“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah ya did!”
“No, I freakin’ didn’t!”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s freakin’ now? Did you tone down your cussing because you’re confused and maybe…” she holds her thumb and finger together. “…a li’l less angry? Just a little bit?”
“When you asked what I did, and I told you, there was silence! All the way to my truck and everything. You’re used to—”
She cuts me off with a yelled, “Who’s judging now?!! Huh?!” lowering her voice now that she’s got my attention. “I was stunned because your house is almost better than my parents’ and I was wondering if mechanics really do rip us off like we always think they do!”
A ripple of laughter through the crowd.
I raise my voice for them. “I’m as honest as they come!” and to her add the question, “That’s really what you were thinking?”
“Sammy, what does Uncle Jake do for a living?”
“He’s a construction worker!”
“Water reclamation specifically. And what about Uncle Jett?”
“We can’t say!”
Cherry meets my eyes, clarifying, “But it’s not a job that rolls him in cash every night. My cousin Ben is a farmer. His father, my Uncle Jaxson, has a modest ranch with a little retreat called Sunflower that barely clears a profit. Wyatt’s a cop, as you know, and they make very little. Nathan is a firefighter—”
“Okay! You don’t have to go down the list.”
“I’m just saying, the only person who thought I looked down on your job was you. I run books for a yoga studio and barely make above minimum wage! I’ve got two roommates!”
Sam shouts, “Two awesome roommates!”
“But two roommates, so when you told me you were a mechanic after we fucked all over your two story, three bedroom craftsman,” more laughter from the crowd, ignored this time, “I was impressed almost as much as I was by your…” She motions to my crotch, and people start whistling. “So guess what? For a guy who needs to know everything, you sure don’t know much.”
Stunned, I stare at her, putting it all together and realizing how wrong everything I assumed was. “What’re you telling me?”
“Everything that I’ve just been saying!”
“Yeah, but what’s underneath it?”
The audience hushes until they're bone-silent as bright green eyes gaze up at me. “I’m saying I’m in love with you, Crocodiles.”
I hook my arm around her, drag that sweet body close and kiss her like everyone watching should take lessons, breaking free to make it clear to her and everyone listening, “I’m in love with you, too, Cherry.”
“You really are?”
“Fuck yes, I am!”
The crowd goes wild, and gets even louder as Lexi leaps up, wraps her dance-lovin’ legs around me, dress hiked up as we kiss like crazy.
Samantha shouts, “Good thing about those matching panties now, Lexi!”
Ralphie yells through cupped hands, “You’re one lucky sonofabitch, Gage, you know that?!!”
Kissing the fire I was drawn to that very first night and every night since, I murmur, “That is something I do know.”
Cherry smiles with pure love in her eyes, and there’s never been anything more beautiful. “You love me and I love you!”
“Yep.”
Staring at my mouth she whispers, “Hey Gage…”
“Yeah?”
“Ya wanna play darts?”
I throw my head back and laugh with relief and flat-out joy, spinning her around to carry her inside just like this as the crowd makes way for us, clapping.
“You’re all witnesses. Lexi loves me!”
“I sure do, Crocodiles.” She nuzzles my neck, “And I’m proud everybody knows it!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
GAGE
“So this is where you work!” Cherry calls out with a saucy smile, sexy as fuck in a yellow halter, blue jeans swaying. “You just gave me an address but you didn’t clue me in about the name.” Her finger points back to the sign. “Holbrook’s Garage?”
Wiping a day’s work from my hands onto an old rag, I meet her by Ralphie’s Mustang. She looks up, recognizing it.
“That’s his. Brought it here Thursday.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“He was so nice buying our drinks last night.”
“We gave his bar quite a show.”
“You’ve had it here two days and still nothing?” She feigns shock. “Better step it up, friend!”
I grab her. “I’m not your friend.”
Gazing lovingly up at me, Cherry murmurs, “What are you then?”
“I’m your one and only.”
A slow smile spreads lips I kissed all night long. “Yes, you are. Better make sure your boss gives you Saturdays off again.”
“You said that twice already this morning.”
“I was shocked you were working on our day off!”
Playfully smacking her ass while she’s still in my arms, I demand, “How was I supposed to know we’d still have those?”
“Why is this place called Holbrooks?”
“It belonged to my dad.”
She blinks at the reminder of his passing. “Oh!”
“No, he gave it to me years ago, Cherry, don’t get sad. Retired at sixty-seven. His fingers weren’t as nimble as they used to be. Arthritis.”
“Wait…you own this?”
“And two others.”
Her head swings back. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“I own three shops. One here in East Atlanta, one in Decatur, one in Macon.”
“Get your dirty hands off me!” She playfully pushes me away, whisking her hand through the air, sun at her back from the open garage door that spans eighty-percent of this old building. “Are you telling me you were freaked out I thought you were ‘just a mechanic’ and here you are, the owner?!! Do you know how crazy that sounds?!”
I walk closer to the sun, and by that I mean her. “Don’t get what you’re drivin’ at.”
