by Shey Stahl
“I fucked her.” My stare meets his as I wait for him to tell me what an idiot I am. Only he doesn’t. “Friday night in the shop. By the way, how are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” And then Tyler’s eyes go wide. “Seriously, you fucked her?”
I nod, realizing I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I’m in over my head.
He nods. “Okay… so now what?”
“Shit, man. I don’t even know.” I look over at Tyler who’s staring at the Chevy in front of us. “She can’t be left alone, Tyler. Ever. When she’s not here, I want you with her.”
He nods. “Okay.”
I’d do it myself but I know exactly where it’d lead. My problem is, no matter how much I try to convince myself of it, having sex with Lenny just once wasn’t enough. Twice would just be teasing. I thought if I fucked her, that I could get past the unexplainable need I felt toward her but now that I’ve been inside her, it’s going to be damn near impossible to curb this hunger. Truth is, sex with Lenny everyday still wouldn’t be enough.
A WEEK GOES by. An entire week and we’ve made it to Friday. I have no idea how either. It’s like I’ve been living in a fog of confusion. One where I’m not sure what’s more on my mind, Lenny’s ass, or her ex. It’s a toss-up.
Lenny’s in the middle of diagnosing why a check engine light is on, but one look at the car and I see she doesn’t even have the scan tool hooked up. She has the smoke tester hooked up, sure, but she forgot to close the valves.
“You’re doing it wrong,” I blurt out gruffly.
“What?” She steps back from the car and waves the smoke out of her face.
I still don’t look at her. I keep my eyes trained on the engine in front of me.
“I said, you’re doing it wrong,” I say more sternly, hoping she gets the damn hint she’s pissed me off.
“I heard that.” Her voice is just as stern, but there’s a sadness that I hate. “What am I doing wrong? Can you show me?”
I bite back my initial response, which is to just pick this fucking engine off the cherry picker and hurl it across the shop. “Everything. And no, I can’t show you.”
It’s been like this all damn week, ever since I found out about her husband. The garage is practically a warzone with me barking orders while looking over my shoulder every other minute. I keep expecting that bastard of an ex of hers to show up and start shit. It’s made the whole week a fucking nightmare.
“Everything?” I can hear the confusion and hurt in her voice and this is exactly why women don’t make good mechanics. They can’t take orders without questioning my tone of voice.
“Yes, you’re doing everything wrong.”
Her face contorts as if I’ve just slapped her, her eyes widening.
I point to the back of the car. “If you’re looking for a leak, you gotta hook up the scan tool to close the valves. You have to pressurize it before you can test for leaks.”
Lenny looks inside the car where the scan tool is sitting on the seat. She forgot to turn it on.
I turn around. “Like I said, you’re doing it wrong.”
The thing is, I’m doing it wrong. I shouldn’t be treating her like this. She’s obviously hurting and I’m not making this any easier on her. When I glance over my shoulder, she’s inside the car, swiping away tears and then turning the scan tool on.
Apparently, I’m living up to my reputation of an asshole.
It’s been a shit of a week. Foolishly, I’d hoped the weekend would be different. It seems I’m wrong. Tyler won’t let me out of his sight and my only option to get any free moments is to run to Raven. Honestly, the only place I want to go is Raven’s.
“Where are you going?” Tyler asks when I’m grabbing my keys off the counter Saturday morning.
“To Raven’s house.”
He stands. “I’ll drive you.”
“No.” I hold up my hand. “I’ll go right there. Promise. No stopping anywhere.”
I love Tyler, but I need Raven today. She’s the first friend I’ve ever had aside from Tyler.
That’s the only reason I can think as to why I show up at Raven’s house, still in my pajamas looking for ideas as to how to make Red like me again. The week was horrible and I can’t take that again. He won’t talk to me there, so maybe his sister might give me some advice. Right?
“How can I make it better?” I ask as soon as she answers the door, my tears barely controlled. At some point on the drive here, I started crying and I couldn’t stop.
