Finding Forever

by Christina C Jones

  “And do another shitty job on it, so you can be sending it back to them next week? Come on,” he said, opening his door to climb out. “You’ll get a real mechanic to look at it this time.”

  Cocky bastard.

  I waited until he’d made it around to my side and opened the door, offering his hand to help me out. “Why can’t I wait in the car?”

  “I’m gonna need some information about your car. I promise it won’t take very long.”

  Reluctantly, I unbuckled my seatbelt and allowed him to help me out of the car. Even though I was expecting it, the contact of his skin against mine made me lose my breath a little. I tried to mask it by immediately looking away, pretending to be very interested in the bricks that made up Ignition’s facade while he closed the door. His hand against the small of my back caught me off guard, and instantly brought back memories of the night of Des’ wedding. Gently nudging me forward, he led me to the door, which he opened for me before leading me inside.

  — Avery —

  I knew Tori probably didn’t appreciate the possessive way I kept my hand pressed against her back, dangerously close to touching her ass, but if she knew what most of my employees were thinking about her — and probably would have propositioned if it weren’t for that hand — she would feel differently. Or… maybe I didn’t want them looking at her like that and wanted to give the impression she was mine. I spoke briefly to a few of the guys in the shop before leading her towards the office.

  Just as I was pulling out my keys to unlock the office, I heard a loud, booming voice from behind us. “Ace! Where the hell you been, man?” Tori was caught off guard by the sound of my head mechanic, Nick, coming around the corner, and she reflexively pressed herself into me, looking alarmed. My natural response was to meet her anxiety with a soothing gesture, so I touched her arms.

  Sweet Jesus.

  The bare skin of her arms felt like satin under my fingertips, and if I remember correctly — how could I forget? — the rest of her was just as silky. The memory of it sent blood rushing to my groin, so I stepped back to break the contact.

  “Chill,” I said nonchalantly. “It’s just loud-ass Nick.”

  “Sorry to scare you ma’am.” Nick said, pushing his sandy-blond hair out of his eyes before extending his hand, a gesture Tori hesitantly accepted. “Just haven’t seen Ace around here the last few months.”

  “Ace?” Tori looked back and forth between us, waiting on someone to explain.

  Nick clapped his hand on my shoulder. “That’s what we call the boss man around here.”

  “Hey, I’m not the boss around here man, that’s you. I just write the checks,” I joked, pushing his hand off my shoulder so we could dap.

  Nick joked about me being the boss man, but he was the one the guys looked up to. He was the reason I’d come to Dallas in the first place. We’d met randomly, back when Ignition was right on the brink of greatness. Nick and I were seatmates on the flight from Chicago to San Jose that would result in me securing the investor I needed to take my business to the next level. Nick’s trip wasn’t nearly as potentially life altering as mine, as he was going to visit his little brother, but he was interesting nonetheless. The arm facing me was covered in the most vivid, intricate tattoos I’d ever seen. I asked him if they had hurt.

  “Not as much as the scars they’re covering,” was his reply. He explained that he was a veteran, who’d come extremely close to losing his life while deployed. Over the course of the four-hour flight, he and I became friends. We exchanged contact information, but kept in touch sparingly until nearly three years later, when he called me about investing in an Ignition location in his hometown of Dallas. I’d gone through the hellish ordeal with Natalie in Chicago, so relocating to help set up Ignition in a new state was the perfect distraction. Nick and I have been homeboys ever since. I wasn’t an active mechanic anymore, but I got under the hood when the chance arose, and this was always my garage of choice. If I was going to look into whatever was wrong with Tori’s car, I needed tools, and I needed parts. It only made sense to patronize my own business to get them.

  “Are you gonna introduce me to this beautiful lady you’ve got with you man?” Nick was giving Tori ‘the eye’, this squinty, smoldering shit he did with his blue-green eyes that usually had women lined up at his feet. I glanced back at her, and was relieved to see that rather than interested, she simply looked amused.

