Touch Me

by Christie Ridgway

  “Yes.” She half-turned to show off the infant’s face. “Meet Marcus.”

  Blake seemed less than impressed, but he pulled out his phone and snapped off a couple of photos. “Your father instructed me to text him new pictures.”

  “Oh.” Rose didn’t know what to make of that. “You came all the way here for photos of my dad’s grandson?”

  “Of course not.” He laughed, but it sounded tense. “I came to apologize.”

  Her eyes widened. When she’d walked out a few months before, he’d not expressed any remorse whatsoever. “Oh,” she said again.

  “And I came to get you back.”

  “Oh.” Shock made her retreat a step. “Um…”

  “Can we sit down?” He glanced around.

  “You can, but Marcus is feeling fussy, so I’d better stay on my feet.”

  “I’ll stand too, then,” he said, shrugging.

  It reminded her that Blake wasn’t a complete jerk. And it made her feel a tiny bit better about herself, because she’d begun to wonder about her judgment. The men she picked, the move to L.A. Then she noticed her ex was staring. “Have I grown another head?”

  He smiled a little. “It’s just…you don’t look like yourself. The different clothes. Your hair’s longer and kind of messy. And what’s that smell?”

  She had to laugh. “My new perfume. Eau de Baby Barf.”

  He chuckled. “I’d forgotten your sense of humor.”

  Enough of the chit chat, Rose decided. “I’m still confused about your sudden appearance.” Get me back?

  “Your dad said you’re returning to accounting.”

  “I am. I’m going to do the books for an auto salvage yard.”

  “You should rejoin the firm instead. Return to Seattle and move back into our condo.” He hurried on, as if he didn’t want to give her a chance to refuse. “I’m not with…her any longer. That was stupid. I was feeling…pegged, I guess. Like our future was lining up too neatly and I needed to try something else. You know, make sure or—” He ran his hand through his hair. “I really can’t explain it, Rose. I just know it was wrong of me to do that to you.”

  Rose sucked in a breath. It was wrong of him to treat her that way, but some of what he’d been feeling wasn’t unfamiliar to her. That life, their life together, had been suffocating her and when she’d come to L.A., she’d wanted to break rules too. “Blake—”

  “I liked how we were. It made sense. I want that back.”

  Except there was no passion between the two of them, which made for a comfortable, yet tepid bed. Tepid life. How to make him understand? “I changed my own oil.”

  He blinked. “Why would you want to?”

  “Because I didn’t know how to before. Because it’s something new. Because I enjoyed being challenged.” Payne had said she wouldn’t like getting her hands dirty, but she had. At the salvage yard. In a garden. “It was real.”

  “Um…” He glanced to the side, glanced back at her. “Is this a test? I take my Lexus to the dealer, but…”

  She smiled at him. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that I came here wanting new experiences as well. I don’t want to return to the old rut in Seattle. You must have felt that too, the rut, or else you wouldn’t have cheated.”

  Wincing, Blake stared down at his shoes. “I don’t know what to do. I feel like a worm.”

  “You were a worm.” Hey, it had to be said. “But you can get something out of the experience besides the curses I brought down on your head.” She smiled a little to let him know she was—kind of—kidding.

  “But I want to go back—”

  “No, you really don’t.”

  He tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Then what? I feel stuck in this misery too.”

  “Go forward. Make some more messes—just not at the sake of someone else’s heart. Instead date someone new, or change jobs, or take up fly fishing like you always talked about. Court a bit of disaster.”

  His expression turned dubious. “Am I going to be grateful to you for this advice later?”

  “Not me.” But Payne Colson, maybe, because thanks to him she was her own glorious mess and she’d vowed not to regret it for a second. Blake’s visit was a good reminder of that.

  Still, once her ex left, with a last, uncertain backward glance, she didn’t feel that much happier. To distract herself, she decided to load up the diaper bag, put baby Marcus into the car seat in her sister’s Honda, and make a trip to the salvage yard.

