Mended: A Salvation Society Novel

by Gabrielle G.

  “Please,” I hear myself beg him.

  I close my eyes and let the heat of my thighs spread everywhere. His hands come higher, closer to my core, and I moan again, hoping he’ll continue his way up. My tongue brushes his lips, but he doesn’t let me taste him more than one lick and backs away instantly.

  “We shouldn’t,” he says in a deep voice, which reverberates inside my body like a pinball. I lean in more to finish what we started. But, all of a sudden, I come back to my senses and register what he just said.

  He denied me a kiss after I begged.

  He stopped the train wreck our work relationship could become if we were to go further.

  He saved me from huge embarrassment.

  I open my eyes to see pain across his face. “You’re too dangerous for me,” he adds. He backs away some more but leaves his hands on me.

  It’s now as frozen as my heart.

  Dangerous. I hate this word as much as I cherish it. King used to say that what people define as dangerous depends on their level of expertise and knowledge. It’s my turn to take some distance and protect myself. I stand abruptly, and leave the chair to roll away.

  Guilt taking over at the thought of King being the only man I ever loved and slept with.

  “Tessa, I don’t mean…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, and I’m okay with it.

  I don’t want him to. I don’t need him to acknowledge the danger I can be in my life. I’ve felt what he could be to me deep inside.

  I know he can destroy every memory of my late fiancé, like a tornado uprooting dead trees.

  Shaken by the roller coaster, I just went through; I make my way to the door. Once standing in front of the door, something pushes me to check on him, to send him a last glance over my shoulder.

  In a handful of minutes, he’s become the shadow of the man about to kiss me. Resting his elbows on his knees and his head falling between his shoulders, he seems broken to the point of no repair.

  A sensation I know too well.

  A void I’ve been trying to fill for a long time.

  A despair I felt into my bones many times. He has neither the strength or the desire to move on, and it’s the reason why I can’t blame him because neither do I.

  King was my everything and always will be.

  I can’t make room in my heart for anyone else.

  “You’re dangerous for me too, Oliver. I’ll be in the car waiting for you,” I say for him to know it’s nothing about him but everything about us and what we went through. I open the door and leave him to his demons while I run away from mine.

  Chapter Nine

  OLIVER

  It has been a few days of small talk and a little awkwardness between Tessa and I. We both put our walls back up after I almost kissed her, and we’ve barely looked at one another.

  Her eyes make me want to get lost in her, so I avoid looking at her as often as I can.

  I don’t know what came over me.

  I wanted her to stop being right.

  I wanted her to stop moving her lips.

  I wanted to stop the dirty images of her mouth doing all sorts of things to me from popping in my brain.

  On impulse, I wanted to make her mine.

  But when she leaned in and puckered her lips, I knew she would break every fence I ever built around my heart and I couldn’t go through with it.

  There are people with whom you know it will always be more than a kiss or a one-night stand.

  Something in the air tells you the next step you take with that person will change your life.

  A connection you can feel after just a look, a touch, sometimes a breath.

  I felt it the moment I met Elaine and I can sense it with Tessa.

  The only difference is, I can’t let Tessa in. And from what I saw, she can’t let me in either.

  And it’s okay.

  Maybe we’ll never be.

  Not every possibility needs to have a happy ending, like every love story doesn’t either.

  So, we drive in silence, and don’t talk about what didn’t happen or what might have. And except for ten minutes twice a day, we don’t spend time together.

  The first day she brought me to the office, she waited around for me to need her.

  She was miserable, wanting to move, and became restless at some point.

  I understand the need to keep busy not to wonder why life has treated you in such a way.

  I’m the same.

  I get a little crazy myself, checking on things and imagining a life that couldn’t be when I have too much time on my hands. Not that it has happened much since Aito was born.

  Instead of Tessa waiting around for me and getting impatient during the long hours it can take me to find the smallest details in the life of someone who has lived a secret for a few decades, I now text her when I need her.

  Which isn’t much. Which I believe was a good solution.

  But whatever I do, she’s on my mind, and I can’t dislodge her from it.

  She’s like the pest you can’t extricate from under your porch because they’ve decided to make it their home. Anything I try, I can’t get rid of her.

  But even with all the awkwardness and the battle I fight against the desire I feel toward her, it has been easy to drive with her every day.

  There is something almost comforting in being able to sit with someone in silence and not have to pretend to be who you are expected to.

  I feel at peace not to have to fake that my late fiancée isn’t the first thing on my mind when I wake up. I don’t have to ignore the dreadful fear I have to be caught in still believing she’s alive for a few seconds before reality kicks in. I don’t have to hide the hope I have when I make myself believe she’s on a trip, or at her parents’ house and will text at any moment.

  In a sense I feel free to hold on to Elaine’s memory when Tessa is by my side because I know she wouldn’t judge me for it or get worried like my sister would.

