Miss Mechanic

by Emma Hart

Charley looked up when I clanged my mug into the sink. “Oh no, Jamie. Are you mad?”

  I took a deep breath, turned, and smiled at her. I was, but not at her, and she didn’t deserve to feel my anger just because her uncle was an ass.

  “I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I’m just going home because there’s nothing to do.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Not because Uncle Dex has been talking about you to my mom?”

  “Absolutely not,” I lied smoothly. “There’s nothing to do, that’s all. There’s no point me sitting around here for that, huh?”

  “No, I suppose not.” She capped her pen and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You look sad.”

  “Maybe I’m a little mad,” I finally gave in. “But not at you, okay?”

  “Are you really going home because you’re mad? Or is there really no cars?”

  “Bit of both.” There was no point lying to the kid. She was smart as hell. “But it’s okay.”

  Slowly, she nodded, picking another pen out of her cup. “You should get ice-cream with us. Ice-cream makes everything better.”

  She wasn’t lying.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said softly.

  “Why not?”

  I paused. How the hell did you explain stuff like this to a kid? “Well, me and your Uncle Dex aren’t friends right now, so I don’t think ice-cream would be very fun for you.”

  “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Okay. I understand.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe another time?”

  That made her brighten. “You promise?”

  “Sure. I promise.”

  Chapter Seventeen – Dex

  Charley stared at me over the top of her chocolate sundae. Slowly, she dipped the spoon into the sauce and ice-cream and put it in her mouth, the whole time keeping that devil-glare fixed on me.

  If you’ve never had a seven-year-old stare at you as if you broke the head off her Barbie…Well, you’re a luckier person than I am.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  Charley’s spoon clinked against the side of the sundae glass when she released it. Then, she sat back against the leather seats of the booth, arms folded across her chest.

  I was in trouble.

  With a kid.

  Jesus.

  “I asked Jamie to come to ice-cream with us.”

  I knew where this was going.

  “And she said no, because you made her mad.” She raised her light little eyebrows and gave me a pointed look. “And I’m sad because I wanted her to have ice-cream to make her happy again.”

  “Ice-cream doesn’t make people happy, Char.”

  “Neither do you, Uncle Dex.”

  That was… unexpected.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think you’re mean to Jamie.” She stuck out her lip. “You fight with her all the time.”

  “Hey, she fights with me, too.”

  Charley sighed and leaned forward. “But we aren’t talking about Jamie, Uncle Dex. We’re talking about you.”

  She needed to stop listening to my sister.

  “All right, I’ll bite, little one. How am I so mean to her?” I sat back and moved my bowl to the side so I could see her properly.

  She shifted in her seat, resting her hands on the table like a newsreader.

  I felt like I was back in high school and getting read the riot act from the principal…except this principal was about three-feet-tall.

  “You’re mean to her all the time. You don’t even want her to work in the garage because I heard you say that to Pops. I don’t think you want to be friends with her.” Her eyes widened in earnest. “And I don’t like it when you’re mean to her, because I think she’s really nice. And, quite frankly, I’ve had enough of your banana split.”

  Ahh. Words Pops said to Aunt Greta just last night at dinner…except it wasn’t banana split.

  This kid picked way too much up.

  Not to mention, she did kind of have a point.

  “All right. I think you’re right. Not totally right, but a little bit right.” I pinched my finger and thumb together. “And I didn’t want her to work in the garage when she started, but now, she’s pretty good, and I’m okay with it.” Kind of.

  She sighed. “Well, you could show it.”

  Yep. I needed words with my sister.

  “How would I do that?”

  Charley pursed her lips into a fish-mouth shape and tapped them with her finger, staring off into the distance.

  I waited.

  “Mommy says that when you’re mean to someone, you should say sorry. So you should say sorry to Jamie for being mean to her.”

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “Right now.”

  I did a double-take. “Right now? As in right this second?”

  Charley nodded firmly. “I want to make sure you say sorry properly.”

  “Are you an expert in saying sorry?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault Faith keeps getting in my way and tripping over my feet at school.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself laughing. “All right, then, apology expert. Let’s go.”

  She jumped out of her seat. “We need ice-cream first.”

  “We do?”

  “Duh. She didn’t get any because you were mean. So now you have to take her some.”

  Sweet baby Jesus…

  ***

  “Do you remember what to say?” Charley asked from the back seat.

  “I’m capable of crafting a basic apology,” I replied. “Is that ice-cream still frozen?”

  She nodded. “Mostly.”

  Mostly was good enough.

  This whole exercise would be a fiasco. I didn’t even know if she was home, for fuck’s sake. Or alone.

  Fuck, if she wasn’t alone, I’d never live this down.

  Thankfully, when I pulled up outside her house next to her Mustang, there were no other cars. Hopefully that meant she was alone.

  “Remember,” I said to Charley as I opened the back door. “You’re just here for the ice-cream, okay?”

  She nodded, holding the plastic sundae glass like it was made of pure gold.

  I knocked on the front door.

  “I got it!” came from inside.

  I knew that voice, and it wasn’t Jamie’s.

