across the cement.

  She sat quietly like that, watching the sky, even as the breeze changed to a strong wind and occasional raindrops splashed the ground around them. He hadn’t checked the weather before he called her this afternoon. “You should go inside. I’m almost done.”

  She looked up, the sky dark and threatening above her. “It’s okay.”

  She turned to face him, squinting her eyes as her hair whipped wildly around her face. “I like storms.”

  As the wind continued to pick up and the occasional raindrops became more frequent, he tried to rush to get the new threaded end on the pipe, but his blow torch was fighting him.

  After a couple attempts, he finally had a flame and made quick work of sweating the pipe. By the time he finished twisting the new faucet into place, the rain was pelting his back. He grabbed his stuff and stood, reaching his hand out to Gwen. “You’re going to ruin your dress.”

  She looked at his hand, then at his face. There was fear in her eyes.

  Slowly she raised her arm and fitted her hand into his. Her eyes searched his, the fear still there, but an emotion he couldn’t discern took the forefront.

  She squeezed his hand as he pulled her up beside him then shook her dress gently, trying to keep it from completely sticking to her body.

  He held his hand in the direction of the door. “After you.”

  She went ahead of him, walking slowly across the deck, obviously not concerned about the very expensive dress and shoes she was wearing getting soaked, before finally going through the sliding door and into the house. He pulled the door closed behind him then turned to find her standing staring at him.

  She shivered, goosebumps raising on her arms, her nipples tightening against the wet fabric hugging her body. He s
wallowed hard, forcing his eyes away from her. His ideas about slowly, gently coaxing Gwen out from behind the walls she'd built were quickly being replaced by other, less sweet thoughts.

  “We should do dinner another night.” He stepped around her shivering body and made for the front door using every bit of strength he had to stop himself from turning back. To resist the temptation to pull her against him and wrap her in his warmth.

  He made it to the front door only to struggle in his haste to unlatch the locks. He thought he had it unlocked, only to discover the door wouldn’t budge.

  Shit. He took a deep breath and tried again. Still, the damn thing wouldn’t open. He was taking one more deep breath when Gwen reached beside him to flip the offending lock the tiniest bit more and open the door.

  They stood face to face, the storm outside all but finished. A droplet of water trailed down her temple and the urge to brush it away was almost overpowering. He needed to get out of here. Now.

  Before he could move, Gwen took a step closer to him, her body so close he could feel the damp air from the front of her dress through his shirt. He was frozen, the feel of her body so close to his, the look in her eyes as she studied his face rendering him helpless.

  Slowly, she leaned into him, closer and closer until her soft, full lips gently brushed his. For a second, the shock of what was happening seized his lungs, clouded his mind. But only for a second. Weeks of thinking of nothing but her, tormented by her image at night, frustrated by thoughts of her overtaking his day, came crashing down on him, overwhelming him with the need to hold her.

  The sound of his heavy work bag hitting the floor echoed through the foyer as he released it to wrap her in his arms and pull her body against his. She came willingly, molding against him as he deepened her kiss, unsatisfied to merely feel her lips touch his.

  He tangled one hand in the damp strands of her long hair, pulling her head gently back as he explored her mouth. He released her lips to trail his way down her neck, the soft scent of her skin amplified by the dampness still clinging to her, filling his senses. She felt so good. Tasted so good. Smelled so good. He needed more of her. All of her.