by Finn, Emilia
“How’d you figure it out? You came to us an hour after I called. We looked like drowned cats, laughing like idiots, stumbling around and spraining ankles in hooker heels, but you put us in the Charger, sat us on towels so we wouldn’t ruin the seats, and drove us home.”
“Marc called me. To shoot the shit. To hang out.”
Thoughtfully, her eyes narrow. “Okay…”
“Marco Polo. You were saying Marco.”
Her lips twitch. “I was. And you were supposed to say…”
“Polo.” I shake my head. “You were at Ricky Hernandez’s house. Ricky Hernandez just so happens to share a similar name with a famous polo player. It was the vaguest fucking riddle I ever heard in my life.”
She snickers. “Well, I was gonna call you back to give you more, but like I said. Ass. Electrocuted.”
“There was never a moment in my life that we couldn’t count on Britt to nearly kill everyone.”
“You were so mad,” she laughs. Unwrapping her sandwich again, she takes a small bite. “Get in the fuckin’ car,” she mimics in a low voice. “I oughtta beat your asses. You’re lucky the guys don’t know about this, or they’d beat your asses, too.”
I remember every second of that night. Two blonde’s and one brunette. All three in itty bitty outfits with smudged makeup. All of them too scared to call their brothers, too drunk to know to stop laughing like fools. “I still didn’t tell them about that.”
“No?” Her eyes sparkle with something I haven’t seen for at least two years. Fun, flirting, laughter. “Why not?”
“Because by that point, it was pretty much the equivalent to aiding and abetting a criminal. I didn’t do the crime, but I sure as shit helped you idiots cover it up. I wasn’t going down with that ship. You’re lucky Kari wasn’t with you, because Marc woulda been up your asses like sand at the beach.”
Her shoulders bounce with laughter. Even under the thick hoodie I suspect belongs to Kane, I see her delicate shoulder blades roll. “Ew. Now my ass itches with imaginary sand.”
“Yeah, well…” Now that my meatballs are a few clicks cooler than lava, I push half the sandwich into my mouth and take a chunky bite. Laine sticks to her girly picking, but she watches me with light eyes that don’t show the fear they did when I got here. “Anyway… Fine. You saw me angry that one time. A guy’s entitled to one or two pissy days in his life.”
“Then you had to do it again the next weekend.”
I laugh. “Yup. Who’s the idiot?” I poke my chest. “Angelo’s the idiot.”
Somehow, for some reason, that group of girls chose me as their sacrificial lamb. They got me invested, turned me into an accessory to their crimes, until eventually, I became designated driver and traitor to my best friends.
I had to play with the band every weekend at The Shed, so the girls knew where we were between the hours of nine to one every Friday and Saturday night. They knew their brothers wouldn’t come looking until after that. I’d play my set, do my job, collect my cash, pack away the instruments, and the whole time, I’d think about the shenanigans the girls were getting up to in their brothers’ absence.
Magically, somewhere around one-thirty in the morning, soon after we’d packed up, I’d get a call from a particular blonde that liked to play with fire and ride around in a car that belonged to a guy that had no business driving her around in the middle of the night.
It wasn’t as lewd as it might sound. Everything was made innocent by the girls’ laughter as they came along for the ride – if you ignored the underage drinking thing – but still, it became a thing. A secret I vow to keep from my brothers until my dying breath.
For years, I was her middle of the night call and friend in secret. Until I wasn’t…
Nat King Cole’s voice slides from the boombox and sings of smiles and heartbreak. He makes me think of old diners and slow dancing. Flaring dresses, curled hair, heels, and a soft body pressed against mine.
Laine creates this clear division between my heart, my body, and my brain. She’s not underage anymore, and I’m not a hell of a lot older than her.
But she’s been hurt…
She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life, but putting that aside, looking past her pretty eyes and inviting smile, her body does things to mine. Even in a hoodie, she’s alluring the way Eve was in the Garden of Eden. For a decade, I’ve wondered what it would feel like to slide my hands over her hips. Over her ass.