“Oh, honey.” She takes me in, wraps her arms around me and pulls me inside the door. “What’s wrong?” she asks, watching me walk behind her and into the kitchen where she was eating breakfast.
It’s then I notice she’s wearing a scarf. And it’s the middle of July. “Why are you wearing a scarf?”
She shrugs and passes me a tissue. “No reason. What’s going on with you?”
“I slept with your brother.”
“Please tell me you’re not talking about Rawley…”
“Seriously?” I take the tissue and blow my nose, keeping it in my fist as I flop my hands on the table. “I’m not that desperate.”
“Who’s desperate?” Rawley asks, coming into the kitchen in just a pair of black shorts hung low on his waist and no shirt. He walks to the fridge, takes a drink of orange juice straight from the carton. “And why are you crying?”
Raven glares at him and points her spoon in his face. “None of your business. Go away.”
Smiling, he sits beside me.
“That’s not leaving,” Raven notes, kicking his chair.
He takes her bowl of cereal and drinks the milk from her bowl. “So what.” And then he looks at me. “Why are you crying?”
“I slept with Red,” I blurt out, waiting on his reaction.
“Nice.” Rawley nods and slides Raven’s bowl back to her. She pushes it aside refusing to eat any more of it. “It’s about time he got laid. Maybe now he won’t be such an asshole.”
“Nope,” I say, breaking the news to him. “I slept with him last week. He’s actually gotten worse.”
“Why are you crying then?” Rawley chuckles. “You shouldn’t be surprised one bit.”
“What are you even doing here?” Raven asks, trying to get him to leave. Rawley’s good at annoying Raven and when he knows it’s working, he’ll keep it up.
“Shush.” He waves her off. “I’m helping. Talk to me, Lenny. I’m a man.” He has the potential to be adorable right here, but I also know too much about him now to ever find him adorable.
Raven sits back in the chair crossing her arms over her chest. “Hardly. You’re a whore.”
He turns to her, completely straight-faced. “Shut up.”
It’s pointless to keep this a secret anymore. I can’t. I won’t go through last week again. It was awful. Anything I said, I was wrong. Anything I did, wrong. All fucking wrong. “He’s mad at me because I didn’t tell him about my soon-to-be ex-husband who was abusive, so I left him and ran here.”
“And he fucked you before he found that out?”
“Yes.”
“Shit,” Rawley curses, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s rough. That’d piss me off too.”
Raven kicks his chair, the jolt causing his body to sway. “What? It’d piss me off. She should have told him.”
“You’re not helping her. Leave.”
His face screws up. “What?” He raises his hands. “I’m trying to. I’m being honest. She fucked up.”
Great. Even Rawley thinks I’m a horrible person, and he has no morals at all.
“But what do I do now?” I ask, staring at my hands and remembering that night in the shop. I want that again because I had never felt more safe and desired.
Rawley taps his index finger to his chin. “Let me think.” And then he looks at me. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
I sniffle and reach for another tissue. “Because at first… I moved he
re to start over. I didn’t want anyone to know in fear they’d think I was weak. I stayed with a man who was abusive for years because I didn’t think I deserved better. I married a man who was a monster, because I thought it was the only option. And then when I left, I realized, I had options and immediately I meet Red. Once I found out about Nevaeh, I didn’t want to bring back his past. So I didn’t say anything.”
“Your intentions were good,” Raven points out, trying to be the sympathetic friend. “You just need to explain that to him.”
“I thought I did…”
Rawley leans forward, his hands resting on the table. “I totally get why he’s mad.”
“Yes, because you have all the answers.” Raven snorts, reaching for a banana to eat since Rawley ruined her cereal. She’s very picky and if anyone so much as touches her food in any way, she won’t finish it.
He immediately takes the banana from her, peels it and takes a large bit, chewing around his words. “It’s because of what happened with Nevaeh that you should have warned him the instant you knew, well before feelings were ever involved.”