“You don’t…” she sputters, “You don’t get what I’m driving at? Let me give you the wheel. Answer me this: how come, as the owner, you were insecure that—”
I interrupt her with a loud, “Ah ah ah!” and toss the rag onto roughly used tools. “I was never insecure about my job. Even if I hadn’t owned the damn place…”
“Three damn places!”
“…I still wouldn’t have been insecure. And that’s why, Miss Cocker, I wasn’t about to date someone who was. Get it?”
Her bright green eyes narrow, and she flicks her straightened hair back. “Oh I get it.”
I start for the fridge to get her a bottled water, thinking the subject is over. “Good.”
“You’re crazy, that’s what I get!”
This stops me in my tracks, and I bolt into action next, running after her as she dashes outside. As golden light hits her hair, she’s so pretty my eyes hurt. I gather the vixen in my arms and hold her tight. “Got you.”
“Yes, you really have.”
“You know what I was thinking last night after I kicked your ass in darts?”
Rolling her bright-greens at the reminder of her pathetic score, she sighs, “I can’t wait.”
“I was thinking how lucky it was for us that your dickhead ex-boyfriend brought the blonde to The Local that night.”
“Never my boyfriend.”
“Then he missed out.”
“Maybe.”
“What? No maybe! He missed out.”
Lacing tender fingers into my thick hair, she explains, “I mean maybe it was meant to happen like that.”
“Ah, there’s the girl who goes to church every Sunday, showing her spiritual stripes.”
“My what? Spiritual stripes?!” she laughs before finally admitting, “Okay, yes, I believe in destiny and that we’re watched over, if we just give it time to pl
ay out and follow our instincts. Because think about it! If I hadn’t been in that mess in the exact way it all went down — every moment, I can’t pick and choose — then I wouldn’t have been pouring frosty beer onto his crotch at juuuusssssst the right moment.” Kissing me, Cherry murmurs, “And I wouldn’t have stolen you from your meal.” Her head swings back to look at me. “Wait, did you order food that night?”
“Yep. Ralphie had the Impossible burger and fries all rung up.”
She pretends to be upset for me. “What a shame!”
I kiss her, “Damn shame,” and lift her up, legs wrapping around me in what is quickly becoming a very familiar way.
“You gonna carry me everywhere?!”
“Time to close up!”
Excited, she glances around the empty shop, even twists to check if anyone’s behind the wheel of cars parked out front, left for me and my guys to get to when special parts are delivered. “Is this why you wanted me here after hours?”
Walking us over to the necessary button, I hit it with my elbow, “Yep!” and we look up to watch metal rolling doors descend from pristine ceiling to scarred floor. “That rattle, you hear that?”
“Mmhmm.”
“That signifies the start of a new day or the end of a good one.”
She looks at me, face soft, not knowing my cock is the opposite. I set her down, flip her around, and she slaps excited hands, “Yes!” onto ribbed metal.
Yanking down her jeans, I growl, “Been fantasizing about this all day.”
“Me too!” she breathes, grinding silky black panties against my throbbing erection, “Only I didn’t know it could happen. Because I didn’t know you were the damn boss!”
“My hands are dirty, Cherry, but I can shove my face in.” Pulling her jeans all the way off, I grab her panties with my teeth and drag them down to her knees.
She wiggles, steps out, kicks them away, “Won’t be putting those on again today.”
I spread soft thighs under a round ass arched for our pleasure, and dive my tongue into her juicy pussy from behind, slicking it as sweet, breathy moans float on air normally loud with machinery. I want to see if I can get her even louder than they get, so I suck and tickle her clit, gnaw on her swollen folds, and lick her hole until she’s high-pitched and quivering, slapping the garage door so hard it echoes like a church bell.
As her orgasm peaks I work it to stretch that sweet burn. Just when it threatens to wane, I rise up, lick my lips, dig out my condom and unzip blue jeans that shrunk. Cherry looks over her yellow-haltered shoulder while I get ready. “Give me that huge cock!”
I smirk, “Oh you’re gettin’ it,” and position myself to press the head into that sweet heat with honey already dripping down from how hard she came. “You probably guessed it but I’ve never fucked anyone here before. So I hate to warn you, but I might not last long.”
As I fill her she gasps, slaps the metal door and moans, barely able to say, “I like being your first!”
“Dad would be proud.”
“Gage!”
I grunt as I start to fuck her, rocking my hips slow to ease her onto my wide shaft. “What? You think that sexy-girls calendar was put up by me?”
On a hitched breath she laughs. “Of course you have a calendar.”
“You’re gonna ask me to get rid of it, aren’t you?”
“I don’t give a fuck about your calendar! Men have gotta be men!” Throwing me a primal glance she smirks, “And besides, I know a secret.”
I start rocking faster, my breath jagged. “What’s that?”
Pleasure throws her head back, and it takes a few strokes before she’s able to get out, “Not a secret if I tell you!”
Why doesn’t she care about the calendar when two of my mechanics’ wives complained about it, both ignored or placated with lies about not finding the girls on it attractive.
