He opened his mouth and took another step forward, but the side door he’d just hit flew out in his face. He had to wheel backward to keep it from smacking him. Starla repressed a chuckle, but when Brian Ross charged out and grabbed Max by both sides of his ratty jacket, she nearly screamed. Oh no, don’t get involved!
“Listen to me, you useless sack of shit,” Brian growled, jerking Max until he was almost nose to nose with him. With no small amount of glee, she noticed he had to talk down to him, but the vicious edge in his voice drowned out any pleasure she felt at the sight and raised the hair at her nape. “If you don’t get in your car and get off this property right now, I’ll drive that piece of shit straight up your ass, you got me?” He gave him a hard shove. Max staggered backward, splaying across the hood of his car, glowering at Brian with murder in his eyes. “Mess with her again, motherfucker. I dare you. I don’t care if she’s on my time or not. I will fuck you up.”
Max pushed himself up, making Starla think of a cat who’d had his fur stroked the wrong way as he smoothed back his hair and snatched his jacket straight. “I see how it is.” He spat on the ground, glaring at Starla and Brian in turn, muttering the sentence over and over as he affected a nonchalant stroll back to the Mustang’s driver’s side. “Yeah. I see how it fucking is.”
He got in. Cranked with a rumble, peeled off in smoke, and laid rubber.
“Thank you,” Starla said, releasing the breath she’d been holding. She shook all over, and her heart was about to beat its way up her throat. “I thought he was—”
Brian turned on her, the look in his eyes almost scarier than Max’s had been. “You can’t run with shit without getting it on you, Starla.” She cringed at his tone, hearing the accusation, the I told you so, the…oh fuck, the disappointment. “Trouble is, it gets on everyone else around you too.” Shame blazed a trail through her as the gravity of his words hit home. Here he was, a family man now, walking the straight and narrow, still fighting her stupid battles with an unpredictable idiot like Max. A year ago, he probably would’ve relished the chance, but now, so much had changed. So, so much.
Tears stung her eyes, but he didn’t hang around to see them. Even as she burst out, “I’m sorry,” he yanked open the door and disappeared inside, muttering curses under his breath. The door swung slowly closed behind him with an anguished squawk, and she stared at it for a good two minutes trying to pull herself together and wondering what the hell to do next. After inhaling two cigarettes’ worth of nicotine into her lungs with shaking hands, she finally made her way back inside with a stop in the restroom to repair any damage her tears had done to her eyeliner.
Business as usual out front. Music, conversation, happily buzzing machines. Either her coworkers didn’t know anything about what had happened, or they were pretending they didn’t. Or, she guessed, they knew and didn’t give a flying fuck. Brian sullenly cleaned up around his station and escaped to his office, where he tinkered for a while and then made his escape home without another word to anyone. Starla only knew he’d left when she heard the side door slam shut. By that point, she was relieved to know he was gone.
As if enough salt hadn’t been poured into her festering wounds, Macy showed up half an hour before Jared was supposed to pick Starla up. Ghost’s grin could’ve lit the room—he looked like an entirely different person when she walked in the door carrying bags of Chinese takeout.
Starla tried not to study the woman who still owned a piece of Jared’s heart—and probably always would—but she couldn’t help it. Long, unbelievably shiny dark ombre hair—the kind Starla often kidded looked like it was conditioned with Jesus’s tears. Always impeccably dressed; hell, she could make sweatpants look classy. Always nice too, if a little reserved. At first they’d all thought she was incredibly stuck up, but it wasn’t so. She gave everyone a friendly greeting but didn’t stop for idle chitchat, as per the norm. Her destination was Ghost, and she zeroed in on him, giving him a quick kiss on the lips before the two of them headed to the break room to eat together.
Jared would see Macy’s car parked out front. That would probably cast a pall over his evening. After the incident with Max, Starla already had storm clouds hovering over hers. Why were they even bothering? She should text him now and tell him—
A flash of red out on the street told her it was too late, unless she wanted to tell him to his face. Through the wide front windows, she watched Jared’s big truck pull easily into the parking lot. For better or worse, this was happening. Sighing, Starla grabbed her purse, told a bewildered Janelle she’d be back in an hour, and went out to meet him.
***