  “Uh, yeah. Tori, this is Nick, part owner, head mechanic at this Ignition location. Nick, this is Tori, Des’ friend.”

  Nick took her hand again, kissing it. “I have no idea what you’re doing with an ugly-assed dude like Ace, but it’s nice to meet you Tori…wait a minute… ” He turned to me, eyes wide. “Ohh, this is Tori, the one you were telling me about, that you— goddamn, man. No wonder your head was all messed up whe—”

  “Alright then, Nick, it was good seeing you, man.” I stepped between him and Tori, lifting my eyebrows in an effort to convey ‘please shut the hell up’. Nick was the one and only person I’d told about Tori, and of course he couldn’t keep his mouth shut in front of her.

  When I turned back to Tori, her jaw was tight and she had her arms crossed over her chest as if she was holding herself.

  Shit, she’s embarrassed.

  “Tori.” I stepped past her to unlock my office door and push her inside. “Can you wait for me in here? I need to talk to Nick for a second.”

  When she lifted her eyes from the floor, the look she gave me hit me like a punch in the gut. “I bet you do. Make it quick, so you can take me home.”

  With her tucked safely behind my office door, I turned to Nick, who looked amused.

  “What are you grinning about man? Now she’s pissed off at me again.”

  He shrugged. “My bad, man, but seriously, that girl is gorgeous.” He smiled harder, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his oil-stained jeans. “You think she likes white boys? I mean, you said you weren’t gon—”

  I shook my head, cutting him off. “Don’t get your ass kicked, Nick. I know what I told you, but I’m telling you now she’s off limits.”

  “So you changed your mind? Is that what she’s doing here?”

  “Nah, man, I’m working with her.” Maybe if I made it sound as natural, and normal as possible, I wouldn’t get clow—

  “Really? That’s… kinda cool. Weird that she’s helping you after you slept with her, but cool.”

  Shrugging, I said one word. “Des.”

  “Ah, I see,” Nick responded, nodding in understanding. He hadn’t been immune over the years to the unique charm of my sister. “But… why not date her?”

  “Because… it’s complicated.”

  He turned his ear toward me and leaned forward. “I’m listening. Explain. Cause you came back from the Maldives sick about this girl, screwing anything that moved to try to get her out of your head. I’ve never seen you like that over anybody.”

  “If she was interested in something like that, I’m sure she would let me know, but as it stands right now… she’s my matchmaker. That’s it.”

  “Cool, so that means you wouldn’t mind if I wanted to see if she—”

  I shot him a sobering look. “I’m serious man. This one’s off limits.”

  “I’m messing with you anyway, Ace. I’ll let you get back to your little date, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  “Suuure,” he said, chuckling. “But hey, I’m glad I caught you. How are things coming along with that acquisition deal, man?”

  “They’re…. coming. I’ve been talking back and forth with Brandon about it, but we can discuss it later. I should probably get in there before this girl combusts. I’ll catch you later, Nick.” He tossed up two fingers as he ambled down the hall away from me. I turned back toward the office, bracing myself for Tori’s anger before I opened the door. She was sitting on the edge of my desk, and she didn’t immediately look up from her shoes when I walked in
. I closed the door behind me, waiting for her to speak.

  “How many people know, Avery? What, were you bragging about how easy I was? Is that why they were all looking at me like that, like I was—”

  Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting this.

  Tori had looked up, and her eyes were glossy with unshed tears. I could handle anger. I was used to dealing with angry women, but tears? Dammit.

  Swallowing the impulse to either go back outside and not deal with this, or pull her into my arms, I approached her and took her hand, but she snatched it away as she stood. “Tori, wait a minute before you get all upset, please? Nick is the only person I’ve told, and he’ll keep it to himself. The guys were looking at you like that because… I mean, have you seen you? It’s not at all what you’re thinking.”