Lexi’s refusal to share this mysterious secret inspires me to fuck her into submission and admission. I wanna know what’s behind that mind of hers, so I grind, rock, thrust, all with the intention of breaking down her guard. It makes me last a hell of a lot longer than I thought I could. Even when she goes absolutely nuts. Feels so good my eyes roll back at least a dozen times.
“You’re gonna tell me, Cherry, that’s what you’re gonna do!”
“Oh yeah?!”
Fucking her harder, slower, deeper, shallower, and deeper some more — I try it all until I can’t hold back my release any longer.
She feels I’m on its edge, and does her damndest to send me over, squeezing her pussy around my length so tight I roar and give everything I’ve got, panting as she joins me, hot contractions blurring my world. Don’t think I’ve cum this long and this hard before in my life.
Together we let it all go until we’re panting, with me wrapping her in my arms. “Tell me.”
“I love you.”
“The secret!”
“Not a secret if I tell it!”
Kissing her hair, I rasp, “Tell me!”
“I love you.”
Chuckling, I exhale, “I love you, too,” and bury my face in the back of her neck. “You’ll tell me soon.”
Pulling my arms tighter, and clasping hers onto mine, she happily sighs, “Yeah, um, no I won’t.”
And she didn’t, not until we were in our sixties and she whispered the long-kept secret in my ear. By that time I’d figured it out from the way she’d treated me over the decades we’d enjoyed our lives together.
So many things changed over those years.
The Cocker family and Holbrook family grew with many wild, new members and mourned lost ones, together.
But the single constant throughout it all was how much Cherry and I loved each other, and our fiery children, all the way until our final day together when a flight back from our favorite vacation didn’t manage to bring us all the way home.
We held hands as it went down, and she said something that cut through our fear and brought us peace. “We’ve been given the gift of never having to miss each other, Crocodiles! Ever!”
And she was right. We were going out of this world together. The last thing I ever did was lean over and kiss my wife. “I’ll see you on the other side, Cherry. You’ve been one hell of a ride.”
The End.
Turn the page for the Bonus Scenes…
Chapter Thirty-Six
LEXI
Bonus Scene 1
Standing among dozens of parishioners dressed in their Sunday best, I demand, “Why is it that jelly donuts are so good?”
Zoe pops another donut hole, muffled answer completely unintelligible while Sammy licks cinnamon-sugar off her fingers and shrugs, “Because there is a God?”
I dig into the vibrating handbag that hangs off my shoulder, sundress matching, for my phone. “This is probably my man.”
Zoe swoons, “Your man!”
Samantha laughs at her, then loses the mirth as she watches me frown at my screen. “Who is it, Lex?”
I flip it around, and they stare at Brad’s photo, the one I took over a year ago, at least, when he and I went out for a morning coffee after one particularly grueling fight.
I mutter, “His timing is crazy,” and answer the phone with a sharp, “Your timing is crazy, Brad.”
“Maybe because I’m calling a crazy girl,” he returns with his old charm.
“Why are you calling me?”
“To see how you’re doing.”
“I haven’t heard from you—”
“—Did you want to hear from me?”
“—since I poured beer on your…pants.”
Had to keep it clean out of respect to our location and surrounding company.
“I asked if you wanted to hear from me.”
I blink down, eyes more glazed than this jelly donut. “No, after that night I never wanted to. Why are you calling me now?”
“Oh, uh, well, I…” Long pause. He didn’t expect such a cold reception. I wonder if it’s as cold as th
at ale? “Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
Locking eyes with my loyal baby sister, I’m seeing all of the ways she covered for me during the horrific on-and-off games I played with this jerk. All of those times Max and Caden demanded answers about him, since instinct told them he wasn’t good for me. Finally, those things I told Gage fly through my mind again, about how all that chaos brought me The Local the night we met.
A smile spreads.
From inside my heart.
I am free.
Animosity gone.
Only one thing left.
Gratitude.
“You know what, Brad? I’m doing great. Really great. And I hope are, too. I hope you find someone to love you so that you’re happy every single day you draw a breath, that’s what I hope for you.”
Sam and Zoe stop chewing.
There’s silence also on the other end of the line, then Brad says, voice deepened by understanding, “But that won’t be with you.”
“We had an interesting run, but it ended, and I promise you it will never start up again.”
“You’ve met someone.”
“I have. And I really mean it when I say that I hope you do, too.”
Brad clears his throat. “Thank you, Lexi.” A few more seconds of silence. “I’m glad you’re happy.”
“Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Bye, Lexi.”
Closing the screen I inhale a long breath of clean, freed-from-bullshit air.
Samantha’s and Zoe’s faces brighten, smiles proud. We go back to chomping down the remainder of fried sugary goodness while chatting about any little old thing.
Donna, another of the parishioners, pauses by Sam on her way for another cup of coffee. She always gets two. “When do we get to see you dance in another show?”
“Nothing in the works right now.”
“What’re you doing in the meantime?”
“Waiting tables.”
“Let us know the next time you’re onstage. I always tell Mike,” Donna touches Sammy’s arm with affection, “that girl was born to be a dancer.” She leaves stillness as her wake.
Lexi Cocker (Cocker Brothers Book 25) Page 18