The Truth About Us

by Megan D. Martin

  He didn’t say anything. Instead he stared back at me with his cold green eyes, and I wondered what he saw in me. Was I the same old girl he always knew? Had I changed at all? I hadn’t, I knew that for certain. I was sadder, probably. I carried the hurt I created with me like a thick sack of bricks on my shoulders. I thought telling him the truth would make things better – but I hadn’t even really gotten a chance to tell him all the things I’d meant to. Which was okay – he didn’t want to listen. No, this new Tyler didn’t have time for me.

  Then why is he here now?

  “You should probably get back to your cheerleader, I’m sure she’s missing you by now.” I tried to sound sarcastic, but I just sounded tired and sad – pathetic like usual.

  I went to duck under his arm, but again he stopped me.

  “What do you want from me, Tyler?” The words hung there between us, in the few inches of space we had.

  His expression hardened further, the cold in his eyes creating a blizzard that made my skin prickle as a shiver traced down my spine.

  “I—” but Tyler didn’t finish his sentence, instead he crashed his mouth roughly against mine, our teeth clanging together at the impact, but I didn’t miss a beat.

  I kissed Tyler Nusom back.

  My chest ached as our mouths melded together. I knew in my heart this was wrong. I was wrong. We were wrong to be kissing in a dark hallway that led to a bar bathroom, but I didn’t care in that moment. I would think about the consequences and what it all meant later. In the moment all I wanted was to feel Tyler, every inch of him. I wanted to explore his mouth, his body, his soul until I found my Tyler.

  What would I do when I found him?

  I didn’t know.

  I had never felt so furious in my life – not as furious as I felt right in that moment – the moment where I kissed Rowan in that dark bar hallway. I couldn’t reconcile the fact that she was here. It was something I’d been trying to come to terms with since the day she came and saw me at work. I knew Rowan was still around, obviously. I knew she had school, and would probably always work for her dad, so I knew we still lived in the same town. But I hadn’t seen a trace of her since that day a year ago when she’d ruined my life.

  After she showed up at work, I’d been plagued with thoughts of her that I thought I’d managed to discard months ago. I was wrong. Somehow, I found myself preoccupied with her over the last couple of days, with every spare minute recalling those few moments when she sat alone with me in my office and claimed there was an alternate truth – one where she didn’t ruin my life by fucking my least favorite person on the planet.

  Rowan was lying, of course. She had to be. I knew that. I accepted that – or at least I wanted to. But then there she was, standing in the bar next to Owen, my employee, wearing this dress that screamed fuck me. Her gaze hooded with allure, and her long hair loose down her back in curling waves. The sight of her like that literally took the breath out of my lungs – fuck, took the air out of the entire room. I thought I might suffocate and die right there on the floor. It was like that first day I saw her in the parking lot, in the heat of summer on hot pavement. She literally destroyed me with her beauty.

  I hated to admit it, but I couldn’t help myself. She was utterly stunning; her beauty unmatched by anyone on the planet. I had pretended for the last year that she wasn’t all I had made her out to be – that I had been blinded by my love. That was easy to accept – that I had just been a fucking love-drunk idiot who pinned my heart on her empty soul.

  In that moment, seeing her standing there with her shoulder pressed against Owen’s, something inside me had cried out at the wrongness of it all. The coy smile she gave. Everything. All of it. Wrong. She wasn’t supposed to look at him like that. She wasn’t supposed to look at anyone like that, except for me. But then reality set in, and I remembered the warm fingers clasped against mine: Evie’s. I remembered why Rowan smiled at someone else like that, and why I wasn’t supposed to care. That’s when the angered flared deep inside me from somewhere dark and bitter. Something cruel inside me smiled when Victor ripped her apart, calling her out for exactly what she was – a fucking slut who had crushed my heart and soul in one fell swoop.

  I was trying to convince myself that’s why I was here now, in the dark hallway with my lips pressed against Rowan’s – not because I missed her or because she had some sort of hold on me – no, she didn’t have either of those things. It was because Rowan wanted to act like a whore, and so I was going to treat her like one. She wanted to flirt with guys and get drunk at bars and go home and do God knows what with strangers? Well then, she might as well do it with me. She might as well see what my passion was like when it came from rage, as our lips and teeth banged together.

  She was kissing me back. This Rowan in front of me. This Rowan who hated my anger. We had rarely fought until she’d done what she did. But she was kissing me back with just as much fire and fury as me.

  She moaned against my mouth, her hands gripping my waist. I pressed fully against her body, nailing her back against the concrete wall, pressing my erection against her hip. I bit back a groan, kissing her harder, letting the anger rise. I shouldn’t be kissing her, I shouldn’t be responding to her like this. I despised her more than I despised anyone else. The hate I had for her was unreal, terrible, which meant I shouldn’t want her, I shouldn’t be hard for her curvy little body. Not when I had someone like Evie waiting for me out in the bar.

  Evie.

  I broke away from Rowan, shoving myself away from her, my back smacking into the opposite wall. She stood panting in front of me, her lips red and swollen from my punishing kisses. The dim light over us illuminated the top of her head, her long eyelashes casting shadows over her cheeks. My first instinct told to me go back to her, to finish what I started.