It’s my turn to snort as I relax into the chair, my tears all but dry now. “No one said there were feelings involved.”
Rawley twists his head, taking another bite from Raven’s banana and then throws the peel at her face. “We all can see there’s feelings involved… even for him.”
“It was just sex,” I mumble.
“Red hasn’t been with anyone since his wife died,” Rawley adds with a mocking tone, like I should have known. “He wouldn’t just sleep with someone for the sex. I’ve seen him at bars and pussy is basically thrown at the bastard, yet he’s turned down every opportunity he’s had. Until you. Fuck, Tyler even hired a hooker once and he sent the bitch home.”
“That’s true.” Raven points at Rawley, finally agreeing with something he’s said.
Leaning back in the chair, I fold my arms across my chest. “Okay, so what do I do now? I feel like the dumbest fuck in the world right now and I can’t take him being mad at me. Last week was awful.”
Rawley shrugs. “Just fuck him again. Go over to his house and blow him.”
My head jerks his direction. “Rawley, I’m serious.”
Raven waves him off, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, seemingly deep in thought. “Start by apologizing.”
Rawley snorts. “There needs to be more than an apology.”
“Okay, so what then?”
He thinks for a minute and then smiles. “Feed him. Make his favorite meal, then apologize. If that doesn’t work, then fuck him. It’d work for me.”
Raven smiles at her brother, and I think it’s planned by the devious twinkle to her eyes. “Is that what Sophie did to get you to forgive her?”
His chair screeches against the tile. “Fuck you.” And then he leaves. Immediately, Raven leans across the table to high-five me. “Knew that’d get him to leave.”
I look at her expectantly. “What do I make?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” Raven pushes herself away from the table and to the kitchen drawers near the microwave. She digs through a large cookbook and pulls out small white notecard. “Make this recipe.” And then she reaches for her purse on the edge of the kitchen chair she was sitting at. “Let’s go to the store. I’ll help you make it.”
I look down at the card in my hands and the neat handwriting. There’s no name on it, but with the ingredients, I gather this is some kind of special recipe. “Where did you get this?”
“My mom.” She shrugs, nodding to the door. “Let’s go.”
I stand and follow her out the door. “Where’d she get it?”
We’re at her car now. “Not sure. It’s Red’s favorite though.”
Her car doors unlock when she clicks the button. A breeze kicks up, fresh cut grass moving through the air. I breathe in deeply, the warm summer air on my back as I get inside the car.
You can do this, Lenny.
When we reach the stop light, Raven stares at me. “So this ex of yours… he’s really after you?”
“Yeah, he is. I mean, I knew he’d come eventually. He’s always been abusive, just more verbally than anything but then he hit me… so I left that night without telling him.” It’s weird telling Raven all this because I never open up to anyone in fear they’ll think less of me. But then again, talking with Raven came naturally. “I filed for divorce and then a restraining order, and that pissed him off even more.”
“That’s crazy.” Raven gasps as we pull into the parking lot of the grocery store down the street from her house. “What an asshole.”
“Pretty much.” I pick up the recipe card. “Man, this looks complicated.”
I’M RIGHT. IT is complicated. I mean, the damn thing called for cinnamon. Who puts cinnamon in their spaghetti sauce is beyond me.
I’ve never thought of myself as a cook, but I can certainly follow a recipe and it usually turns out pretty good. My problem is, deep down, I know who’s recipe this is. I know I can’t fuck this up.
“I know he’s an ass most of the time, but my brother really likes you.” Raven tells me as we cook.
I didn’t know it, until now, but maybe that was my intention all along coming over here to talk to Raven. Something clicked. I can have this. I just have to be careful, right?
When I have the spaghetti done and placed inside one of Mia’s dishes, I wrap the top with foil and take a deep breath. Raven hugs me tightly from behind when I’m at the door, careful not to squeeze too hard that I drop the dish. “It’s going to work,” she whispers. “Call me later and tell me how it went.”
