The Set Up

by Kim Karr

  Grabbing the iced pitcher from the counter, I take two of the glasses beside it and start pouring. “Lemonade is perfect.”

  “Great. Everything is done. Just follow me,” she says, turning backwards and pushing the screen door open. The tray she is carrying contains four chicken potpies and the salad bowl. She’d set everything else outside already.

  Jasper rushes to the door to hold it open for her. She passes by him and Hank takes the tray from her hands, setting it on the counter beside the large outdoor grill.

  “Everything okay?” Jasper whispers in my ear.

  I give him a nod and kiss his cheek as I pass by him, breathing in his fresh scent and taking in the sight of him. Wearing ripped jeans, a T-shirt, and black boots with his laces untied, he looks more like an Abercrombie & Fitch model than any mechanic I’ve ever seen, but he’s determined to get my car running. I hope he can because despite having the People Mover close by, being without a car is still an inconvenience.

  Pulling my chair out for me, his eyes flash as he notices my gaze.

  Heat.

  Fire. A volcano about to erupt.

  The glasses are cold in my hands and I hesitate a moment before setting the lemonades down to allow myself a moment to cool. With an inhaled sharp breath, I take a seat.

  Mrs. Storm puts the small metal pie plates on festive summer plates and places one in front of each of us, along with salad bowls, and then takes a seat herself. “I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t cook. It’s just too hot to spend too much time in the kitchen,” she directs toward me.

  “Not at all. This is perfect,” I tell her.

  The house is secluded and very private, surrounded by miles and miles of pine trees. Birds sing all around and the summer sun beats down, but the umbrella shades us. The meal is eaten with casual conversation, nothing invasive for any of us.

  Everyone finishes at about the same time. Jasper leans back in his chair. Hank plucks the last of the berries from the salad bowl and pops it into his mouth. I remain upright but relaxed as I sip on the last of my lemonade.

  Setting her fork down, Mrs. Storm smiles over at me. “So tell me, Charlotte, where have you been all these years and why are you back?”

  And just like that, I’m more nervous than I was before we arrived.

  RIGHT TURN ONLY

  Jasper

  LOOKS LIKE I’M going to have to take the bullet.

  Avoiding telling my mother why Charlotte is back in Detroit and therefore avoiding the meltdown that is certain to accompany that conversation means shifting the focus off Charlotte and on to me.

  Here I go.

  Clearing my throat, I give Charlotte a quick wink and then turn toward my mother. “So, Mom, has Hank told you the schematics for the Storm have been finalized and that it’s ready for mass production?”

  Blinking a few times as if she never expected that day would come, she switches her gaze toward Hank. “No, he hasn’t mentioned it at all.”

  He gives her a shrug. “I wanted Jasper to be the one to tell you.”

  Nice save.

  Quickly, her gaze darts back to mine. My mother likes to talk about the Storm and wants to feel involved, but again, somehow this conversation always leads back to my father, and her going into meltdown mode, so normally, like Hank, I avoid it at all costs. “That’s really exciting, Jasper. Tell me everything.”

  To save Charlotte from a further inquisition, I spend the next twenty minutes discussing the latest design. The factory. The plans for mass production. Although my mother says nothing about the land I want to build the factory on, she has plenty to say about everything else.

  She’s worried that I’m too young for so much responsibility. Worried the production costs will be too high. Worried. Worried. Worried.

  Shoving my plate away, I feel like I might be the one to go into meltdown mode if I don’t change the subject. Hank is unusually quiet, and I can only assume he’s worried about the potential argument that is brewing between my mother and myself.

  Charlotte is quiet too. I can tell she’s worried she’ll say something to set my mother off.

  Want to know what I’m worried about? Telling my mother what is going on in my life, and I know the time has come.

  I shift in my chair. “Hey, Mom, mind taking a walk with me? I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Sure, honey. Is everything okay?”

  I glance toward Charlotte, who is squeezing her eyes closed. I take her hand under the table before looking back toward my mother. “Not really. That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  FLYWHEEL

  Charlotte

  I’M NOT MUCH of a mechanic.

  Although I like to think I can, I can’t fix my own car.

  Heck, I bring it to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t understand how a car works. I do. And there are only a few words that make the car owner in me want to crawl back into bed. Transmission is at the top of that list. There’s something about that mysterious box underneath the hood that incites an odd fear in me.

  I can handle my oil light going on. I can handle having to rotate my tires. I can even handle the wear and tear of my brakes. But the transmission issue is out of my comfort zone.

  Jasper looks up from under the hood.

  I flash him an appreciative smile.

  Wiping his brow, he motions behind me. “Can you hand me a flywheel?”

  “Sure, one second.” I like being helpful. With an extra bounce in my step, I hop off the stool and quickly walk to the large red toolbox that I remember from his garage in Eastpointe. It was his father’s. I’m pretty certain a flywheel is a type of wrench, so finding it shouldn’t be hard. Once there I stare at all the different wrenches, pick one up, and bring it back to him. “Here you go.”

  The cool look I receive tells me the tool in my hand isn’t a flywheel.