  I didn’t.

  I didn’t say a word as I pushed my way into the men’s room, where, like a ridiculous school boy, I finished myself off inside a bathroom stall, squirting my cum into the toilet instead of inside Rowan, like I wanted.

  When I came back out sometime later, Rowan was gone.

  “I’m gonna get like fifteen hours off this ticket alone.” Victor waved a piece of paper in my face. “Biggest ticket I’ve had since I started.”

  I smiled at my best friend. He’d been working at Steel Mechanics, Inc. for about a month now, just two months less than myself. For some reason, George Steel, my hero and my boss, listened to me when I recommended Victor for the job, and he hadn’t regretted it. Victor and I had been best buds since high school. I had just moved to town and we had shop class together. We ended up realizing we had a lot in common, especially when it came to taking shit apart and seeing if we could put it back together.

  It started with smaller things, like weed-eaters and go-carts, and eventually evolved into cars and motorcycles. We even once attempted to repair a busted engine on a 1970 Massey Ferguson pasture tractor that hadn’t been running in decades. We spent the majority of our summer out in his dad’s barn, jacking around with it. In the end it was too far gone, but that didn’t stop us from spending every waking moment on that old hunk of junk.

  After high school, we’d both gotten into a technical school just one city over, in order to become master technicians. We were still roommates to this day. I had decided some years ago that no friendship had ever been so easy going.

  “You got a big job too?” Victor reached for the ticket in my hand.

  “Nah,” I pulled it back from him. “Just brakes and an engine flush.”

  “What are you doing over here waiting for approval, then?”

  We stood together at the far end of the shop just outside the main office – George Steel had been out for the last couple days at a conference in Louisiana. All big jobs had to be approved through him, but he if he wasn’t there, then his daughter, Rowan, had the charge of making all approvals. It wasn’t anything fancy, we would just take her the ticket with our diagnosis on it, and she would
stamp it, hand it back and smile. Simple. Painless. But somehow I had come to crave those few moments when she acknowledged my existence.

  I’d been here for three months and I still hadn’t had the nerve to ask her out. I didn’t know what kept me from just approaching her and doing the damn thing. Hell, I never usually had a problem with it. All she could say was no – and in my experience most girls didn’t often say no. But the idea that she might made me feel panicked. I only had one chance. I didn’t want to fuck it up.

  Instead of just asking her out, I spent months putting it off, even though I remained desperate for a glance, a smile from her direction. George being out of town gave me plenty of excuses. She had signed off on every tiny little oil change and engine air filter replacement without batting an eye, as if she didn’t mind my frequent visits all that much.

  “Better to go ahead and get approval now, rather than be sorry later.” I shrugged.

  The door to the main office opened, and there Rowan stood in all her glory, wearing a red, white, and blue Polo with the Steel emblem of a wrench and a sword on the right breast. “Sorry to keep you waiting, guys. Dad wanted to call for an update, and you know he waits for no man, woman, child, or excuse. What kind of jobs you got for me?”

  I watched as Victor handed her his ticket. She glanced it over and stamped it quickly, before turning her gaze to me. I just couldn’t get enough of her honey-brown eyes. They didn’t always hold that same sadness I saw on that very first day – it was there, but sometimes she masked it behind others, like professionalism, and even happiness, but she could never fully hide it. I wanted to know why it was there – what caused her sadness? Could I make it go away completely?

  It was a challenge I would accept with open arms.

  “This all looks good, Tyler.” She flashed me a grin and pressed the stamp against the ticket – the one I didn’t really need approval for.

  I leaned forward to take the paper back from her, but she held it in her hand on the desk for a beat longer than normal. Her other hand fiddled with the end of her long braid. She looked expectant, curious, as if there was more she had to say, or maybe more she wanted me to say.

  This is your chance!

  “Move it, T. I got some real work that needs approval, not some piddly shit like you’re always running.” Darren pushed his way into the office and shoved a ticket in Rowan’s face. “Full engine replacement.” He smiled. “I’m the only one boss-man ever allows to do these big jobs, Row. Go ahead and approve it.”

  Darren was the only coworker I didn’t care for. He was a big meathead of a dude, who spent all his time outside of work at the gym. He said words like “bruh” and “get wrecked,” and only dated girls who had an IQ equivalent to a pile of ant shit. He was good at his job though, and had worked for Steel for a couple of years. He had about five years of age on me, and rumor had it he was in line to be the next shop foreman after old man Red retired. I literally dreaded the very idea of that.

  “What kind of car is this going in?”

  “What diff does it make, ma?”

  Rowan’s forehead creased. “You haven’t listed any of the information about the car at the top of the form, Darren.” She flipped the page around. “You know I can’t approve it if you don’t fill it out correctly.”

  “Come on, shawty.” He rested a meaty hand against the desk. “You can trust me.” He flashed a smile at her and ran a hand over his bald head. “Speaking of trust – I trust you’re going to let me take you out this weekend. Pops isn’t home, that means little Row Row can get wild.” He winked at her.