  She lifted her eyes to meet mine. “You’re sure?” My emphatic nod calmed her considerably. “I’m sorry for freaking out, but I’m embarrassed enough knowing for myself that I did something so reckless. The thought of everybody knowing, and thinking I’m a…”

  “A what? Grown ass woman?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not about that. I can’t have a reputation as someone who sleeps around, not in my industry. If my female clients think I’m miss loose-booty, why would they trust that I’m not sleeping with the men? If my male clients think that, what keeps them from trying to approach me about it? It’s… all bad, and I want to keep it as private as possible. Please?”

  “Tori, I don’t go around bragging about the women I’ve slept with. Are you trying to get me to believe you didn’t tell anybody what happened that night?”

  The sudden drop of her eyes back to the floor answered that question. “It was a good friend, who I know will keep it to herself.”

  “Ditto,” I said, turning on my computer to pull up the inventory database. “So… are we good?”

  She pushed out a heavy sigh before nodding. “We’re fine.”

  “Good. Now, what’s the make and model of your car?”

  — &—

  “This… isn’t what I was expecting, but somehow it makes sense.” We’d pulled up to a large yellow craftsman-style home in a neighborhood that looked like it belonged in a magazine. Every house had a unique facade, with quirky landscaping, and on Tori’s street, I didn’t see any two that were the same color.

  “What were you expecting?” she asked as she climbed out of the car and pressed a button on her keys to let up the garage.

  “Loft apartment, no plants, no maintenance. Definitely not ‘Wisteria Lane’.”

  She frowned, confused. “That’s not the name of my street.”

  “I know, it’s the name of the— never mind. This is the car?” I asked, stepping into the garage to look at the midnight blue luxury vehicle.

  “Yep, this is my sick baby.”

  After tossing me her keys, she sat down on the steps to the garage while I tried to get it to start. Sure enough, it was sputtering, trying to connect, but not quite making it.

  “Why did you think I’d be somewhere uptown in a loft?” she asked, just as I was pulling out the code reader to connect to her car.

  I shrugged. “You look like that type. Spotless apartment, where the landlord comes to change your light bulbs for you. Maid service, so you don’t have to touch dirty dishes, all of that. Order in, or go out to have dinner because you don’t cook.”

  “You’re kidding, right? That’s not me at all,” she giggled.

  “Okay. Tell me about you then.” Frowning at what I saw on the screen of the code reader, I looked up at her before popping the hood on her car. Why was she so damned cute? Sitting on the steps as she was put her in the perfect position to rest her chin on her hands, with her elbows propped up on her knees. She had her head turned to the side, contemplating what she was going to say, and when she turned back, connecting her hazel eyes with mine, it gave me a strange sensation in my chest.

  What the hell is going on with me?

  “I’m very low-maintenance. I don’t like to have a fuss made over me. I change my own light bulbs, and air filters, and I cut my grass most of the time. I clean the house myself, and if I didn’t cook, Mel and I would probably have blood pressure through the roof from eating sushi or Japanese take out every night.”

  “Mel?”

  She nodded, making her curly ponytail bounce. “My assistant, remember? She’s my step-sister, she lives here too.”

  “Wow, so you and your husband had a roommate?”

  Why did I ask about him?

  Her smile faltered a little as she answered. “No. This was my house before I got married, he and I had an apartment in the city. After I filed for divorce, I came back.”

  Tori didn’t look particularly pleased with that line of conversation, so as I turned to peer down at her engine, I changed the subject to one I thought would go over a little better.

  “So… how did you get into matchmaking?”

  I didn’t miss her little sigh of relief before responding. “Oh, I’ve always been the ‘hookup’ girl. Back in high school, all the way through college, I saw things in people that made them work.”

  “I get that, but turning it into a business?”

  “Well, I double majored in computer science and business but I ended up at a little start-up company, which I hated. Then, there was this black entrepreneur’s conference here in Dallas that I attended… changed everything.”

  “The Black Enterprise Magazine thing? You went with Des?”

  “Yep! But, anyway, I went in to listen to one of the speakers, and she talked about finding what you were good at, and channeling that passion into a career. That resonated with me… and here we are.”

