SweetlyBad

by Anya Breton

  “Of course,” Erica said even though it killed her not to insist she get a look at what had happened. The car had been perfect when it left—better even than when it had arrived, because she’d done an extra flush of the fuel system and hadn’t charged Mrs. Hamon for it.

  She asked the woman for the card she’d used to charge the work. Silently she reversed the charges. There went three hundred dollars she needed to make ends meet.

  Erica slumped against the counter once the woman was out of sight. Could things get any worse? This was the second complaint she’d had in a week. And her competition had managed to hear about them all. Jared would turn up with another offer to buy the garage. No doubt it would be less than he’d offered the first time and twice as condescending.

  “Everything okay?”

  Her back stiffened upon finding the blond at the door to the garage. How much had Drew heard? Did he know she was slowly failing her father?

  “Everything is fine,” she lied.

  His features crinkled, for what reason she didn’t know. Rather than ask, she turned her back on him and began the disheartening task of documenting her failure in the books.

  She was lying.

  Drew hadn’t known Erica long but he knew enough to work that much out. That customer had rampaged through the garage, demanding her money back with absolutely no explanation for why she deserved it. Where was the broken-down car as proof? Where was the mechanic’s note explaining what Erica had done wrong?

  There was no way everything was fine.

  It shouldn’t have bothered him that Erica lied to him. But when one of the things he’d liked best about her—her forthrightness—disappeared, it didn’t please him. He certainly shouldn’t have been irritated that she’d intentionally hid her problems.

  By doing so she’d unintentionally admitted she didn’t think him capable of helping her. And that bothered him.

  Drew glanced around her garage, hoping for inspiration on how to help. He knew fuck-all about cars. But he knew women. And this one needed help even if she wouldn’t admit it.

  He shook himself. Why in the hell should he help her? He couldn’t help himself.

  Yet she’d given him a place on a cot in an air-conditioned room when he’d done nothing but insult her. She’d only asked him to clean up after himself. When was the last time anyone had helped him simply to help?

  They’d always wanted to get closer to him so they’d have a better chance of making Adept level from his brother. Or they’d wanted diamonds and a ticket to a show. There was also the game of seeing who could keep him interested the longest. His recent fiancée had held that title only because his mother and brother forced him to keep his engagement for political reasons. He’d known he wouldn’t last a year with her.

  “Can I sweep or something?” he asked.

  What in Aer had come over him? He didn’t sweep!

  She glanced up at him from over the computer monitor. A quiet sigh slipped from her mouth. “You can just stay out of the way.”

  “Am I in the way now?”

  “No, but you’re distracting me.”

  He doubted he was distracting her the way he wanted to distract her. “Um, okay,” he said before stepping back into the garage and out of the way.

  Drew returned to the storage room with the intention of sleeping. But the hopelessly bent cot didn’t look comfortable. A back door he’d barely noted last night looked like the best bet for removing the mangled contraption. Drew grabbed hold of the sheets and blanket he’d flung on the thing. He balled them up and hurled them toward a spare plastic chair. Then he dragged the stripped bed to the door.

  It took two shoves to get the back entrance open, as if it had been sealed shut for ages. Drew brought the cot around the garage to where he’d seen bags of trash piled against the building. He paused at the corner for a look inside. Erica stared at the front of a truck, facing away. Her shoulders were hunched. Each breath she took was heavy and obvious. She looked like a woman with many worries.

  A pickup pulled into the drive behind him. Drew stepped inside and hid around the corner where he wouldn’t be visible to the customer. Erica cast a glance at the parking lot. Her frame stiffened.

  “Maybe you should just have me work on that,” a man called a moment before a car door closed. “I’ll have to fix it later anyway.”

  The ex-boyfriend. Drew reached for magic—visualizing a finger slicing through the aether. He snagged a thread of Air magic from within the swirling energy coating everything, hardly thinking his actions through. Drew positioned his palms just so and thrust. A dull thud echoed back into his ear. Satisfaction spread his lips broad. A smack in the ass with a gust of focused air was exactly what the douchebag had needed.