  I tried.

  Having lost his sense of humor after trying for almost thirty minutes to remove a rusted bolt from what he called a solenoid, with a curse word in front of it, he walks over to the toolbox and rummages through it.

  Suppressing my need to laugh, I have to take a deep breath and look away, slowly blowing it out a little at a time before he turns around and sees me. This is his idea after all. Not that I don’t appreciate it. I do. I really do. And he looks really, really sexy under the hood. Did I mention how sexy he looks? Very, very, very sexy.

  The quiet causes me to twist on my stool. Jasper is standing over the toolbox, holding a piece of paper.

  “What is it?” I ask, concerned by how still he is.

  Slowly, he turns.

  Worried, I slide off the stool and walk toward him.

  “What is it?” I ask again.

  I take the paper he hands me and slap my hand to my mouth. It’s a picture of a man and a boy working on a car signed by Jasper, with the year written in block numbers under his name. The year his father died. The year my father became the black sheep of Detroit for something I know he didn’t do. The year both of our lives changed forever. With tears in my eyes, I look up at him and search for the right words. There don’t seem to be any. And this, this is the great divide between us. I know if we dig deeper into it, there’s a very real possibility that we discover something that could rip us apart. I should leave it alone. Let the past stay in the past. Yet, I can’t. I need to find out what happened. My need. My neediness. It’s always my neediness.

  “Charlotte.” Jasper whispers my name before his head dips and his lips come down on mine.

  I kiss him back.

  Of course I do.

  My emotions. His emotions. They feed into our kiss, and I wind my arms around his neck and curl my fingers in his hair that I love so much. Our tongues stroke in desperation as if we both know what I was thinking moments ago, and it makes the heat between us catch fire. But doesn’t raging desperation only lead to raging flames that eventually need to be doused?

&nbs
p; His thumbs brush against my cheeks, seeming to swipe away the invisible track of tears.

  The sound of the screen door opening from the house causes us to break apart. It’s Hank on the front porch, setting the vase of flowers that Mrs. Storm had put on the counter earlier on the table between the two rockers before going back inside.

  Jasper looks at the flowers, and then at me, with his childhood drawing still between us. “My mother saved it. I didn’t think she saved anything.”

  “You should frame this,” I tell him, finally finding the right words.

  He swallows, sets the paper back in the drawer, grabs the wrench, and walks back toward the car. “I think it’s right where it belongs.”

  I follow him, grabbing a water bottle and staring at him. I’ve overwhelmed by the strength he has, the fortitude he displays, and wish I could have just a little of those traits.

  After ten minutes of silence he looks up at me. This time his mouth is set into a tight, hard line of determination. Sweat rings his neckline and extends down the front of his shirt. The sight of him makes my entire body tingle. There’s just something about a man working hard.

  My legs dangle from the stool I’ve been sitting on since we came out here.

  Lunch itself went fairly well. Maybe not great, but better than I thought it would. However, after Jasper told his mother that he was a person of interest in the murder investigation of Eve, she became hysterical. “That land is cursed. I told you to stay away from it,” she cried and then ran in the house.

  Jasper and Hank chased after her. She’d gone into her room. While they tried to calm her down, I cleaned up. When Jasper finally emerged, he said she’d taken a sedative and was going to take a nap. She cares for him more than he realizes. It’s obvious. He just can’t see it after all the years of built-up animosity. I hope that changes. I really do. Forgiveness is hard, but sometimes it’s the only way.

  “How old did you say this car is?” Jasper asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  I tilt my head sideways to look at him better under the hood. “Jasper, the car is old. I already told you that.”

  “I know that. I asked how old?”

  I pull my lip to the side. “I think my aunt bought it the year I went to college and that was, oh yes, ten years ago, but I already told you that.”

  With narrowed eyes he looks at me for a beat, and then he straightens to lift the hem of his shirt and wipe his face. My eyes dart to his body. His belly is taut, with the faintest, ever so faintest, single line of hair trailing from his navel into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. And that belly button. That belly button is perfection.

  “See something you like?” Gone is the melancholy. In its place is a flirtation I can’t help but want to participate in.

  My pulse starts to race. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  He catches my flirty tone and grins at me in the most delicious way.

  Very deliberately, I let my eyes roam all over him just to let him know how much I like what I see.

  He shakes his head and bends to resume his position under the hood. “You’re very distracting, do you know that?”

  Feeling like being a little naughty, I peer back at him, my eyes round with mock innocence. “And here I thought I was being helpful. You say screwdriver, I hand you the screwdriver.”

  His grin is so wide now I can barely stand myself. “That’s the only tool you got right.”

  I shrug. “I’m good at other things.”

  His brow raises and his chest starts to rise and fall a little more rapidly.

  Crossing my legs, I offer him my bottle. “Water?”

  Again I get that look.

  “What? I’m trying to be helpful.”

  He takes it. Sips it. Hands it back. Wipes his mouth. Then a kind of smugness crosses his face and slowly, very slowly, he rips his T-shirt off.