Her breasts.
Inappropriate or not, I’ve fought back the million thoughts of the million different ways I could fuck Laine until I worked the incessant need from my veins. I’ve had to fight down a thousand inappropriate erections, and when they wouldn’t be fought, I had to touch my cock while I thought of her.
Only her.
For the longest time, she’s been my every filthy dream. My morning savior when my dreams left me with lasting effects. My shower companion, when I had a hand full of liquid soap and barely enough time to get it done before I was officially late for work.
Laine has been used, abused, broken, and tormented, and yet, I still have to fight back a twitching cock when she walks by and her scent wafts beneath my nose.
So fucking inappropriate.
So coveted I could be sick.
I’m a red-blooded male in the prime of my life, and the woman I crave sits barely ten feet away. Oversized hoodie or not, I know what’s beneath the black fabric.
“Hey, Ang?”
I scrunch my lunch wrapping and toss it into the front seat of the Buick. “Yuh?”
“When you finish the car…” She watches me with wary eyes. “When it’s done and you’re thinking about what’s next, can you talk to me first?”
Instead of a verbal ‘huh?’ I simply lift my brow.
“Before you whack a For Sale sign on it, can you offer it to me first? Maybe I’ll be in a position to buy it. I have cash, that’s no problem. But by the time it’s done, maybe my life won’t be so messed up and I’ll be ready to drive something as pretty as this.”
“Sure.” It’s already yours. “You’ll know when it’s done, anyway. Especially if the engine continues to dismantle itself when I’m at work.”
“Yeah…” Chuckling, she drops her eyes and takes an actual man-sized bite of her sandwich. A slop of sauce lands on her knee, and instinctively the way you do things without thinking, she leans forward and licks it up.
Her face flares when she catches herself. Her eyes widen, and her cheeks turn beet red, but when I simply stand with a chuckle and walk to the open hood, she lets out a relieved breath and continues pulling the foil back to eat more.
“I got an entire new crankshaft. New counterweights. New wiring.” I don’t peek at her around the hood. I leave her be. “New headlights, too, since the set now are fishbowls.”
“You were thorough.”
Though she can’t see me, I nod. “Uh-huh. I got new window wipers. I even found an original owner’s manual on the internet. That’s just for me, because I really, really wanted it.”
Her soft laughter warms me.
“It’ll turn up in the mail in a week or so, as long as the guy wasn’t bullshitting.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
“Ten bucks and post.”
She snorts. “Ten bucks says you never see that manual.” I lean around the hood and watch her. “You were fleeced, Ang, because anyone that has the original knows it’s worth more than that. Anyone that held onto it for this long knows what he’s got. If I had that manual, you wouldn’t be getting it for ten.”
I go back to my engine and pick up the socket wrench she laid in the bay when I got here. “We’ll see then. Ten dollar wager – I’m doubling down.”
The loud fizz of soda competes with the click, click, click of my wrench and the soft strains of the radio. “So you’re looking to lose your original ten, and post, and the ten you bet me. Jesus, Ang. Times have changed. You’re ballin’ now.”
I laugh and catch the nut that almost slips through the engine. “Yeah, I’m so much better off now than that punk in the Charger was.”
The car moves a little when Laine climbs down with a grunt, and when I peek around the hood to see where she’s going, I watch her collect the trash and dump them in the bin. Rushing to the sink she started at, she pushes her black sleeves up to reveal that bandage, and pumps soap into her hands. Loose tendrils of her long hair casts shadows over her cheeks as she scrubs.
And scrubs.
Frowns, pumps more soap, and scrubs.
“Laine?”
Her breath comes faster as the bandage turns darker from being wet.
“Hey?” I step back from the car. “Laine?”
“Hang on.” She slides her nails up to the sleeves of her hoodie and scrubs so hard her flesh turns pink. Scratches line her delicate skin, and color rushes to her cheeks. She scrubs so hard, her entire body moves.
Anxiety leeches into the air. From her body, like an invisible cloud, it pushes out until it settles deep in my gut and makes me sick.