  “What the…fuck?” the male griped from the ground.

  Erica faced her ex. Her eyebrows drifted to the middle of her forehead. “Are you okay, Jared?”

  Was he okay? Drew wanted to shout at her. The guy had insulted her. He didn’t deserve her concern.

  Yet…she’d given Drew her concern when he’d insulted her as well. It was part of why he liked her.

  “I’m fine.” The guy came into view beyond the garage’s outer doors.

  Erica took a step back. “I hope you came here to do more than taunt me.”

  “I came to renew my offer.”

  “No,” she cut in before Jared could say anything else. “I’m not selling Daddy’s garage.”

  “Your father has been dead for two years. It’s not his garage any longer. It’s yours. Besides, he would want you secure and happy.”

  “I am happy—”

  “You can’t be happy having to get up every morning and come into this…place.”

  The derisive pause in his speech made his opinion obvious. The guy wasn’t a fan of the garage. Clearly he didn’t intend to buy it so he could keep it. He wanted to be rid of the competition. But if the competition was screwing up cars, why was he worried? Unless…

  Drew focused on Jared’s face, looking for evidence of treachery. While it wasn’t readily visible in the rugged features, Jared didn’t look the part of a charitable benefactor.

  “My happiness isn’t your problem anymore,” Erica said. “I’m not selling the garage. Stop harassing me about it or I’ll have no choice but to file a restraining order.”

  Good girl. Drew smiled in the corner, where neither individual had noted him.

  “This was just a friendly conversation, Erica.” Jared’s droning was thick with condescension. “I’m sorry you feel it was harassment. I’ll just have to do this the official way. You’ll hear from my lawyer with an offer—one I’m sure you won’t want to refuse.”

  That was it.

  Drew stepped out from the corner. “Can the theatrics, buddy. She’s not selling even if you leave a horse head in her bed. And she asked you to stop harassing her. Now I suggest you go before I have to help you go.”

  The guy twisted. He eyed Drew up and down. A slow smile spread across his lips. Drew had been measured and found wanting. But what Jared didn’t know was the ace he had in his back pocket.

  Jared sent a disgusted look behind him at Erica. “You’re having your customers fight your battles for you now?”

  “Is this a battle, Jared? I thought it was just a friendly conversation.”

  Score one for Erica.

  “It became a battle when you brought others into it,” Jared said.

  “He’s acting on his own. Just like you. Now please leave.”

  “What makes you think I’m a customer?” Drew put in before the guy could move. “I could be her boyfriend.”

  The snort the guy gave made Drew angry for Erica. And then Jared made it worse with his follow-up. “She could never get a guy like you.”

  Strange. Considering she’d already had him.

  Drew resisted the urge to blast the guy back to his truck. The only way he was able to speak without growling was at a cautious pace. “Why is that?”

&n
bsp; “C’mon, buddy. Can’t you tell? She needs to lose a few pounds. You should have seen her when I was banging her. She was smoking then.”

  “She’s smoking now.” Drew would never have admitted it unless he’d been goaded into it. His reputation was such that he always went for models. But he’d always had a soft spot for women with a little meat on their bones.

  Jared let out a raucous laugh. “Are you blind, man? She’s a porker.”

  “I’ve lost twelve pounds since we were together, Jared,” Erica said, as calm as calm could be. “So you were porking a porker all along. And need I remind you how you used to smack my ass and tell me I needed to gain weight? You bought me ice cream weekly. So shut the hell up and get the fuck out of my garage before I call the sheriff.”

  “You keep threatening me with the sheriff. I’m on his payroll now, darlin’. He ain’t gonna help you.”

  A southern twang from a Granite Stater? Drew had enough of the dick. He called on Air once more, focusing another high-powered blast at the guy’s slight paunch.