  God, I want to lick him.

  Acting like it’s nothing, he gets busy removing something that has a cone-like shape. He grunts a little. Makes some more noises. A few more. And then it sounds like he might have figured something out.

  I’m still here staring at him. All of him. Thinking about how every time his abs and pecs ripple, I want to run my tongue over them, along the rim of his ribs, around his belly button, and yes, even farther down. Then I moan a little, and that really wasn’t intentional.

  He’s around the hood with his hands on my thighs so fast I wish I’d moaned sooner. “Do you have any idea how much I want to take you into the woods right now and strip you bare?”

  I push the hair from his eyes. “Do you have any idea how much I want you to?”

  The heat in his gaze singes me. “Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re killing me. Really killing me.”

  Sharp teeth bite at that spot on my neck that he knows drives me wild. “We’re leaving as soon as I figure out the problem, and then we’re going to spend the rest of the night locked in the bedroom.”

  Shivers run down my spine. “If that’s a threat, I’m good with it.”

  “Your place or mine?”

  I shrug.

  “You decide.”

  With my hands in his hair, I push his head harder against my neck. “I’ll let you know.”

  His reply comes with a stroke up my thigh. “You, Charlotte Lane, have no idea what you do to me.”

  Catching his hands, practically panting, I hold them right where they are. Grease or not, I don’t care. “I hope you can tell me all about it tonight after I wash the grease off you.”

  He groans again, slides his tongue up my neck, kisses me hard on the lips, and then whispers in my ear, “I’m going to do more than tell you.”

  Perhaps fanning the flames any further isn’t the best idea. He’s back at work doing whatever it is he is doing and I’m sitting here with trembling legs, fantasizing about him pushing me against a tree and taking me hard and fast.

  “So what do you think? Does she need a rebuild?” Hank shouts from the driveway.

  Jasper looks up, seeming happy to see him. “I don’t think so. There’s transmission fluid in the radiator. I just can’t find the leak. How’s my mother?”

  Hank walks over. “She’s sleeping. She wants you to call her tomorrow.”

  Jasper nods.

  “Let me see what you found,” Hank says, moving to stand beside Jasper.

  With his finger, Jasper points to something under the hood. “Right here.”

  “I see it. Good catch, Jasper. We need to pull the whole thing apart to fix it. It’s an all-day job, though, and I have to leave right now. What do you say we do it together next Sunday?”

  Jasper blinks in surprise. “Yeah, that would be great.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. And Jasper, your mother is going to be fine. She’s worried about you but she knows you are innocent. Just promise me you’ll keep her in the loop.”

  Jasper nods. “I’ll try, Hank, but sometimes she’s hard to talk to.”

  “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”

  My cell rings and I turn around to grab it out of my purse, which is on the workbench. I can’t believe it, but it’s Vince from The Detroit Scene. I’d called him earlier in the week but he hadn’t called me back, so I didn’t think he would.

  “Hello?” I whisper.

  “Hey, Charlotte, it’s Vince. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back yet.”

  “That’s okay. I figured either you didn’t know anything or didn’t want to get involved.”

  He brings his voice down to a whisper. “Well, when you called I didn’t know anything.”

  “Hold on just a minute. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I hop off the stool and walk toward the back of the garage, leaving Jasper and Hank in deep discussion. As I move, my eyes circle my surroundings: bare walls, empty workbenches. It’s a barren garage except for the one giant red toolbox. It’s as if Mrs. Storm is saving the space for something, something that will never come—Mr. Storm’s return. />
  The thought makes me weak.

  “Charlotte, you there?”

  “Yes, yes, sorry. Go on.”

  “The police came to the office and searched both your desk and Eve’s. They also asked Cole if they could search his office. When they did, they confiscated his laptop.”

  “Why would they take his laptop?”

  “At the time I didn’t know, but early this afternoon I came into the office to finish up a story I want to post tomorrow and overheard him yelling at the guy from tech support about why those emails weren’t wiped out of his account when he was told to get rid of them last week.”

  He couldn’t have been talking about the emails from Eve because I had deleted those. “What emails?”

  “I’m pretty certain they were personal in nature, if you know what I mean.”

  I did.

  “They were having an affair,” he tells me.

  I knew this but say nothing.

  “Don’t tell anyone this, but one day last month when I was leaving work I saw them in the garage. They were arguing. I couldn’t hear what it was about. But she slapped him so hard that blood dripped from his mouth, and he smiled at her when she did it. Then he grabbed her and at first I thought he was choking her but then he let her go, pushed her up against his car, and kissed her.”

  “Did you tell the police?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to get involved. This is my livelihood here, and I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “I get it.”

  “Listen, there’s more. The police were just here with a warrant to impound his vehicle.”

  “They took his car?”

  “Yep, and he’s madder than a bat out of hell. Has an attorney on his way to the office right now.”

  “The mud in his car,” I mutter.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just talking to myself. Hey, did Cole ever talk to you about doing an exposé on Jasper Storm?”

  “Yeah, he mentioned it a while back, but he assigned it to Eve.”