by Shey Stahl
“It’s okay,” I whisper back, reaching across him for a repair order. “I’ll take care of this one.”
His gaze travels from my head to my toes and in a sense, every movement of his eyes is like he’s touching me again. It sends a shiver up my spine and rush of excitement through me. Not to mention my fucking panties are wet just thinking about Friday, in this shop, on this bench in front of me.
He continues to watch me for several seconds, as if to tease me maybe, or maybe he’s just keeping his distance because he’s having the same reaction.
“About the other night… Red… I just… don’t want there to be any awkwardness.”
He nods once, his jaw flexing as he moves back. Red takes a step forward and speaks softly into my ear, my body trembling in anticipation of his words. “Don’t you dare say it was a mistake.” I wasn’t going to but his expression is pained, a deep line appearing between his brows. “You and I both know it wasn’t.”
Did he think I was going to say that? Well, I did after the kiss so he’d get that idea, wouldn’t he?
His vacant stare holds mine. It takes me a few minutes to rein in my racing heart in order to reply. “You’re right, it wasn’t a mistake. I think we both needed that.”
“Then what were you going to say? What’s the problem?”
I scan the shop and notice Daniel’s watching so I nod in that direction and whisper, “That’s the problem. They see us together. I can’t be that girl.”
Red shakes his head and then turns again to look at me. “Nobody is asking you to be.” He stops and looks away to face the bay doors that are open. His body tenses. “What happens between us is private.” I can hear the pain in his voice, I’m upsetting him.
I take a drink of the coffee he handed me. I have no answer. I have nothing. I can’t even comprehend where in the hell this conversation went. What exactly did I think this was? I knew it wouldn’t be serious. But his expression is telling me something completely different. It’s telling me what we both avoided. That one time where we thought this need, this draw to one another would curb the desire. Well, it didn’t.
“I’m sorry, I just feel like I’m constantly making bad decisions.”
“What do you mean?” There’s an undertone of desperation in his voice. “If you think we’re a bad decision, then I’ll walk away right now and we can both avoid getting hurt. I have a daughter to think about.”
I don’t say anything, and his eyebrows arch a little, as if he is waiting for me to say something. The shop doors slide open and I’m afraid to look behind me because I know the rest of the guys are starting to arrive and the last thing I want is for them to see this.
When I don’t answer, Red’s face loses all the emotion he once had. “For the record, Lenny, I didn’t sleep with you because you were easy. I don’t do that. I’ve never needed to. I don’t introduce my daughter to just anyone.”
“Why me, then?”
“Why not?” he asks, immediately stepping toward me.
“I’m just not sure I’m someone you should be involved with.” And I’m not. “My whole life I’ve always made bad decision. For once, I’m trying to use my head and not my heart.”
He hesitates for a moment, as if maybe he thinks I’m not serious. And then he steps back and looks down, laughing.
“Um, what could you possibly be laughing at? Say something.”
“What’s there to say? You’re basically saying this can’t go anywhere between us. When I know damn well you want it to.” And then he stares at me. “Would anything I say change your mind?”
When Red asks that, a wave of nausea shoots through me knowing there isn’t. “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this means. I know I enjoyed the hell out of what we did, and I can’t look at this bench the same way, ever again.” His voice softens and he blinks slowly, his eyes on the bench. “Then why stop?”
“I’m just scared it’s bad timing for us.” My voice cracks as I hold back tears. Everywhere I go, trouble finds me. I tell myself to walk away from him right now.
Red turns, beginning to walk inside the office and then suddenly stops, his head bent forward. “Then there’s nothing more to say, is there?” I can see him now. His brown eyes bore into mine and there’s a sadness lurking in his face.
Tears well up in my eyes. He’s waiting for me to say something, only I don’t have a response. “Red, I didn’t—”
He draws in a heavy breath and notices Daniel approaching him with a broken hose reel in hand. “We’ll talk about this later.” He picks up a repair order on his toolbox. “Here. See if you can take care of this one for me.” He pushes past me, his shoulder knocking lightly into mine as he removes himself from the room, closed off again.
Well, I fucked that all up, didn’t I? How did me being scared turn into him thinking I didn’t want this. I do want this, so badly, I’m just nervous it’s bad timing with Ben. How can I bring someone into my life when mine is so strung out?
Remember when I said I had a shitty decision button stuck on?
It’s still on. Apparently.
But I can fix this. I can.
“I’m going to punch you in the fucking face!”
Rawley glares at Raven. “Try it. I dare you. I’m not responsible for what I do next.”
Raven looks to me and then points at her desk that Rawley’s literally covered with lube. Yes, fucking KY Jelly. Her keyboard, her computer screen, all of it. And if you know Raven and her obsession to detail and keeping her work station clean and orderly, this is a catastrophic event for her. “Red, do something with him!”
I’m still not pleased with Rawley after Friday when he basically ditched us when we needed him. “I can’t.” I watch the sheriff pull up to the office in his squad car. “Mom won’t let me touch his whinny ass.”
Rawley stares out the window when the sheriff gets out of his car. “Did you call the sheriff, Raven?”