  It looked so much better than it had, she decided, as she drove up and pulled around back. Even the long grasses popping from the furrows in the asphalt had been mostly eradicated. As she strolled toward the office building, she detoured to Jeb, who was poking at a few strays with a weeding tool.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, smiling at him. She enjoyed her interaction with the twins.

  “Okay.” He smiled at her, then bent to give attention to the baby in the carrier, making a funny, exaggerated face. Marcus responded by kicking his feet and waving one wild fist. “No Payne?”

  The turn of phrase punched her heart a little. “No Payne. His brother commandeered him for tux shopping today.”

  “Ouch,” Jed said.

  “I don’t get you men. Cilla said he moaned and groaned about it. It’s a tuxedo. Men look hot in tuxedos.” Payne, with his golden good looks would be outstanding.

  Damn him.

  Jed shrugged. “We’d rather be wearing something we can get dirty.” He gestured to his ripped jeans and his oil-stained sweatshirt with the sleeves hacked off.

  That reminded her. “Did you hear some valuable parts have gone missing from here?” The teens didn’t work every day, so the word might not have reached them.

  “Missing?” Jed directed his attention to a weed, scraping it free from a groove in the blacktop. “Misplaced?”

  “No. Actually missing. Well, we suspect they were stolen.”

  “How could that be?” Jeb frowned.

  “The hundreds-of-dollars question. Cami came looking for them and they were nowhere to be found. I know for a fact they were part of the inventory because I’d just recently confirmed it with the database.”

  “Sorry.” He shrugged again.

  “There’s a couple of new employees—”

  “They seem nice.”

  “And they came with good references.” Rose sighed. “So I guess that means we all have to keep a closer eye on what the customers are doing.”

  “Yeah. Will do.”

  She glanced at the baby. “I think Marcus and I will track down Lucy and warn her about it too.”

  Jeb made a face. “Lucy’s not here today.”

  “Oh? Is she studying? Big test coming up?”

  “Big asshole in her life,” the teen muttered.

  Uh-oh. “Maylo?”

  “My parents don’t give a shit, they’re so wound up in their own problems. The guy’s a loser—and too old for her.”

  “Lucy won’t take advice from her twin?”

  Jeb shook his head. “She’s eleven minutes younger than me. Why won’t she listen?”

  Rose bit back her smile. “Well, eleven minutes is not that long.”

  “Long enough to know he’s a bozo and…” Jeb drew in a long breath. “And I’m worried he’s going to…to lead her in the wrong direction. Heck, she practically throws herself at him.”

  Sixteen-year-old Lucy, captivated by an older guy. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, just wild parties, or booze, or sex, or a combination of them and worse. Rose pictured herself at that age, willing to do anything for Payne’s attention. Youngsters could be dumb and reckless and ride too high on emotion, as she knew very well from experience.

  Rose sighed. “No counting on Maylo to do the noble thing, huh?”

  Jeb snorted. “No. And she’d hate me for getting in her way.”

  Was that what Rose had felt for Payne the night he’d rejected her? Pretty much. But now she had a much finer apprecia
tion. Seeing it from this side now, it was hard to even stay mad at him.

  Even harder not to acknowledge that she did, indeed, love him, no matter that his shallow heart would never love her back.

  Shaking herself, she hitched up the baby carrier and prepared to continue on her way to the office. “Bye, Jeb. I hope things work out okay.”

  “Yeah.” He looked miserable instead of confident.

  “Jeb?”

  “Yeah?”

  Rose thought of Payne. “Maybe you’ll have to take the heat. You might have to be the stand-up guy who saves Lucy from herself.”

  Forcing his mood to calm, Payne kicked back in the stands at the speedway as dusk descended and told himself he was having a hell of a good time. Wasn’t he in his favorite place in the world? Where he could find everything he needed from hot chicks to the high of an adrenaline rush. Even though nothing moved on the eight-lane track below, he swore he could still smell residual fuel fumes in the air. It made him recall the grit of rubber dust from the tires between his teeth.

