Honka Honka (Honk Series Book 1)

by Krissy Reynolds

  Inside the trailer, Yuriel went right into the bedroom and set the bag down onto the bed, glad he had made it from the night before. He looked and saw Alison lingering in the kitchen, looking around as if this was the first time she had been inside.

  "You're takin' the bed," he told her. "I'll take the couch."

  Alison instantly shook her head. "No, Yuriel. That's not right."

  "I'm not havin' you sleep on the couch," he frowned at her. "It's just a double so it's not the biggest bed but it's comfortable. You should sleep good on it." She was frowning at him in return and she opened her mouth but Yuriel wasn't going to hear it. "There's a space heater in here so turn it on if you get cold. We just have to make sure we unplug it 'fore we leave in the mornin'," he continued. "I think I might have an extra blanket around here. Know how cold you get."

  Alison finally took the steps forward and she stepped in the small bedroom. She had never been in it before and he watched her as she looked around – not that there was much space to look around. Just the bed and a dresser and a tiny closet. It was a bit messy with a few of his clothes lying on the floor and he began scooping those up now, going to the closet and dropping the armful onto the floor.

  "It ain't much-" he began to say.

  "It's perfect," she cut him off, looking at him, and he didn't know why but he felt the tips of his ears turn red as he looked at her.

  He suddenly wondered how smart it was of him to have Alison Silver living with him. Maybe years of his old man beating him up, he had become the sort of person who liked putting themselves through pain because having her there with him in his tiny trailer – just the two of them – it was already beginning to feel like torture.

  It was too early to go to sleep and he slipped past her to leave the room and head out to the front of the trailer. He sat down on the couch and took off his boots, setting them down on the floor side by side beside the couch and he picked up the television remote, picking it up and turning the box across from him on. He saw the bedroom door close and he wondered if she was already lying down. He made sure the television wasn't too loud as he started watching an old episode of Law and Order. He remembered being a little kid and the television set blaring all night and how hard sometimes it was to go to sleep with the noise. Yet another reason why he loved living in the middle of the woods. Besides the wind and the animals, it was so damn quiet. It was – as Alison said – perfect.

  The door opened and he glanced to see that she had changed into her pajamas – some little shorts and a tee-shirt and then she went into the bathroom, sliding the door shut and he heard the water in the sink running. When she came out a few minutes later, she stood there and he muted the television, looking at her.

  "Do you need anything from your room?" She asked.

  "Yeah," he realized and pulled himself off the couch, walking past her and coming out a few seconds later with a pair of sweatpants and a tee-shirt to sleep in and the extra pillow from the bed.

  "I feel bad-" she began to say.

  "G'night, Alison," he cut her off.

  She looked up at him, her mouth still open slightly as if she was going to speak but he just looked at her and slowly, her lips closed and she nodded her head.

  "Good night, Yuriel," she said. She put a hand on his arm and then standing on her toes, she kissed him lightly on the lips – so light, he hardly felt it at all. "Thank you for everything," she whispered then before she turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door but not all of the way, it being left open a crack.

  After changing and making sure the door was locked and then getting himself situated on the couch with the pillow and green blanket, he watched the rest of the episode before turning the television off and settling himself down to go to sleep.

  But he found himself lying there, blinking up at the ceiling. The world was quiet around him except the crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl in a nearby tree. And yet, Yuriel laid there and didn't feel as if sleep was coming to him anytime soon. He was too aware of Alison sleeping in his bed just a few feet away and he laid there, picturing her sleeping and what it would be like sleeping next to her.

  …

  It was a small town and Yuriel couldn't figure it out how anyone found out but by the next afternoon, everyone seemed to know that Alison was staying with him for a few days and while Axel and Martinez grinned and slapped him on the back as if they were congratulating him for a job well done, Zach frowned and glared at him as if Yuriel had betrayed him in some way though Yuriel wanted to remind Zach that he didn't even really like him and he never had a shot with Alison anyway. But Yuriel kept his mouth shut and felt the glares thrown at his back for the rest of the day.

  Before lunch, Alison came out to the garage, approaching him with a small smile. He lifted his head and flicked his hair and remembered how she had taken a shower that morning and the entire trailer smelled like her afterwards. When he had been in the bathroom, he had looked in the tiny shower and found a bottle of buttercream-scented body wash that she used and now, he wondered if the smell was permanently trapped in his nostrils because he didn't smell oil or metal that day. He smelled nothing but buttercream.

  She smiled shyly at him. "Your brother's on the phone," she said and he nodded, grabbing the rag and wiping his hands as he followed her into the office. She sat back down behind her desk and he grabbed the phone's receiver.

  "Yeah?" He answered.

  "You and the missus wanna come over for dinner tonight?" Carlos asked with a grin and Yuriel swallowed a sigh, wondering how the hell he heard about him and Alison.

  Without a word to Carlos, Yuriel looked to Alison.

  "Wanna go over to Carlos and Annie's for dinner tonight?" He asked and she almost looked surprised at him actually asking her.

  She smiled then and nodded. "Alright."

  "Yeah," Yuriel spoke into the phone.