  Shit.

  The door swung open, revealing Haley wearing gym clothes with her hair in a messy bun on top of her head. She had on no make-up, but that didn’t stop her gaze being any less chilling.

  “What,” she said slowly, “The hell do you want?”

  Charley leaned against my leg.

  “I’m just here to apologize,” I told her. “Is Jamie here?”

  Haley folded her arms. “I doubt she wants to speak to you right now.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “She just printed your Facebook profile picture, taped it to a punching bag, and went to town on your face. I don’t care what your question is.”

  That was brutal.

  “Who is it?” Jamie walked into view of the front door. Like Haley, she had on no make-up, but her unruly hair hung in wet curls over her shoulders as she towel-dried it, and she was wearing her usual uniform of a tank top and denim shorts.

  Unlike Haley, she didn’t look at me like I needed to drop dead on the spot.

  “Oh. Do I need to come back to work? You could have called—”

  “No, no. The garage is closed. I just wanted to talk to you.” I did my best to ignore Haley’s death stare.

  Charley held out the sundae tub. “I brought you ice-cream. Because you were sad.”

  Jamie smiled, throwing the towel to the side. “Do you know what? Ice-cream is just what I wanted right now, Charley. Thank you so much.” She nudged Haley out of the way and bent down to take the ice-cream.

  Charley beamed with delight at her.

  Jamie kissed her cheek, then stood back
up, holding the ice-cream. “What did you want?”

  “Actually,” I said, glancing at a still-glaring Haley, “Do you mind if I come back? I’d prefer to talk to you in private.”

  Charley sighed.

  Jamie glanced at Haley, too. “No, that’s fine. I have to take Haley home, so… do you want to come back in half an hour?”

  “Sure. I’ll see you then. C’mon, Charley. Aunt Greta was baking this morning.” I steered her away from the door before she could start something I wasn’t prepared to finish in front of Haley.

  When we were in the car, Charley groaned. “You didn’t do it.”

  I met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I promise I will when I come back. Her friend doesn’t like me much.”

  “She did look a bit mean,” she agreed. “Is she going home now?”

  “Yeah, she is.” I reversed and turned to go down the long driveway. “That’s why I’m coming back.”

  “Do you promise you’ll apologize?”

  “Cross my heart, kid. Cross my heart.”

  Chapter Eighteen – Jamie

  “He’s a jerk.”

  That was the third time Haley had said that in the last two minutes. “I know that,” I said, turning onto her street. “Believe me, I know better than anyone what he is, but he’s still my boss.”

  “You screamed that you were going to quiet when you were laying into the punching bag.”

  “It was therapeutic.” I pulled up outside her apartment. “I’m not really going to quit. If I quit, he wins.”

  “Oh, Jesus. It was funny at first, but now?” Haley turned and looked at me. “Not anymore, James. This battle thing you’ve got going on is just weird. How can he prove you’re not good enough? What if he fires you anyway?”

  “Haley…”

  “That’s all the things you just screamed at his photo taped to a punching bag,” she said dryly. “You don’t want to work there. You’re there to prove a point.”

  That was the thing.

  A part of me did want to work there… even if he was a jerk, because I knew—knew—he was only like that with me. And only at work.

  And that didn’t make him a bad person. After all, I’d seen the other side of him this past weekend at his aunt’s party. And that was nothing like the Dex I saw at work all the time.

  We set each other off. Alone, he was gasoline and I was a lit match. Together, we were a raging inferno.

  “I don’t know why you’re going to talk to him. I don’t think his apology will be up to much.”

  I raised a brow. “He told you he was there to apologize?”

  “God knows what for. He’s probably the kind of person who walks into a chair and blames it for being in the way.”

  “That’s no different to apologizing to one.”

  “Of course it is. For one, you’re taking the blame.”

  “Whatever. I have to get back. Should I call you later, or am I just going to make you angry?”

  “Probably the latter one. If my curiosity gets the better of me, I’ll text you.”

  I smirked. “You mean when it does.”

  She flipped me the bird over her shoulder and got out of the car. I watched her walk into her house, then pulled away from the curb.

  My mind whirred at a million miles an hour. He was going to apologize? For the obvious, or for a whole lot more?

  He wasn’t the only one who had to apologize. Even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, my temper had definitely reached a point of almost no return. If Charley hadn’t been there, I might have lost it entirely.

  And, really, was it my business if he’d been talking about me? If Charley hadn’t have mentioned it, I’d never have known. Some things weren’t worth knowing about, and that was one of them.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to know what he’d said. Of course I did. I human, and I was curious.

  I got home a few minutes later—perks of a small town—and waited in my car for a couple of minutes. What had I been thinking when I asked him to come here? I didn’t want him in my house. That was way too personal.

  The rumble of his truck came from behind, and any fleeting thought I’d had about calling him to meet somewhere disappeared.

  Damn it.

  I steeled myself and got out of my car, clutching my keys in one hand and my phone in the other. “Hey,” I said when Dex caught up with me at the front door.

  “Hey. Sorry—I know this is awkward.”