“No.” She takes an entire roll of paper towels in hand. “But I should have. You know it’s illegal to fuck a minor, right? I should—”
Rawley punches her in the arm. Hard too. Stepping between them, I grab him by the shirt and slam him into the wall. “Don’t hit her. Get to work.”
Mom walks into the office just then. “Red, don’t hurt him.”
Raven lays into her right away about what Rawley did. It’s like being around them when they were kids again. Always fighting with one another.
Not wanting in the middle of it, I greet the sheriff outside, keeping one eye on Lenny and knowing I need to pull her aside so we can finish talking. She’s bent over a Buick trying to find an emissions leak but all I see is her ass.
“Morning, Sheriff,” I say, leaning against the fender of his car.
“Red, we have a situation I need to inform you of,” Sheriff Barns mutters for only me to hear.
“Okay.” I give a stiff nod. Who knows what the fuck this could be?
“Listen, Red, I’m not telling you this as the sheriff but that little girl in there is in some trouble.”
A punch of adrenaline hits my chest. “What?” I look behind me thinking he’s talking about Raven because we already know she’s been in trouble with the law a time or two. “Raven? What’d she do now?”
He clears his throat and gestures inside the shop. “No, I mean Lennon.”
My muscles tense in preparation. “What kind of trouble?” I’ve had my suspicions that she’s running from something, but I don’t think I’m as prepared as I need to be by the look on the sheriff’s face.
“Well apparently, Lennon filed for divorce as well as a restraining order a few weeks back and her husband isn’t taking the news well.”
Husband? She’s married?
“I received a call from her attorney in Oklahoma letting me know that right after the husband, Ben Snider, received the papers. He started asking around her last job if anyone knew where she may have gone. When no one there had any answers for him, he got pretty heated and s
tarted making threats against the owner and his employees. I guess her old boss, Eric, filed a harassment complaint against him and the local sheriff informed her attorney. They sent me over a copy of his file from county.” He sniffs, keeping his eyes over my shoulder at the shop. “This guy seems like a loose cannon. He’s wanted for a variety of misdemeanors, but the one that interests me the most is a breaking and entering charge about a week ago into the shop she was working at last. He did about a hundred thousand worth of damages and then burned the place to the ground.”
Shit. Loose cannon is putting it lightly. This guy seems like a fucking psycho.
I scratch the side of my head trying to make sense of all this. “So did the attorney say whether or not he thinks this Ben knows where Lenny is?”
“He said he wasn’t sure what Ben knew, but he got the impression that he wasn’t going to stop until he found her. The divorce papers were originated in Oklahoma so there is no way to connect those to her living here, but the restraining order was filed by our office so he could probably do some digging and find out where the paperwork originated from.”
Listening to what the sheriff is telling me, my stomach drops. I force myself to unclench my fists in an attempt to stop them from shaking.
One, how could she not tell me she’s married? A fucking restraining order? And second, why the hell don’t I know about this?
The sheriff continues talking and I try and focus on what he is saying.
“I wanted to let you know the situation so that you and the boys could keep an eye out for any trouble. First sign of anything out of the ordinary, you call me.” He stops and looks me straight in the eye with a look of warning. “I mean it Red. You see any trouble, you call me, do you understand? I don’t want you or anyone else thinking they are going to handle this on their own.”
I know what he’s thinking. He doesn’t want a repeat of what happened to Neveah.
“Yeah, Sheriff, I hear ya. Thanks for coming by and letting me know.”
“WHEN WERE YOU going to tell me about Ben?” I ask Lenny. I’m so worked up I can’t even breathe right. Knowing my past and what happened to Nevaeh, how could she have not told me this the moment she found out about my wife?
The look of surprise and horror that flashes across her face is all I need to see to know that this isn’t something she ever intended to tell me about. “How the hell do you know about Ben?”
“The better question is why didn’t you tell me about him? Don’t you think this would have been information you should have told me? The fuck, Lenny? The sheriff just came in to tell me to keep my eyes open for trouble because your psycho husband is looking for you.”
Lenny opens her mouth to speak, but then stops when she sees Tyler come around the corner.
She turns to walk away, but there is no way we are not going to talk about this so I catch her elbow before she can take another step. She turns to me, a rush of emotions flooding her eyes. “Please Red, just let it go. I don’t want you involved.” She tries again to walk away.
No. There is no way I can let this go. “Don’t walk away from me.” With a gentle push forward, I move the two of us into the parts room and away from everyone else.
“I just can’t fucking believe after everything I told you about my wife, you wouldn’t have said something to me sooner. Before we had sex.” My voice is calm and level, but truth be told, my entire body’s ready to burst into rage. I’m brought back to that night all over again.
Nevaeh’s voice comes to me, asking me what time I’d be leaving, begging me not to work too late and making me promise her I’d be home soon.
“Honestly, Red, I don’t see how this is any of your concern. Why should I have said anything? It’s my business and I’m handling it.”
Because my wife was murdered by her crazy ex. Because I will never again let something like that happen to anyone I care about.