  Everyone told me time would make it better.

  And I believed them.

  But it didn’t and everyone who says so, hasn’t lost the love of their life. There is something beyond repair inside you when your soulmate dies.

  And I know Tessa feels the same.

  Her way of living is a love letter to her lost one.

  She doesn’t even try to hide it like I do.

  She screams her love for him every time she drives too fast or jumps off things.

  Not that I’ve seen her do so, but I’ve heard enough from the guys.

  They couldn’t shut up about it and if I don’t live that life anymore, if I can’t condemn her or support her, I can see the pain she’s trying to heal by doing so.

  Everyone deals with grief differently and if the idea of her jumping off a cliff frightens me to death, who am I to judge her if that is what she needs to repair her heart?

  She wasn’t wrong in what she told me.

  Every word resonated with me.

  It isn’t up to me to tell her how to live her life as it isn’t up to anyone to tell me how to live mine.

  Like I always say, if you don’t like something, you should walk away.

  And that’s what I’m trying every day.

  Even the days she wears a skirt riding up her legs like today and slurps her coffee loudly making the most indecent noises.

  My dick is ready to explode but I’m ignoring him.

  I’m ignoring anything making me want to fuck her through the car seat.

  She isn’t mine to fuck, to hold, or to have, I chant to convince myself.

  I take a sip of the coffee she got me and wince burning my tongue in the process.

  What is that shit?

  It tastes like someone has poured a whole bag of sugar in it.

  “Do you like the coffee I picked for you today?” she asks. It’s cute and a few butterflies tickle my stomach. As I told her I didn’t care what coffee she picked for me every morning, she’s making me try every drink on the menu
.

  A new one each day, day after day, so I wouldn’t have to say I don’t care anymore.

  So, I could have an opinion on my drink of predilection and choose for myself once in New York.

  Unnecessary as I don’t like coffee, but I didn’t want to tell her.

  “It’s okay,” I answer, mastering the art of small talk while keeping my eyes on the road.

  “Only okay… Got it, we’ll try something else tomorrow.”

  Her voice falls flat at the end of her sentence and I know she has something on her mind, but I prefer her to tell me than me asking what’s the matter and having her feel obliged to tell me.

  “Speaking of tomorrow…” she starts. I smile knowing I was right.

  “Yes?” I say taking a sip of the coffee I dislike more and more.

  “I won’t be able to pick you up in the morning.”

  My smile falls at the idea not to spend a little time with her.

  “It’s okay, I’ll take an Uber.”

  “My time at the track has been moved and I need to be there early to have a chance to work with the team I want.” She tells me. She didn’t need to give me any explanation and I really didn’t need to hear so.

  I grunt my disapproval.

  It’s not about her activity but about us not having our ten minutes together.

  I do everything I can to stop my leg from bouncing and to ignore the discomfort lodging in my chest at the idea of her racing.

  “I know you disapprove,” she says with a hint of sadness in her voice.

  I want to interrupt her but like she did before, she speaks faster than I can put words together and goes on. “You think it’s dangerous and knowing what you went through, I get it. I’m not going to tell you it’s not, but what I will say is what I’ve told everyone else. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been driving cars and testing their limits for a while. I’ve loved cars all my life. Please trust me.”

  I can’t stop my legs from shaking and the anxiety from rising thinking of her dying the way Elaine did. But then I remember the lies I told and the one I live, and the pit I’ve felt in my stomach for the last five years feels deeper than ever. I’m a fake who believes in his own lies.

  I fetch my phone to text Naomi that I need to talk to her and Aito but Tessa puts her hand on my thighs, and slowly my worry fades away and everything goes back to normal.

  My leg stops bouncing.

  I swallow the void I’ve lived with for five years and let it fill with a warmth I didn’t think possible to feel ever again. And I forget the obsessional need I have to speak to my son and make sure he’s alright.

  “I trust you not to take unnecessary risks,” I tell her with a shaky voice filled with an emotion I can’t control. And then I make the mistake and look at her.

  She’s even more beautiful than the first time I saw her.

  I take a moment to appreciate her dimples and the wrinkles grief has sculpted on her face.

  Feeling that I’m watching her, she looks back at me for a second and smiles.

  It illuminates her face and her eyes fill with appreciation.

  As much as I love to feel as if I’ve given her the moon, it breaks my heart.

  Has anyone trusted her with her own life since her guy died?

  She looks back at the road and squeezes my thigh and the heart I felt falling apart two seconds ago is now beating faster than the throb in my dick.

  And for a reason I don’t understand, I open up to her.

  “Elaine…” I take a big breath in and exhale loudly. My eyes fill with tears and I spit the words like I would remove a knife from a brother before putting pressure on the wound. “She didn’t die in a car accident.”

