Kiss My Boots (Coming Home #2)

“Bertha?” I ask thickly, her explanation rocking me to my core.

She points over my shoulder and I look over to the other F1 I vaguely remember her talking about weeks ago. I had been so desperate for anything from her, that conversation was a test to my abilities of focusing. I try to remember exactly what she said, but the only thing I can remember is that Quinn had used the engine in that truck for mine.

What she said finally registers completely and I feel my heart skip a beat. “Wait a minute, how are we these two trucks when that one,” I say, pointing to the one she keeps calling Bertha, “doesn’t have an engine anymore. Are you sayin’ you’re still broken, baby?”

God, I fucking hope not. I thought, after the wedding and her talk with her brother that night, that we were past this. I figured we were finally in the right spot—that place where nothing would stand in our way again.

Her serious expression breaks and a sly, content smile tips up her lips. “No, honey,” she breathes, reaching out to caress the side of my face, stopping when she reaches my jaw to cup it lovingly. It’s pathetic how addicted to her touch I am. I fucking crave her hands on me. I turn my head to nuzzle into her so I can smell the perfume on her wrist better.

“Bertha’s a good girl, Tate. She’s patient when it comes to her man and wants to give him what he needs to be whole. I’m sayin’ you came back and gave me Homer to fix and in turn offered me somethin’ I never imagined I would get another chance at again. They both got the same thing in the end. Homer got Bertha’s engine—her heart, the part of her that is the most vulnerable and important—and you . . . you got mine.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” I mumble in awe, feeling like my heart is about to pound out of my fucking chest over what she’s just said and what it means to our relationship.

“What d’you say we fire this bad boy up?” she asks, giving me the moment of recovery I need to get my shit together.

Too overcome by her words to speak right then, I give her a nod and try not to cry like a fucking baby.

The second she turns the key and the truck roars, vibrations shooting through my whole body, she tosses her head back and laughs—pure elation shooting from her, just from starting up a truck. She shakes her head, pressing on the gas a few times to rev the engine, the whole time bouncing in her seat like a kid on a sugar high. She’s fucking eating this up. Seeing her like this, in her element, is a joy.

When she looks over, her dark hair running over the skin of my forearm that’s still resting on the back of the seat, goose bumps shoot over my body. I just stare at her, at the streak of grease just above the line of her chin, at her eyes wild and bright with excitement, and I’m not sure that she’s ever looked more beautiful.

“You wanna drive?” she asks, her green eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed. No fucking way I would take the chance to do so away from her, not when she looks like she was just handed the world by turning the key.

“Figure with what you just said, darlin’, the only person that should be drivin’ the truck that represents me is you.”

She leans her head back and sighs with contentment, still bouncing slightly as her hands grip the wheel.

“Show me what you got, darlin’,” I say with a smile.

I know she gets what I’m saying—that she reads between the words spoken to find the deeper meaning—because her whole face gets even softer, love shining so fucking bright in her eyes that it would bring a lesser man to his knees. It’s that expression, paired with the rumble of Homer as she pulls him out of Davis Auto Works and starts tearing up the streets of Pine Oak, that confirms to me that she is giving me exactly what I was requesting.

She continues to race through the whole damn town, laughing and giggling. She switches gears, the window down and her hair flying wildly around her face, the truck under her control coming powerfully back to life with her hands on him now that she’s fixed every single thing that had rotted.

If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget this ride.

- -

I rub my stomach when it rumbles again, the scent of the food Quinn’s gotten out of the fridge reminding me just how hungry I was. We just spent another afternoon after work in Homer’s cab, riding around like we’ve been doing the past few days. It’s become a routine of sorts: bump around in the revamped truck until eventually, the high dims enough that Quinn wants to head back to either my house or hers. I’m sure there are a million other things I could be doing, but this time with her is so fucking perfect there isn’t anywhere else I would rather be.

It’s been a few days since our first ride—a full week since her brother’s wedding. Until today, she’s been acting fine. Her smile rarely dropped, and she’s even gone out of her way to come have lunch in my office with me every day. Other than when we were both at work, we haven’t spent a moment apart in seven days. But right now, she seems different. Not even when she was feeling bummed about being done with the truck was she this quiet and almost fretful, like she is now.

The truck I can’t stop referring to as Homer is now parked in the garage behind my house—back in his old spot, only now he doesn’t stay locked up. Quinn’s taken him to the shop every day since with the excuse that she just wants to keep an eye on him to make sure nothing is going wrong, but I can see through her bullshit. She’s as attached to the truck as she is to the man she claims he represents.

“When do the newlyweds get back from their honeymoon?” I call to Quinn from my spot in the middle of the couch.

Up until a little while ago, she had been in this spot with me, warming my body with hers while we did more listening to the TV than watching it, seeing as we haven’t been doing much focusing lately other than on each other’s bodies. I’m pretty sure she would still be in my arms, letting me run my hands all over her body, if we both hadn’t gotten hungry.

“Two days,” Quinn mumbles, looking up briefly from the sandwiches she’s making before looking away.

Her sudden shift in mood makes me pause, lowering the remote that I had been holding up to shift through the channels, waiting until she was done so we could start a movie. She was bouncing around the kitchen like she was full of happy, bubbly energy not even five minutes ago. What the hell could have happened in the time it took her to pull out sandwich shit and start putting a meal together?

“You okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” She hums, nodding her head.

“You’re a shit liar, darlin’. What’s wrong?”