I try so fucking hard to find reason in what she’s saying, an understanding in her logic, but I’m so caught off guard by it all, I’m just angry with the entire situation.
“Well, for one I was just informed that Ben is suspected to have trashed your previous employer’s shop before burning it to the ground when he didn’t get the answers he wanted about your whereabouts.”
Her body tenses. I can see the fear in her eyes when she realizes the level her ex has taken this to. “He did what?”
“Burned the shop down when Eric wouldn’t tell him where you were.”
She gasps. “Oh God, no.” Tears surface on her flushed face. “I can’t believe he’d do that. Eric’s his stepbrother. He’s how I even got that job.”
I try to remain calm and for that reason, I step back and lean into the shelf in the room, the dim lighting outlining the worried lines on her face as tears silently fall down her cheeks. I fucking hate that she’s crying over this, because of him, maybe because of me. “If he were to find you here alone….” I shake the thought away. “Shit, Lenny. What if he came here and Nova was here? Would it be my business then? Huh?”
She’s obviously shaken by all this and can barely get the words out. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Ben, I just… didn’t want to bother anyone else with my problems.”
“I get that you didn’t want to bother anyone. I do. But knowing what I went through, how could you keep this from me?”
Her shoulders shake with sobs, her face falling into her hands. “I thought I had it under control.”
“You know, that’s what Nevaeh thought too. She kept telling me not to worry. That his threats were just words. And then I found her dead. Think about how I’d feel or better yet, how Nova would feel if something happened to you too.”
Her head snaps up. She never took into consideration that I let her into Nova’s life too, and how it would affect my daughter if something happened to Lenny? I mean, fuck her for not thinking of us.
“Well, I’ve got to give you credit for one thing. You proved yourself right.”
Her brow creases. “What are you talking about?”
“You do make stupid fucking decisions. No more working late,” I say bluntly, wanting the conversation to be over with now. “When the shop closes, you leave. You’re not allowed to be here alone.” I do realize she lives upstairs with Tyler, but at least she’s not alone up there. I’m gonna have to talk to him about that.
“It’s not your job to protect me. You don’t need the added stress. I’m not your wife.”
She might as well have punched me in the face right then because that’s a low fucking blow. From the moment I found out about Ben, I knew I was comparing the situations. It’s only natural with the similarities and the brutal way my wife was taken from me.
“You’re right. You’re not my wife.” I lean forward, my eyes trained on hers. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand by and do nothing when some psycho is out there looking for you.”
“Tyler helped me get a restraining order against him. There’s no need for you to get involved. I don’t want you involved.” She glares, a steely determination settling in her stare.
“Well, tough shit. Because you have a past that you decided not to share… a past that just destroyed a fucking business without a care or concern and is now threatening to come knocking on my door, I’m involved.”
Her face screws up in disgust. “God, Red, do you honestly think I would allow anything to happen to your shop?” Lenny spits, staring daggers, so still I’m not even sure she’s breathing. I hit a nerve for sure. “Why are you really acting this way? Is it that you’re truly worried about me or are you determined to help me because you’re trying to make up for the fact that you weren’t able to protect Nevaeh?”
I peg her with a deadly glare, daring her to continue. Her words hit me hard. Of course, some of my reaction has to do with what happened with Nevaeh. That’s only natural, but does she truly believe I’m only trying to help her to make myself feel better? I get that I’m being an ass, but how can she not see th
at my concern is genuine?
“How could you even ask me that? What happened here the other night that meant something to me, Lenny. I care about you, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’ve basically put myself out here for you, letting you know I’d be anything you needed me to be.”
I let that last part soak in.
She doesn’t answer me, her expression one of shock.
I massage the back of my neck and take a leveling breath. I don’t want to say anything to hurt her, but I’m so fucking pissed I don’t think I can control anything that comes out of my mouth. I can’t even stand to look at her, so I turn away from her and walk out.
I stalk outside the shop and into the back parking lot, my patience diminishing with each step.
“Goddamn it!” I shout, throwing up my hands.
I rub the back of my neck in frustration and when that’s not enough, my body gives in and hunches forward as I sit on the bed of an old Chevy that hasn’t run in years.
Resting my elbows on top of my knees, I run my palms over my face and hold my head in my hands.
“Red? You out here, man?”
Pulling my head away from my hands, I notice Tyler’s standing in front of me. “What’s going on?”
“You should have told me,” I growl, staring him down. “After everything I’ve been through, you should have fucking told me.”
He keeps his face impassive as he shrugs. “It’s not my story to tell.”
“You’re really starting to piss me off with this withholding information.”
“I don’t know that much about it. Just that he’s her soon-to-be ex-husband and he’s looking for her. He called my house phone looking for her.”
Sliding off the tailgate, I pace the gravel parking lot, trying to reel in my temper and make sense of this. I don’t want to see Lenny crying again.
“Look, I get that you’re pissed and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Lenny’s ex, but you’ve been acting strange since she started working here so tell me what’s really going on? She’s in the parts room crying.” Tyler finally asks, knowing there’s more to this. He’s been my friend for years. He knows when I’m struggling with more than just him keeping this from me.