  "Good," Carlos said, his grin forever present. "I'll tell Annie. Come by 'round six." He paused but Yuriel knew his brother wasn't done yet. Carlos was never done. "Glad you finally made a move, baby brother," he chuckled. "Livin' with her already might be too soon though."

  "Shut up, Carlos," he grumbled and hung up on his brother's laughter.

  He looked at Alison and she looked at him and gave him a small, hesitant smile. Alison wasn't an idiot and even if she was, it didn't take a genius to figure out that Carlos had been ribbing him about the two of them. Yuriel was going to try to ignore it though. Carlos had been talking shit to him for his entire life and he had learned early on that the only way to get through it was to just ignore him.

  "We'll head over there after work," he said and Alison nodded, the same small smile across her lips. She seemed nervous and he couldn't figure out why.

  And he couldn't help but frown as he walked into the garage back to his bay. Why would she feel nervous? He replayed that morning. They had gotten up and each had gotten ready for work and they each had a bowl of generic Cheerios and he drank his coffee as she drank milk and he realized that she didn't really talk in the mornings which was just fine with him because he didn't like to talk in the mornings, either. And then he had driven them to work on his bike and it was kind of weird how quickly they had fallen into some sort of routine with each other.

  So why the hell was she smiling like that?

  After work, they were the last to leave as usual and once he was finished cleaning his station, he headed into the office where she was filing some last papers away. He couldn't help but watch her. She wore these black flat shoes and a white dress with blue flowers and her black cardigan sweater was hanging on the back of her chair. Her hair had been worn up in a ponytail that morning and maybe she had been bored for a few minutes earlier because now, there was a braid going through it.

  She turned to look at him as she slipped her sweater on and this time, the smile she gave was a Alison smile and it made him want to smile in return; relieved to see it because if Alison didn't smile, it was as if the sun decid
ed not to hang itself in the sky that day. And he wanted to shake his head at himself because he hated himself a little for thinking something like that.

  "Ready?" He asked and she nodded, slinging her bag over her head and across her chest. She followed him outside and then turned to lock the door.

  He slid onto his bike and Alison instantly slid behind him, her arms around his waist. He wondered how he had ever ridden this bike before her because in all honesty, he had never thought of sharing a ride on his bike before but now, with Alison, it felt weird when he didn't feel her behind him, holding on. If Alison wasn't with him, he honestly considered taking his truck.

  He scowled to himself as he headed towards Carlos's house because he had no idea where thoughts like these were coming from all of a sudden. All he did know was that he didn't like them that much. Alison Silver was turning everything inside of him upside down and he had to figure out how to get a hold of himself again.

  When they got to the house and Carlos opened the door to them, Annie was there and hugged them both as if she hadn't seen them in years and Carlos asked if she wanted a beer.

  Alison smiled and shook her head. "No, thank you. I don't drink," she said.

  And Carlos gave her a grin and a wink. "Should have guessed that," he replied.

  Carlos went to get beers for himself and Yuriel and Yuriel sat down on the couch, listening as Annie gave Alison a tour of the small house and he could hear Alison asking questions and complimenting Annie on the curtains or the color of carpet and how she had always wanted a little house like this for herself.

  "She's a sweet one," Carlos commented, overhearing the two women as well, before taking a sip from his beer can. "Can't believe you asked her to move in already. Didn' think you've been together for that long."

  "She just needed a place to crash. We're not together," Yuriel shook his head before he could stop himself and he wasn't sure why he said that. And he sure as hell wasn't sure why he kept talking past that. "We're nothin'. Just hangin' out."

  Carlos looked at him as if he didn't believe him for a second. "Huh-uh," he smirked.

  Yuriel couldn't help but frown. "We're nothin', Carlos," he said and he wasn't entirely too sure why he was insisting that. They had kissed. He asked her out on a date. He had gone over to meet her pops. Hell, he asked her to come and stay with him. That wasn't nothing and he knew it. He just didn't know what the hell it was and that didn't sit easy with him.

  Alison and Annie came into the living room just a second later and Yuriel's eyes whipped around to look at Alison. For some reason, he felt a panic that she had overheard what he had said to Carlos about them being nothing but she wasn't looking at him and that was the only answer he needed. She had definitely heard.

  And Yuriel couldn't ignore the sudden knotting in his stomach. Shit.

  "You have a Baldwin," Alison said with a small smile in her tone and Yuriel watched as Alison went to the worn wooden upright piano standing in the corner.

  "It was my grandma's. I used to know how to play when I was little but whatever I knew, I forgot a long time ago," Annie went to stand next to her. "I know it hasn't been tuned in years and it's just collecting dust sitting here but my grandma loved it and I can't just get rid of it."

  Yuriel watched Alison look down at the keys for a moment and then looked to Annie.

  "May I?" She asked with that hesitant smile she had given him in the office earlier.

  "Please!" Annie eagerly nodded and pulled the bench out for Alison to sit on.

  Yuriel couldn't help but lean forward. He didn't know Alison played the piano. Hell, he figured there was a lot about her he didn't know. From the lunch breaks before they talked to one another and he would sit outside in the back of the garage, he could hear her singing so he knew she liked music. He just didn't know she played anything and when he heard her begin to play a song he didn't know, her fingers lightly flying over the piano keys, it didn't really surprise him that she could play.