  Dust puffed out of Jared’s T-shirt when the magical Air strike hit. He careened onto his back in a sprawl of long, jean-coated limbs. The guy spent two seconds blinking up at the blue sky.

  Drew walked across the garage to the button he hoped would lower the door. He bashed the big red disc, smiling when the metal began its crawl down the tracks.

  “Hey!” Jared jabbed a finger at the thing as if to say it was on course to cut him in half.

  “Might want to move, buddy,” Drew said.

  Jared crab-walked back in time to save his knees from getting bashed. He popped to his feet, glaring through the windows. Drew turned his back on the guy and found Erica glaring. Her closed-off pose hinted she was angry. He was tempted to peel her arms from her sides simply to lower her luscious breasts to a level that wouldn’t have him fantasizing about them nude. There probably wasn’t a single pose she could hold that would save him from that.

  “How in the hell…” She shook her head as though suffering from disbelief.

  That was when Drew realized he’d used magic in front of two vanilla humans. Twice. If either worked out what had happened, he’d be in serious trouble. Then again, his mother had already marked him as a rogue witch. There was little more serious than that.

  There was something not quite right about what had just happened. Erica was sure of it. Jared had spontaneously fallen. Twice. The guy had never fallen the entire time she’d known him. Not even in love.

  She suspected Drew had something to do with it. Was it possible that people really could move things with their minds? Because he had looked furious right before Jared fell on his ass. If looks could kill…

  Blah. Erica had work to do. She didn’t have time to ponder wild theories about her customer.

  She ignored the thunk of Jared closing his truck door. Though her confidence was shaken by both visitors, she wouldn’t let it affect her work. There was a brake line to fix. Erica needed her entire concentration to make sure it was done properly. She couldn’t afford another broken-down car and unhappy customer. She got to work.

  “About Boston.” Drew. She’d forgotten about him while she checked the car’s fluids. “Like I said, I can’t pay you right now—” Drew’s words cut off in a strangled choke.

  Erica whirled around and found his eyes bulging out of their sockets. She bounced into action, charging across the garage. Though he couldn’t breathe, he wasn’t grasping at his throat. Instead he lurched toward the garage door. That made it easier for her to grab him beneath the rib cage. She gave a good heave, hoping to dislodge whatever he’d eaten.

  His palm came up. “Stop,” he said, wheezing. “Not. Choking,” he choked.

  Drew slammed into her as if he’d been pushed. They went over in a tangle of limbs. Erica’s head impacted against the concrete as Drew’s weight bore down on her, his limbs rigid like plaster casts. Though she saw stars, she was coherent enough to hear the garage door rise.

  How had that happened?

  “Haizea,” an unfamiliar male growled at the edge of the room. “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years.”

  Drew’s weight somehow increased as though he’d ingested a barnyard creature after he landed on her. Erica struggled for air. Footsteps stomped menacingly toward them.

  “I’m not even surprised it was your own mother who put the hit out on you.”

  “Err-rrica,” Drew stuttered in between gasps. “Lift.”

  Lift? Lift what? She couldn’t move with him flattening her!

  His weight doubled. The pressure on her rib cage would surely puncture something tender and important if she didn’t escape.

  “This is for fucking Hannah four hours before our wedding. You fuck,” the unfamiliar male ground out.

  “Li-if-t,” Drew repeated, his breathing more constricted than ever.

  Black spots obscured her vision. Erica’s mind was sluggish from the pain. Between the dark blotches she could just make out a scrawny male two feet ahead and a foot to the right. He rolled onto the balls of his feet, toward them as if he were a rocking horse. The maniacal gleam in his eye was fixed on Drew.

  Erica didn’t know how he was accomplishing it but the stranger appeared to be doing something to Drew. And in turn doing something to her.

