My hours of research taught me that it’s either a problem I have no chance of fixing, or it’s just a few loose screws. As soon as I actually open the hood and take a look, I realize I’m in over my head. My engine doesn’t look quite like the ones I saw in the videos, and there’s a plastic cover over half of it. I sigh, blowing a hair out of my face and using my phone as a flashlight.
After about five minutes of poking around, I realize I have no chance in hell of doing this myself. I can’t even unscrew the bolts holding the plastic cover in place because none of my tools fit them. I slam the hood down in frustration and then jump away from the dark figure standing beside my car. I do a very embarrassing impression of a t-rex as I scream at the top of my lungs and my arms pull up by my sides.
It’s Reid.
“What the hell?” I yell.
He steps forward so I can see his obnoxiously handsome face. “I was just wondering how long it would take you to figure out you can’t fix that on your own. I heard it from my garage.” He moves to my hood and opens it without asking for permission.
“Get your filthy hands off my hood.”
He grins up at me, the look on his face making me feel like I just said the dirtiest thing in the world.
My cheeks burn and I frown, folding my arms I watch as his muscles cord and flex while he pokes and prods at my engine with his strong hands. He flips something that pops and yanks the plastic cover out effortlessly. I catch myself imagining what hands like that would feel like on my body. I stop that line of thinking fast. Reid is a total asshole. I don’t care how good he looks or what those hands would feel like on me, because I’m never going to find out. He’s not my type and he’s the last thing I need complicating my life right now. Besides, if Tara ever found out, she would never forgive me.
“Yeah. It’s fucked,” he says. “I’ll have the boys pull it over to the garage in the morning. Will be about a week before she’s running again.”
“Reid, I don’t need or want your help.”
“Tough shit,” he says. “You’re my neighbor now. If your car runs like shit it makes me look bad. I’m fixing it whether you like it or not.”
“Like hell you are,” I say.
He takes a step closer until I can smell the piney scent of him, like a forest in December. I involuntarily breathe it in more deeply. My heart pounds.
“Yeah? How do you plan on stopping me?”
I swallow, words failing. All I can see are the strong lines of him. His jaw, the hint of a perfectly muscular crease between his pecs showing above the low collar of his shirt. He’s so broad and strong he could pick me up like I was a child. He could do anything he wanted to me. He could…
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing that line of thought to stop.
“I don’t need your handouts,” I say finally.
He eyes me hard. “Right. The spoiled rich girl who doesn’t think she needs handouts.”
My hand flashes out, catching him across the cheek. He barely flinches, but the sound echoes through the night. My palm stings and our eyes are locked. I almost apologize. Almost. But the anger of his assumption swallows up my sympathy. “You don’t know anything about me, Reid Riggins.” I turn to walk inside and pause, speaking over my shoulder. “And you had better not dare touch my car.”
I hear a humorless laugh from behind me and the crunch of his feet as he walks back to his house.
Asshole.
3
Reid
I pull up to Sandra’s old place, which is apparently being rented by Tara now. What a joke. Leave it to Tara to keep finding new ways to fuck with my life. Now her spoiled rich best friend is living next door to me and already making me lose sleep. When I saw her engine fuck up, I knew she was going to be too proud to ask me. I just knew it.
Sure enough, I saw her sneaking out to try to fix it herself at night. It galled me for some reason. Of course the daddy’s girl who has everything handed to her would think fixing a car would be easy. She probably went online and read some how-to guide and thought she could figure it out. She probably thinks she can do what I do for a living if she feels like it. As I expected, she’s clueless.
Well, I still jimmied the lock on her car this morning, put it in neutral, and pushed it to my shop. She can bitch and moan all she likes, but it’s like I said. Her car trouble makes me look bad. It’s a small town and people talk. I don’t need my reputation getting shot because of her stubbornness. Fuck that. I’ll just have to swipe the keys at some point, but I doubt a rich girl like her will see it coming. Shouldn’t be a problem.
Roman hums from his carseat in the back of my truck, kicking his feet. I smirk up at him through the rear-view. He looks like me in every way. He has my dark hair, my eyes. I’m glad I don’t have to see any reminders of Tara when I look at him.
“Can mommy take me to the shop today?” says Roman.
I feel a swell of pride, but I swore a long time ago I wouldn’t ever try to pit him against his mom. No matter how much I may despise her for what she did to us, every child needs a mom. I had to grow up without one, and I don’t want my son to have to go through that too. “Hey,” I say, turning to look at him as I pull up to a stop sign. “Mommy doesn’t like the shop, remember? It makes her so happy to see you. Talking about the shop will just make her sad.”
Roman looks down, fiddling with his little fingers. “But I’ll be bored. She makes me watch cartoons all day.”
I turn back to the road so he doesn’t see my scowl. Seems like I’m going to have to talk to her about that. Again. You wouldn’t think it would be too much to ask of a mother who only sees her son on the weekends to want to plan something fun to do with her child. “Just be nice to her. Your mom loves you,” is all I can manage.
I pull up to Sandra’s place, which I guess is now Tara’s. Once I’ve pulled Roman from his car seat and grabbed all his essentials from the truck, I knock impatiently on the door. I have to knock twice more before Tara finally swings the door open. As usual, she looks like she spent half the day getting ready. Her hair is bleached and dry, but straightened and combed until every strand is in place. Her tan face is coated in enough makeup to mostly hide the fine lines years of reckless tanning have brought to the surface.
I know I thought she was beautiful once. Now, I just see a shell of a woman. She spends so long making sure she looks good because no one would stick around if they knew what she was really like. Vapid. Controlling. Manipulative. And unfaithful. The last makes me clench my fists until my nails dig into my palms. Not because of what she did to me, but because she was willing to do that to Roman. She was willing to destroy our family.
“Go on, Bud,” I say to Roman, giving him a gentle push toward the house. My eyes flick past Tara to the man’s boots sitting neatly in the foyer. The sight of them gives me a pang of familiarity that I can’t immediately place. They must belong to whoever this new boyfriend is, but why do they look so familiar?
Once Roman is inside, I plant a hand on the doorframe, leaning in and lowering my voice. “Cartoons again? We talked about this shit.”