  There didn't seem to be too many things that Alison Silver couldn't do.

  And all Yuriel could seem to do was blow hot and cold and be an asshole.

  Chapter Seventeen.

  Her doctors in the clinic had explained it to her like this.

  Because she felt as if she had absolutely no control over anything in her life, she had to gain control through her eating. She was the one in control of what she did – and did not – put in her mouth. And as everything around her began falling apart, she worked hard to convince herself that it wasn't and the way she did that was through cleaning. Her eating disorder had done so many things to her but it had also turned her into a somewhat anal clean freak. She dusted and vacuumed her room every other day. When she ate, she made sure there were no crumbs anywhere except on the plate. She sometimes made a bed two or three times if she couldn't get all of the creases out of the comforter on the first try. All of her clothes hung in the same direction and all of her shoes on the closet floor were paired off in perfect rows.

  The first night in Yuriel's trailer, she tried not to touch anything. It wasn't her place to touch anything and Yuriel wasn't really a messy person anyway. But the more she tried to sit on her hands, the more her body shook as if she was a junkie in need of getting their fix and finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

  Yuriel had said nothing; that there was nothing between them and she had been standing in the hallway with Annie when he had said that. And as soon as the word hit her ears, Alison knew that she had never hated a single word in the entire English language more than that.

  We're nothing.

  Kissing her and asking her out on a date and meeting her daddy and giving her little presents and asking her to stay with him for a couple of days… it was nothing.

  Tears immediately began burning her eyes and she could feel Annie looking at her but Alison didn't dare look at her, not wanting to see Yuriel's sister-in-law looking at her with pity. It was apparent that other women liked Yuriel. Karen had called the garage more than once, asking for him, and there was that woman in the roller derby and Alison was sure there were others.

  And thinking of that, Alison told herself that of course there was nothing between her and Yuriel. Why would he want there to be? He obviously had his pick and why on earth would he pick her with the baggage of an eating disorder and a scar on her wrist that he didn't even know about? She was too loaded down with too much; too fragile and in his eyes, not worth the effort.

  Thankfully, she didn't have to talk to him at dinner. They sat beside one another at the small kitchen table but she didn't even look his way and thankfully, Carlos was the sort who could easily take over an entire room with his talk and neither she or Yuriel were able to get a word in even if they wanted to.

  At the end of the evening, she hugged Annie and thanked both her and Carlos for having her over for dinner.

  "You're always welcome here, angel," Carlos told her with a wide smile and Alison did her best to smile in return though she knew that was an invitation she would probably never see through. This was Yuriel's brother and she couldn't just come and see Yuriel's family – especially when Carlos was the one Yuriel had told what he really thought about her.

  Nothing.

  What a stupid, horrible word.

  The ride home lasted an eternity and her arms had been light around his waist, not wanting to hold onto him or rest her cheek on his back like she did on every other ride. The wind was cold against her face and she told herself that that was why her eyes were stinging with tears.

  He pulled to a stop in front of the trailer and she immediately climbed off. She darted her eyes to anything but him and she could have sworn that she heard him say her name but she couldn't be sure because all she heard was a dull hum in her ears and her head began spinning.

  She couldn't stay here. There was absolutely no way she could stay here and it was obvious that he didn't want her anywhere near him. She wanted to ask him – demand from him – why he had asked her to st
ay with him in the first place but right now, that was just way too many words to say and she knew she wouldn't be able to get them past her tongue that suddenly felt too big for her mouth.

  She followed him into the small, slightly cool trailer and she immediately turned to head into the bedroom but before she could take more than two steps, Yuriel reached out and took hold of her hand. And even though it was Yuriel touching her – and his touch always made her feel a thousand degrees warmer – all she could hear was Nothing on repeat in her head and she flinched.

  Yuriel instantly dropped her hand as if it was a hot coal. "'m sorry," he mumbled then and she finally looked at him.

  He was staring at her and she took a step back from him, crossing her arms over herself. She wasn't afraid of him but rather, she was terrified of what he might say and she didn't know exactly what he was apologizing for but she just knew she didn't want to hear him say anything else.

  She closed the door to the bedroom and stood there for a moment, trying to breathe. She looked around the room and the slightly disorderly state of it and she felt her skin start to itch as if a thousand bugs were crawling all over her.

  She started there. She took all of the clothes he had dumped onto the floor of the closet and began folding them. She would have much rather preferred to wash them first but she couldn't take loads of his clothes out of here without him noticing. So she folded them – separating them all into piles – and she then went to his dresser, opening drawers and figuring out where he put everything. But seeing the state of the drawers, she had to fold everything in there, too. And then, she told herself she had no right to but she found all of his flannel shirts – she couldn't believe how many he had – and she hung those all up in the closet and put away his tee-shirts and jeans in the drawers. The only drawer she left alone was the top drawer with his socks and boxers, too embarrassed to touch those and knowing that Yuriel wouldn't appreciate that at all if she arranged that, too.