  Part of me feared that she would buy into this douchebag, and the idiot bullshit he was laying down. I’d seen some of the women he’d had around the shop, and out at the bar the two times I’d gone out with my coworkers. For whatever reason, some women were fell for Darren’s crap and fear struck my heart that Rowan would be just the same.

  Rowan’s frown deepened. “I’m busy, Darren. Fill out the form correctly, and I’ll approve it.” She dropped the paper on top of his hand and turned her back to him, opening the filing cabinet behind her.

  “All right. I see how it is. Don’t you worry, ma. I see you. I got you.” Darren chuckled and left the office, acting oblivious to the fact that he had just been shut down by the sexiest woman on the planet.

  Part of me rejoiced that she turned him down, and the other part of me was freaking pissed that Darren had come in and stepped on my toes just as I was about to ask her out myself. I realized just after Darren left that I still stood in the middle of the office clutching my approved ticket like I had some sort of other reason to be there.

  I didn’t.

  I turned to leave, hoping to make it out of the office before Rowan turned back around and realized I was still there.

  “Tyler?”

  I’d barely made it to the door jam. “Yeah?” I glanced over my shoulder.

  She chewed her bottom lip, and I was glad I was facing away from her with my hand on the door otherwise I might have collapsed out of sheer desire.

  “I’m not busy.” She cleared her throat. “This weekend.”

  “Oh, no?” I turned around to fully face her, my heart racing in my chest.

  “No, I’m free.” She fiddled with the end of her braid nervously. “That is, if you are.”

  She didn’t meet my gaze and holy fuck, I’m glad she didn’t. She would have probably seen a hysterical look in my eyes that bordered on psychotically happy.

  “Well, lucky for both of us, I’m free – very free – this weekend. Friday night. Sound good?”

  She nodded, meeting my gaze again, but I’d managed to smooth my initial reaction over so she couldn’t see my insane happiness.

  I winked at her. “It’s a date, then.”

  “There’s my little angel.”

  I smiled at my dad as I moved inside his office. It was 6:30AM and I could still feel all those Christmas tree drinks from the night before in the form of a pounding in my head. The coffee in my hand made it a little better, but I wanted nothing more than to be back in my bed, sleeping and forgetting that kiss.

  That freaking kiss!

  “Hi, Dad.” I set my coffee on the edge of his desk.

  “You doing okay this morning?”

  I nodded.

  “You look tired.” He leaned forward, resting his hands on the paperwork-covered desk in front of him. He reminded me of Don Corleone in the Godfather when he sat like this – though less mob-like and more mechanic-like in his stained blue jumpsuit. The reference did stem from actual genetics; my dad came from an Italian family I had never met, as they all still lived in Italy. Dad had broken ties with them long before I was born, coming to the states to start over and create a new life. I’d often asked about them, and he’d let it slip once that he had seven siblings. Seven aunts and uncles, and probably a ton of cousins I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t even know their names. Dad had changed his after the move, severing every connection with his Italian background.

  “I’m fine, Dad.” I sat across from him.

  “You should really come back and live at home. There’s no need for you to be living out there, alone in some apartment. Your room is just as you left it.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. We had this conversation at least once a week. “I’m fine, Dad. I like my apartment. You know that.”

  He sighed, but his gaze never wavered from mine. That was one thing my dad had that intimidated people, the stare of death, or at least that’s what I had dubbed it as a child. He could literally stare for minutes on end without blinking. It was unnerving to say the least, especially for his employees. I, however, was used to it.

  “Yes, but it seems pointless to live on your own when you could live with me, rent free.”

  It was my turn to sigh and drink my coffee, to keep from meeting the death stare. “I know, Dad. But remember what we talked about – me being independent, finding my way on my own.”

  He guff
awed. “Why go through life alone when you have a killer awesome dad like me?”

  I chuckled, happy that we had passed the serious portion of the conversation. I knew I was in the clear when he started to tease me.

  “Especially since you aren’t with Tyler anymore, there’s no need to continue life on your own. You tried it out and it’s been good for you. Now come back to the home you were raised in.”

  I was wrong, we weren’t past the seriousness of the conversation. What’s worse – he brought up Tyler. Dad hadn’t spoken his name since the day Tyler quit, the day after our big breakup. Dad had never admitted it, but I knew our breakup had affected him as well. He loved Tyler in his own way and losing him was hard.

  You did what was best.

  Did I?

  I couldn’t keep my mind off that kiss though. Tyler had pressed against me, his stomach muscles under the soft fabric of his shirt feeling so much like my name – steel. His mouth unforgiving, relentless on mine. My lips tingled at the memory. Other parts of me tingled with awareness.

  “Rowan? Are you listening?”

  I blinked, the sound of my dad’s voice like a bucket of cold water washing over me.

  “Uh, yes,” I cleared my throat. “Sorry.”

  “I’ve heard good things about Nusom Automotive.”

  I chewed my lip. “Have you?” He’d never spoken about this either, not to me, but I’d heard him on the phone once, when I’d stopped by his office one day. He had been yelling at the person on the other end about Tyler’s new business. At the time, it had been open less than a month. Dad acted far from pleased that Tyler had taken the experience and knowledge he’d given him and turned it into a new – and already booming – business.