“Laine?”
“Wait!”
I step up behind her and lean around to flip off the taps, but the second my chest touches her back, she shoots forward and slams her hips against the sink. She cries out and spins. Tears track over her pale cheeks, and she holds her hands the same way she held them up when she first washed them, warily backing away from me until she can skim along the wall.
Jogging footsteps echo on the stairs, then Jess bursts into the garage with a pale face that matches Laine’s. “Hey.” She grabs her sister and pulls her close, and as soon as Jess tucks her into her chest, Laine’s breath explodes on an exhale. “It’s okay. Relax.” She looks up at me with apologetic eyes. “It’s okay. We’re going to watch a movie. Catch you tomorrow, Ang.”
Almost like she could hear everything I didn’t say, within a minute of my inappropriate thoughts and Laine’s resultant freak out, the garage door is closed and the girls are gone, tucked away in the house.
That’s their home, their sanctuary, and I’m not invited in.
“Ang?”
I spin to the re-opened door. “What the fuck?” I clutch a shifter in my hand and watch Kane close the door and step to the security panel. “How can she stay here with you, with the fuckin’ thug that looks like he’s gonna rob her any minute, but she can’t hang out with me when she knows me? She knows me, Bish! We’re family, and I never say what I’m actually thinking, but I’m the creep that makes her hands shake? What the fuck?”
“It’s not you.” He turns and sits on the step I ate on earlier. “She’s haunted, Ang. She has nightmares. It’s like she has an internal clock, a tolerance level for men.” He runs a hand over his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You just ran out her clock and now she’s done. You get a clean slate tomorrow.”
We both hear the unspoken maybe, but he doesn’t dare say it.
“It’ll be okay.” Looking up, his eyes wait for mine before continuing. “That clock timer went a hell of a lot longer than we expected. You had her for ages. You made her laugh. Tomorrow will be better.”
I point my shifter. “That wasn’t a strike.”
“No.” Chuckling, he rests his elbows on his knees and studies the concrete floor. “No, that wasn’t a strike, but I heard about you letting my girl party when she was underage. That’s worth a fuckin’ beatdown.”
“I didn’t let her!” I turn back to the car and let my frustrations out on the engine block. Like rebuilding this thing will rebuild the girl it belongs to, I work faster. “I didn’t let her party. I saved her drowning ass too many times to count.”
“And you didn’t tell her brother. You didn’t dob them in and make it stop.”
Stopping, I tilt my head. “Dob?”
He snorts. “Like, snitch. My point is, you aided and abetted, motherfucker. In my courthouse, that’s a punishable crime.”
I slam my finger between steel and let out a roar of frustration. “Motherfuck! Slut of a fuckin’ bitch!” I throw the shifter with a shout and take pleasure in the way it bounces off the steel garage door. “Stupid fuckin’ c–” I let out an angry growl.
Kane simply watches me with a lifted brow. “Anger issues, brother? Need a Snickers?”
“Fuck you, Bishop! Fuck your courthouse. Fuck you up the ass with a blowtorch until you breathe fire.”
He chuckles and watches me pace the front of the car. “You know how to paint a picture, man.” When I pick up a second wrench and toss it after the first, he stands and transforms from entertained to bordering on pissed. “You need to cool your shit. I turned the feed off, they won’t hear your words, but they’re sure as shit gonna hear you throw tools. You’re making it worse for her, so get your shit under control. You got to eat a meal with her. You made her laugh. Take your victory and walk your bullshit mood off.”
“Fuck!” My dad’s raging eyes flash in my mind. His tantrums. His anger. His intent to make everyone else around him as miserable as he was.
Then his eyes while he died…
I walk to the garage door and pull it open. Turning back, I stare at the car that now has a brand-new dent because of my shitty mood. I turn away and scrub my hands over my face.
“Come back tomorrow, Ang. It’ll work out.”
“Yeah.” Because everything always works out for guys like me.