  Tessa stays silent and as I can’t make myself look at her, I continue fixating on the road ahead of me. It’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud to anyone.

  I need her to say something, anything so I don’t feel like she’s judging me for lying to the people around me, but I don’t want her to ask me anything either. Because I wouldn’t be able to tell her what happened.

  Not now.

  Silence falls again between us and it feels like the most unnatural thing.

  I start to regret what I said, ready to backpedal my words and find a way to explain when Tessa takes a big inhale and sighs.

  “Sometimes I think being dead would be easier,” she says her voice shaking.

  Her words hit me hard.

  I know exactly what she means.

  I’ve thought the same a million times.

  I understand it and I don’t need to say a word to tell her so.

  Her hand is still on my leg, immobile, suspended in time like our lives.

  I cover it with mine, and slowly, afraid she will pull away not needing what I do, I intertwine our fingers.

  Because in this moment we’re not two wounded individuals trying to survive the loss of someone.

  We’re two souls recognizing the pain in the other and reading the sorrow we try so hard to hide from our friends and family.

  It’s good not to feel so alone and to know someone gets the agony I went through.

  For the rest of the way, we hold hands without saying a word to each other because sometimes you find the consolation you crave in the simple touch of a stranger who can appease your grief more than a thousand words—and we both know it.

  As dangerous as we are to each other’s hearts, we can count on our shared experience to understand our needs.

  And maybe that’s all we need to get through the day.

  Chapter Ten

  TESSA

  "The first thing you need to do is build up your resistance to the heat. You're going to be doing laps at 104 degrees, and because you're lightweight, you might lose a few pounds during a race."

  I look at who was labeled to me as the guru of car racing in the state with incredulity. It's strange to have him standing in front of me years later. He got old and fat and all wrinkled, but he still has the same voice.

  Even if I respect him, I scrunch my nose at his words.

  Does he believe I don't know my shit?

  I've been training at the gym with a sweatshirt on for months to be sure I can hold my heat and still drive.

  Nonetheless, he was clear I shouldn't interrupt him to show how serious I am, so I shut up and let him continue. "I like that you're throwing away the gender factor, and I do believe it's going to be beneficial to the sport, but it's not because you have boobs and a vagina that the guys are going to be tender. They are competitive assholes who don't like to be beaten by a girl. They are hotheads who believe cars are only for men. Not all, of course not… but you know how it is, not your first rodeo." No, it's not… but again, I keep quiet mainly because I'm not sure if he's referring to my father or my former job.

  "Now show me what you've got. Bring it on, and depending on what I see, I can tell you what we are going to do. It's not NASCAR, but it's still racing, and you should take it very seriously. Understood?"

  Once again, I stay silent and nod.

  He's offering me the opportunity of a lifetime, and I need to show him what I have in me. I sent him numerous emails he didn't answer until he called two days ago, and I have the feeling this is more due to my birth name than anything else. I never told him who I was, but it was clear someone had told him who my father was, and I should have started with that.

  Not sure who and not sure I like it, but it is what it is.

  I take my helmet and walk to the car on the tracks. I still remember when I used to race in a go-kart as a kid.

  It was my weekly treat. Something I loved to do.

  My dad would rent the place for one afternoon every time I stayed with him, and we had time to go.

  He would let me go around and around for hours until I was too tired to speak or walk.

  Something my mother hated, so I hid it from her.

  Something she still hates, and have yet to tell her.

  My father has alw
ays been the one who shouldn't be named.

  She was clear on the concept.

  She even gave me a new father and a sister for me not to regret the one I loved the most, insisted I took their family name and to make sure I never raced again. Unfortunately, I loved cars too much.

  My step-dad Andre thought being an engineer would help.

  Mom agreed reluctantly, thinking it was better to allow me to enjoy cars than have me rebel and to drive them as fast as my dad used to.

  She still sobbed when I chose the car industry. But a cold sob like rich people can fake on TV.

  It wasn’t a proper career for a woman.

  She has never supported any of my choices and when I decided that if I could lose the men I loved the most by living a precautious life, then I could live my dreams and passions to the fullest. She totally gave up on me being the daughter she wanted.

  I came back to racing slowly.

  When I was in Germany, I went back to go-karting after years of not setting foot in one.

  Then I needed to run in every country I traveled.

  Once in America again, I didn't say a word to anyone, but I needed to see if my blood was pumping when I did it at home.

  I went there every day.

  I got pretty serious about go-karting, and step by step fell in love with the sport all over again.

  I took a racing class and touched my father's inheritance for the first time doing so.

  I also contacted Dereck.

  It's the first email that was ignored.

  I found someone else and didn't give up on my father's old friend, but I never used my birth name.

  Not once.

  I continued on my way and practiced in my car, and joined the SCCA.

  When I decided it was time to buy a racing car and gears, that's when I started to etch a plan to tell Quinn.