  It was a good flavor to remember.

  Not a bad taste in his mouth.

  That was the memory of being outside Lily Dailey’s house not three hours ago and seeing a suit walk up to the door, carrying an armful of roses.

  For Rose.

  Payne had figured that right away, even as he pulled up across the street in the residential neighborhood of side-by-side family houses.

  Rose had let the guy—surely the ex—in.

  If Payne had gotten there first with his apology, would she have shut the door in his face?

  Cursing under his breath, he ignored the throb of a headache at the back of his skull and reminded himself things were looking up for him. Think about the future!

  The doc was going to clear him in a couple of days and then he’d return to his regular routine. Work, women, speed.

  Closing his eyes, he built a little mental picture of it, shoving his past far behind him.

  A bulky but light package hit him square in the chest. He jerked upright, glancing down at the bag of peanuts now sliding to his lap. His gaze lifted to take in the man who had thrown it at him.

  Fucking Ren.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, as his dark-haired brother took a seat alongside him and tore open his own bag.

  Instead of answering, Ren crushed a shell, squeezing the nuts into his mouth. Chewed.

  Payne scowled. “Did I ask you to come here?”

  “Nope.” The other man swallowed. “That would be Jer,” he said, naming the track manager who had let Payne in. “Said you were trying to wheedle some time with a training car.”

  “Jer’s never said ‘wheedle’ in his life.”

  Ren shrugged. “He was worried.”

  Now Payne wanted to hunt the man down and tell him to mind his own effing business, but then Ren would suspect Payne had a care in the world, which was not true. Not at all.

  It didn’t matter to him that Rose’s ex had shown up on her doorstep, surely there to beg her to come back to him. It was her decision and none of Payne’s business if she returned to Seattle and the weasel. His foot kicked out, nailing the metal bench below him.

  Ow. That hurt, damn it.

  “Something bothering you?” Ren asked in a mild tone.

  “No, I’m great.” With his teeth, he ripped into his own peanut bag.

  “Apparently recovered from that stomach bug that kept you from going to look at tuxedos with me today.”

  Payne smirked. “I lied about that.”

  “Color me surprised.”

  “Sorry, bro, but tux shopping? Can’t Cilla just pick out what we’re going to wear at the wedding?”

  Ren liberated a couple more nuts from their shell. “She wants us to do it together—the groom and the best man.”

  “Tell her no.”

  His brother chewed, swallowed again. “I don’t want to tell her no. I want to make her happy.”

  You’ve got to take back the loving me.

  Payne pretended he didn’t hear the echo of his own voice in his head. “You know, you’re eerily calm about your ability to do that. Make her happy.”

  “Yeah. I used to think I couldn’t bond. Maybe I didn’t want to before. But I’m all in with Cilla.”

  Payne smiled at his brother. “I believe you. I only have to see you two together to know you’re pussy-whipped.”

  Ren reached over and cuffed his head.

  “Ouch,” Payne said, rubbing at the sting.

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  No, it wasn’t going to happen to him, Payne vowed. Not that he had the same solitary nature as Ren, pre-Cilla. He was social. He liked to go out and he liked the new closeness of the Rock Royalty.

  He liked Rose.

  Yeah, of course he liked Rose.

  Her beautiful eyes, her crooked smile, her sweet taste.

  “You’re not supposed to driving,” Ren said now.

  “I was sick of being cooped up in the house. I needed to get out.”

  “Where’s the assistant we hired for you?”

  Probably having make-up sex with a weasel. “I told her I didn’t need her today.”

  Ren sighed. “So somewhere along the line you stole the extra set of keys I left with her for emergencies.”

  “Yeah. You should have trusted me with them in the first place.”

  “Uh-huh.” His brother shook his head. “You are so bad, Payne.”

  That’s what he’d been trying to tell Rose! As much as he enjoyed the woman, he couldn’t pledge to her what a man should pledge to Rose.

  She should have fidelity.

