I knew Tori probably didn’t appreciate the possessive way I kept my hand pressed against her back, dangerously close to touching her ass, but if she knew what most of my employees were thinking about her — and probably would have propositioned if it weren’t for that hand — she would feel differently. Or… maybe I didn’t want them looking at her like that and wanted to give the impression she was mine. I spoke briefly to a few of the guys in the shop before leading her towards the office.
Just as I was pulling out my keys to unlock the office, I heard a loud, booming voice from behind us. “Ace! Where the hell you been, man?” Tori was caught off guard by the sound of my head mechanic, Nick, coming around the corner, and she reflexively pressed herself into me, looking alarmed. My natural response was to meet her anxiety with a soothing gesture, so I touched her arms.
Sweet Jesus.
The bare skin of her arms felt like satin under my fingertips, and if I remember correctly — how could I forget? — the rest of her was just as silky. The memory of it sent blood rushing to my groin, so I stepped back to break the contact.
“Chill,” I said nonchalantly. “It’s just loud-ass Nick.”
“Sorry to scare you ma’am.” Nick said, pushing his sandy-blond hair out of his eyes before extending his hand, a gesture Tori hesitantly accepted. “Just haven’t seen Ace around here the last few months.”
“Ace?” Tori looked back and forth between us, waiting on someone to explain.
Nick clapped his hand on my shoulder. “That’s what we call the boss man around here.”
“Hey, I’m not the boss around here man, that’s you. I just write the checks,” I joked, pushing his hand off my shoulder so we could dap.
Nick joked about me being the boss man, but he was the one the guys looked up to. He was the reason I’d come to Dallas in the first place. We’d met randomly, back when Ignition was right on the brink of greatness. Nick and I were seatmates on the flight from Chicago to San Jose that would result in me securing the investor I needed to take my business to the next level. Nick’s trip wasn’t nearly as potentially life altering as mine, as he was going to visit his little brother, but he was interesting nonetheless. The arm facing me was covered in the most vivid, intricate tattoos I’d ever seen. I asked him if they had hurt.
“Not as much as the scars they’re covering,” was his reply. He explained that he was a veteran, who’d come extremely close to losing his life while deployed. Over the course of the four-hour flight, he and I became friends. We exchanged contact information, but kept in touch sparingly until nearly three years later, when he called me about investing in an Ignition location in his hometown of Dallas. I’d gone through the hellish ordeal with Natalie in Chicago, so relocating to help set up Ignition in a new state was the perfect distraction. Nick and I have been homeboys ever since. I wasn’t an active mechanic anymore, but I got under the hood when the chance arose, and this was always my garage of choice. If I was going to look into whatever was wrong with Tori’s car, I needed tools, and I needed parts. It only made sense to patronize my own business to get them.
“Are you gonna introduce me to this beautiful lady you’ve got with you man?” Nick was giving Tori ‘the eye’, this squinty, smoldering shit he did with his blue-green eyes that usually had women lined up at his feet. I glanced back at her, and was relieved to see that rather than interested, she simply looked amused.