13
Laine
Sonia
“Good morning, Laine.” Sonia sits in her comfortable chair in a power suit, sensible heels, and perfectly coiffed hair. She gives a gentle smile and watches me make my way closer.
She doesn’t get up to welcome me.
She doesn’t make it a big deal that I’m here.
We’re just two gals catching up over a cup of tea and a box of tissues.
“Good morning.” I take a seat across from her like I have every other day this week. I won’t always have to come so often, but for now, and especially after my freak behavior with Ang yesterday, it’s clear I need more help than once a month visits.
“How are you?” She leans forward and nudges an already poured cup of tea toward me. Flowery and green, it smells like dog barf and rainbows.
“I’m okay…” I pick up the delicate china and use it to warm my hands. “I had a weird freak out yesterday, so I guess I’m not fixed yet.”
She smiles. “Fixed… it’s such a strong word. I’m not sure anyone is so perfect they could apply the word fixed. Better equipped to deal with life, perhaps, or better at handling a situation that makes them uncomfortable. But no one is infallible. No one is perfect.”
I look the woman up and down and use her as a distraction. “You look kinda infallible. You always seem so put together.”
“I’m almost seventy years old, Laine. I’ve had a lot of practice dressing myself in the mornings.” She pauses for a long beat the way she has every time we’ve met. She starts with small talk, I usually start the serious stuff by accident, she takes a breath as a signal for me to grab the chair, and we’re off. “What happened?”
“I panicked.”
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I was in the garage working on this old Buick.” I look up from my tea and smile. “It’s a fifty-one Super with all the original parts. The leathers are still as soft now as they were when they belonged to the cow.”
Her lips twitch.
“I was hanging in the garage, listening to music, pulling bits out of the engine to get it ready to rebuild.”
“Whose car is this? Did you always have a project like this?”
“No. It’s Angelo’s. He owns the garage on Main Street, but this one isn’t work. He’s doing it up in his spare time, and apparently his garage is full, so he asked Kane to borrow his, which is why it’s at the house.”
“Mmhm.” Leaning to the side, she picks up a yellow legal pad and starts taking notes… or drawing squiggles. I have no clue what she writes. She never shows me
, and mostly, I don’t want to know.
It probably just says crazy, crazy, crazy.
“He owns the garage in town. Plays with cars in his spare time. Asked his friend if he could borrow his garage.” Her light eyes meet mine. “Go on.”
I shrug. “So this beautiful car sat in the garage all alone all night. I went out to hang out with it, looked under the hood, then I think I blacked out, because I woke up with tools in my hands and parts of the engine laid out on the floor.”
Quietly laughing, she makes notes. “As an aside, not a professional comment, just something between friends…” She waits for me to glance up. “I find it humorous that you defend your sanity when it comes to being afraid of men. You’re so scared I’ll label you something you’re not and have you committed somewhere you don’t want to go.” White jackets and padded walls flitter through my mind. “But you speak of a car like it’s a human. You speak of blacking out and dismantling an engine. You play music for the car, too, don’t you?”
My stomach flutters with giggles. “Maybe.”
She shakes her head. “Okay, go on. New car, pretty car, car with feelings and musical preferences.”
Sonia has a way of soothing me. I don’t know how she ended up in my hospital room, I don’t know who called her, but I’m so unbelievably happy they did. The fact I feel legitimately crazy just because I have a shrink aside, she’s really nice. She’s like a warm hug and soft touches in the middle of a storm.
I’m not sure we’ve ever actually touched. I can’t recall if we’ve ever shaken hands, but her words, her presence, feels like a hug.
“So I was working on the car. I knew Angelo would be back eventually, but in all the time I’ve known him–”
Sonia lifts a hand. “This Angelo… How long have you known him?”
“Oh. Um… Like, forever. He’s my brother’s best friend. They went to school together, so he’s always been around.”
“Okay.” She adds more squiggles to her paper. “Go on.”
“So, in forever, I’m not sure he’s ever shut the garage early. But he did yesterday. He turned up at the house a little after three with subs and soda, knocked on the garage door and asked to come in.”