  I turned back to her. “That’s pretty damned cool. So you’ve been doing this how long?”

  “Six years. Fifty-seven couples have made it past the six month mark , thirty-three weddings, and as far as I know, twenty-six children. But, full disclosure, that’s not counting some break-ups and two divorces that I know of, so… it hasn’t been all peachy.”

  “But your record is still good. Things … happen between people, things that have nothing to do with them being good for each other or not.”

  She smiled. “I know. I try not to take it too hard when one of my couples doesn’t end up working out, but I usually end up loving my clients like family. It’s hard not to grieve with them. I get really invested.”

  “I can understand that,” I said, nodding. “But what about you… you ever used that computer of yours to match yourself?”

  Almost immediately, the smile slid from her face, turning to a closed expression. “No,” she said, in an adamant tone that said it wasn’t a topic that was up for discussion.

  I lifted an eyebrow, but she didn’t look inclined to elaborate, so I decided to leave her alone, and got back to fixing her car.

  — Tori —

  Avery knew I was lying. I could tell, from the raised eyebrow he gave me before turning back to the car. He shook his head at something he saw, then took something from the bag of things he’d brought along from Ignition. He fiddled with the car for a few minutes before climbing back into my driver’s side and starting it. It roared to life without a hitch, sounding as good as the first day I bought it.

  I stood, walking over the car where Avery sat with an annoyed expression on his face. “What did the mechanic tell you was wrong when you took your car in before?” he asked as I approached.

  “Something about the spark plugs… he said they were gonna replace them.”

  Rolling his eyes, Avery shook his head. “Don’t ever take your car back to whoever the hell you took it to. Next time something happens, call me, or you take it to Nick, okay?”

  “Why, what’s going on?” I asked, confused.

  “Well, the first problem is they didn’t give you new spark plugs. It looks like they cleaned the old ones and put them back on. The second problem is they weren’t put in correctly. The third problem is that your spark plug wires wer
en’t connected well. Replacing spark plugs is basic shit, and they couldn’t get that right, but I bet you they were going to charge you another fee to get it towed to them, and then charged you again to do the job they were supposed to do the first time. It’s bullshit,” he huffed. He was pissed.

  Wow.

  “Um… okay. I won’t take it to them again. I had no idea about any of that. My knowledge of cars is limited to making it look pretty.”

  Avery snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they were banking on, taking advantage of people who don’t know about cars. I don’t like that shit.”

  There was a short period of awkward silence where neither of us knew what to say. He began gathering his tools to put away, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to keep the conversation going. Hooking my thumbs into my belt loops, I broke the ice.

  “The question you asked me earlier, about if I’d ever matched myself with a client… the answer was actually yes.”

  He looked up, with a little smile that told me my words weren’t a surprise. “Yeah… I figured, from the way you responded. What ended up happening?”

  I shrugged, pressing my lips together in a tight smile. “It ended up being a huge mistake. Rafael was an actor who got his ‘big break’ shortly after we got married, and he started doing what men with that kind of money, and access and power do.”

  “Big break… are you talking about Rafael Oliveira?”

  “One in the same,” I said, chuckling at the recognition. “It was so stupid. I mean, he had a playboy reputation before he was big name. Being a married man wouldn’t look good for his ‘brand’, so we couldn’t be seen together, which meant we couldn’t do anything together, except argue and have sex. Eventually, once I realized he was cheating, the sex stopped, so all we did was fight, and…. well, here I am, divorced.”

  His eyes widened. “Damn.”

  “Damn is right. So, I learned my lesson, no more matching myself with clients, under any circumstances.” I locked eyes with him, hoping the full meaning of my words connected. There was no way I was imagining the subtle vibe between us, but it wasn’t something we would be acting on. I needed that to be clear. He gave me a slight nod of recognition, which relieved me, but at the same time, made me feel a little empty. I gave myself a few seconds, then brushed it off, asking him what I owed for the repair of the car.