“Thank you for helping me. I’ve never had a friend like you before, or a friend at all.”
She winks and slaps my ass. “Go get him, tiger.”
I don’t know what he’ll say when I show up, but I’m trying this time. I think what scares me the most is falling in love with him, because it’s heading there. I know it is.
I don’t know how to love. All I’ve ever been is property: of the state, of Wes, of a tattoo artist using my body as a canvas… of Ben. My strength and weakness at times is my shield. The way I force myself not to love anyone.
Mostly because the purest, most natural aspect of a child’s life, unconditional love, I’ve been denied. That’s why it was easy to fall for Ben and his lies because I didn’t know any different. I was never given the basic form of love nor did I understand how to accept it when someone showed me they cared.
NOVA MUST HEAR me pull up, because she’s the first one out the door and directly followed by Red grabbing the hood of her sweatshirt to pull her back inside the house. When he sees it’s me, he lets her come outside and greet me at my car.
“Lenny, it’s you.”
I open my door leaving the window down. “It is me.” I reach across the seat for the spaghetti, my peace offering. “I brought you guys some spaghetti.”
Nova’s eyes light up. I’ve missed her smiling face so much this week. Red kept her away from the shop, probably for good reason. “How did you know that’s my daddy’s favorite food?”
I smile and kneel down to her level tucking one wild curl behind her ear. “Wild guess.”
“You must be psycho.”
“You mean psychic?”
“Yeah, that.” She motions over her shoulder with her finger. “Daddy’s inside.”
He’s not. He’s standing on the porch with his hands buried deep in his pockets.
“We’re going to the races tonight to watch Daniel.”
Crap. I should have known they had plans.
It takes me a minute to meet his eyes. I’m too focused on his appearance in jeans and a T-shirt with a baseball hat on backwards, his arms of steel crossed over his chest.
In his eyes, there’s a war. It’s the simple lift of his brow that lets him know I’m not welcome. But I stay because it’s him and even if he doesn’t know it, he needs me here
with him.
Well, I’ve certainly fucked things up, haven’t I?
“I’ll leave. I just wanted to bring this by.” I push the dish forward and he takes it.
His eyes rake over my body, lingering on my shorts. Of course I wore his favorite shorts. His left hand raises and scratches the side of his scruffy jaw, his knuckles cracked and bloody. “What are you doing here?”
I hesitate because he’s so intimidating with the way he stands there, eyes boring on mine, waiting for my apology. “I know… I hurt you. I just—”
A sigh rolls off his chest. “I’m not hurt,” he interrupts.
“Yes, you are.”
“He’s kinda cranky,” Nova remarks from her place beside him, looking up at her dad with wide innocent blue eyes.
A mocking smirk plays at Red’s lips. “Nope. Not cranky… or upset.” And then he looks down at Nova. “Hey, darlin’, go grab your jacket so we can leave.”
He turns around too, and takes the spaghetti inside. I stay on the porch, fidgeting with the hem of my jean shorts, afraid to move. I’m such an idiot. I should have called first. Leave it to me to just assume I could show up.
Just when I’m thinking of turning around and leaving, Red comes back outside. “So that’s it?” he mumbles, pushing himself from the wall he’s leaning against, refusing to sit down.
“I don’t know.” I’m caught off guard by all this, his intensity and the lowness of his voice directed at me.
“Say it then.” His head turns to me, his eyes narrow. He stares at me for a second, much longer than I would expect him to before his gaze drops.
“Say what? That I’m sorry? I am.”
“Lenny!” Nova comes barreling back out with her coat. “Come with us!”
My gaze cuts to Red to see what he might say about that. He’s tight-lipped and quiet, the clench of his jaw the only movement seen.
Yep. I’ve pissed him off again. Now it’s becoming an hourly occurrence.
He looks at Nova. “Go grab your blankie too.”