  It was a promise Payne could not make. Ultimately, he’d screw her over like Bean had screwed over the mothers of his children. That was the deal. Payne was a man like his father, hell, like her father, and she deserved better.

  She deserved to be some guy’s one-and-only, forever-and-ever, amen.

  It was near dark now. Lights switched on, illuminating the bleachers, but leaving the track in darkness. Shit. He wished he could see it still. That was his future, not some gray-eyed woman who was pretty pissed at him at this moment.

  Or not thinking about him at all, because she was having make-up sex with the weasel. He slammed his foot against the metal bench again.

  “You sleeping okay?” Ren asked.

  The question needled Payne’s last nerve. “What the hell? I don’t need you concerning yourself with my physical or my mental well-being, thank you very much.”

  The other man lifted his hands. “Take it easy. I was just—”

  “You’re the one with a problem, with your freaky nightmares and your masticating on the past and on our childhood. I’m all about the future. What’s next for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I don’t give a shit what you guys are thinking.” Every one of us is scared out of our minds that you’re going to kill yourself. He pointed toward the darkened track. “I’m going back out there where I can feel free of…of…everything.”

  “Going around and around in a circle? Speeding along a course in the desert that only takes you back to your starting point? That’s no way to dodge what’s bothering you, brother.”

  Fuming, Payne jumped to his feet. “You’ve got no right,” he yelled, then slammed the peanut bag to the concrete and stalked away, taking the steps to the exit.

  But once in his car, he didn’t know what to do next. Going home to stew wasn’t healthy, and he couldn’t work himself up to apologize to Ren quite yet. He’d been an ass to the man.

  On other hand, Ren had been annoyingly critical.

  Going around and around in a circle? Speeding along a course in the desert that takes you back to your starting point? That’s no way to dodge what’s bothering you, brother.

  Christ, he needed to get laid. That would drive these stupid thoughts from his head.

  He drove to his salvage yards instead. He went to the motorcycle yard, the one that Cami
managed, first. All was quiet. Sometimes she stayed late in the office, playing music, but the place was dark except for the security lights.

  There was some action still at the original Colson Car Salvage. He found one of the managers there, going over some numbers, so he spent time with the man, shooting the breeze. They talked about quarterly projections, the possibility of buying some adjacent property, the need for a supplementary fluid tank.

  You know, the future.

  After, he stopped for a sandwich from the drive-through deli and ate it in the parking lot listening to a classic rock station on the radio. It was the opening riff of the Velvet Lemons song, “Found & Lost,” that ruined his mellowing mood. Switching off the music, he headed for the final salvage yard.

  The commercial area was dead as ever at this time in the evening. His window was partly rolled down for fresh air, and in the distance he could hear the beep-beeps of some big rig moving in reverse, but that was it. Noting the dust on his windshield, Payne hit the lever that sprayed the cleaning fluid onto the glass and slowed to a crawl while the wipers cleared away the wet grime.

  When they turned off, he could see his newest salvage yard in the distance, a couple of blocks away. Was someone standing outside the fence?

  Narrowing his eyes, Payne braked. Why would a person be loitering at this time of night? It was definitely not a cat, a raccoon, or even a rat.

  Switching off his headlights and the engine, Payne coasted silently down the shadowed street. Half a block from the yard, he vaulted out of the car and started running. “What the hell?” he yelled, startling the figure standing before the newly installed CCS #2 metal sign—now defaced with dark blue waves and splotchy stars.

  A canister of spray paint fell to the ground at the person’s feet. He slowly turned around.

  “Oh, hell,” Payne muttered.

  The person defacing his property was none other than Honey’s younger brother Jed.

  It became quite a party after that. While Payne had called only Walsh, soon he and the culprit were joined by both Walsh and Honey in the yard’s front office. Before they could get into what had happened, Lucy showed with her mother. The twins’ dad came last, his shirt buttoned wrong which made Payne wonder if he’d been interrupted while with his girlfriend.