  “No, it’s fine. Come in.” I walked inside and tossed my keys into the bowl on the side table. My phone stayed firmly with me as I moved through to the kitchen door. “You can take a seat. I just need to do some laundry.”

  I darted into the kitchen and dragged the basket across the floor. It tipped up on its side, and instead of sighing, I slowly separated the whites from the colors and the darks.

  All right, I was killing time. As much as I wanted to hear what Dex was going to apologize for, I didn’t want to be alone with him in my house.

  Because I wasn’t even angry anymore. A part of me didn’t even care that he’d been talking about me, because I had been about him. That was human nature—how else were you supposed to figure stuff out? Sometimes you needed a sounding board, and if the thing you needed to sound off on was a person…

  Well.

  The wall wouldn’t be very helpful, would it? It wasn’t a police investigation with pictures and goddamn memo cards.

  I set the load going and hovered in the doorway. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Nah, I’m good.” He paused, looking back at me. “You don’t need to look at me like I’m gonna bite you, darlin’. I only do that on request.”

  I pursed my lips and sat on the arm of the sofa. “Haley said you were here to apologize. Was that it? It sucked.”

  His lips pulled into a smile. “It was an unspoken offer.”

  I stared at him flatly. “You do that when you’re uncomfortable. Have you noticed?”

  “No, but I probably will now.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You get really snarky when you’re uncomfortable. Have you noticed that?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yes. It’s called self-preservation. And this is not an apology.”

  Dex rubbed his hand down his face. “You’re right. Shit. You put me all out of fucking sorts all the damn time.”

  Was that a compliment?

  Nah. It was a frustration. Maybe a weird mix of both.

  “Um, okay.” I clasped my hands in my lap and waited for him to speak more.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry for this morning.” He leaned back, one arm over the back cushions.

  Our eyes met, and there was no deception. He really meant it.

  “Charley laid into me over lunch, as much as I hate admitting a seven-year-old kicked my ass.”

  I looked down and smiled.

  “In her words, I’m “mean” to you. And…she’s kinda right. I am. And there’s no excuse for the way I speak to you sometimes, so I’m sorry.”

  I peered back up at him and pushed my now-dry, wildly curly hair behind my ear. It popped right back out again. “Well, thank you. I appreciate the apology.”

  Dex grinned—a real, genuine smile that made his eyes light up. Made him look pretty damn handsome, too. “I promise I’ll do better to be nice to you.” He got up and walked to the door.

  “Dex, wait.” I followed him and caught him opening the front door. I slid past him and clicked it shut.

  He looked at me quizzically. “Yeah, I know I didn’t say anything wrong this time…”

  “I’m sorry, too.” I threw the words out before I could change my mind. “I…don’t exactly make it easy for us to get along.”

  He tilted his head to the side, pinning me with his gaze.

  I rolled my shoulders awkwardly, holding my hair back from my face. “So…you’re not the only one who could try harder or watch what they say. If you’re willing to try, then I am, too.”
/>   “Look at that,” he muttered through a smile. “The sassy one has a heart under there.”

  “See, that.” I pointed at him and shook my head.

  He laughed. “I’m kidding. Don’t sweat it, Jamie. We’re just different people and we clash.”

  “Actually… We’re not that different.” I fiddled with the hem of my shirt, glancing down for a second. “We’re both pretty stubborn—”

  “I take offense to that.”

  “—Which is the first sign of stubbornness,” I continued. “We’re pretty headstrong and determined, and with this whole set up… I mean, it doesn’t help that only one of us can be right, and that’s not going to be you.”

  “This apology went downhill real quick.” His lips twitched as he fought laughter.

  I touched my fingers to my mouth. “The best apologies are honest ones.”

  “Continue.” He laughed.

  “We’re just really similar, and that leads to personality clashes. That’s all.” I smiled and dropped my hand back to play with my fraying hem. “Maybe now that we’ve recognized it, we’ll be able to be friends.”

  Dex’s tongue slipped out and ran over his lips. I didn’t mean to look, but it was such a deliberate move I couldn’t help it.

  Heat flashed in his eyes when I met his gaze.

  “In the nicest possible way, we’re never gonna be friends, Jamie,” he said in a low voice.

  I swallowed. “We’re not?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Because friends don’t want to fuck their friends.”

  I inhaled sharply.

  “See?” His lips twitched. “We can’t be friends, darlin’. There are a lot of things friends do, but that ain’t one of them in my experience.”

  “Well, you obviously haven’t had very good friends.” I slapped my hand over my mouth.

  His eyebrows shot up. “You wanna be friends knowing I want to fuck the living daylights out of you?”

  My mouth opened and closed a few times, but all I did was end up clearing my throat and moving back closer to the front door.

  Well.

  That was short and to the point.

  “Well, that—that might change things a little.” I swallowed. Hard.

  Dex stepped toward me and pinged one of my unruly curls. “Of course it does. It makes a huge difference. Because now, you won’t be able to take one of my comments as a joke. Now, you won’t be able to have a casual taco lunch with me without wondering if I’m thinking about screwing you over the table.”