  Frantically she searched for a way out of the situation. She couldn’t budge Drew. Not even to roll him off. And he didn’t seem capable of doing anything apart from gasping for air and weighing her down. If only there was a way to lift him off her. With how much he weighed her down, she’d need hydraulics to do it…

  Hydraulics. That must be what Drew meant by lift!

  Their attacker stood on the left arm of garage bay three’s hydraulic lift. She only needed to reach the button to send him on a little ride. Erica tossed her head about, searching for something to throw. Pliers lay discarded inches to the left.

  She worked her arm out from beneath the insane weight of the ordinarily trim guy. Stretching her limb against the resistance pulled at least one muscle but the discomfort was worth it when she curled her fingers around the metal. She slipped it to her side and eyed the distance to her target. She’d never pitched a softball flat on her back with a monstrous weight bearing down. But something told her this was literally life or death.

  Erica pitched the pliers. The tool hurdled through the air. The pliers grazed the button before falling to the floor with a clank. The lift started up, knocking the stranger off balance. His arms pinwheeled three times as he fell. Each revolution of his flailing limbs was closer to the ground until he smacked his head on the lift’s right arm. Down he crumpled, landing atop her flux welder with a dull thud.

  Erica drew in a long breath. The action was much easier… Probably because Drew didn’t weigh as much as King Kong any longer.

  She nudged him off her, careful not to rattle any more bones than necessary. He didn’t so much as snuffle. Had he passed out? Or… Erica checked his neck for a pulse and found it pounding against her finger.

  Cautiously she got to her feet, half concerned she’d broken something of her own and half worried the slumped male under garage bay three’s lift might wake up.

  It wasn’t logical that someone built like a pencil-necked geek standing feet away could choke Drew and make him weigh three times as much as usual. But everything had gone back to normal when she knocked the stranger unconscious. Therefore it was only logical to assume he had something to do with the strange situation.

  She’d been close to death. That much she knew. Time to call the sheriff. Erica trundled to the office for the cordless phone.

  “Don’t.”

  Her finger froze over the nine key at the now familiar male voice behind her. She stomped the remainder of the way back into the garage. Drew was awake and crouched beside the stranger.

  “Don’t call the police,” he said. “This guy…he has connections that will get him out of custody before the day is through. And then he’ll
come back to haunt you. Let me deal with it.”

  More than likely he’d come back to haunt Drew. But that wasn’t the operative statement in his response. “Deal with it? How are you planning to do that?”

  “I can call someone.”

  “You haven’t been very successful calling someone up to this point.”

  His nose crinkled while the rest of his features puckered. “This is different.”

  “How?”

  “It just is.”

  Oh no he didn’t. Erica’s temperature could have blown through a thermometer. “Some guy just came into my garage to attack you. You owe me a better explanation than that cop-out crap.”

  He glanced at the unconscious guy on the floor. “I can’t give you a better explanation.”

  “You can and you’re going to or I’m going to weld you to the lift and let you hang there until I get a better answer.”

  “I really can’t.” Drew’s pitch lifted.

  Erica took a menacing step forward, or at least as menacing as she could pull off given he was taller than and probably as strong as her. “I let you stay in my storage room last night. You repay me by getting me embroiled in some vengeance attack and then don’t even have the decency to explain what’s going on? I swear to god I’ll hurt you if you don’t give me something better to go on.”

  “It’s like the mob,” he blurted out. Drew gestured at the slumped figure. “He has powerful connections. I can keep you out of this mess if you let me handle it my way.”

  “What exactly is your way?”

  “I can’t tell you that. You just have to trust me.”

  “You can’t be serious. I’m supposed to trust a guy whose own mother won’t help him out of a bind?” Erica winced the moment the words left her lips. She considered apologizing when Drew went perfectly rigid.

  He spoke before she could. “My mother is trying to teach me a lesson.”

  “What lesson is that?”

  “I’ll tell you if you let me handle this my way.”

  “Okay, tell me and if I decide—”

  “No ifs. You let me handle this my way and then I’ll tell you.”