The Bad Boy's Forever Girl

by Jessie Gussman

  She’d come to the tentative conclusion that he’d been nice to her that first day because he had something riding on getting her to work for them. Because he hadn’t said too much to her since then that anyone would consider neutral, let alone nice.

  Shoving those thoughts out of her head, Libby tried to focus on the paper in front of her and getting the numbers in the computer. She checked and double-checked, because she wanted to make sure everything was correct. She didn’t want to give Blade any reason to complain about her.

  She was pretty engrossed in what she was doing, and so, thirty minutes later, when Foster, Thad, and Blade stood in a circle twenty feet in front of her counter desk, their voices rising and Foster waving his arms, she was a little startled.

  “Foster and I’ve been planning on going to this open house for weeks.” Thad threw his arms in the air. “This is the company we’re hoping to get the contract for. It’s imperative that we be there. I guarantee you every other garage in contention will have representatives there.”

  “I’m not asking you to cancel. I’m just saying I have plans for tonight, too.” Blade didn’t necessarily seem agitated as much as he seemed, almost, scared.

  “Whatever plans you have, I’m sure they haven’t been made as long as ours. No one knew that they were going to do a surprise inspection tomorrow. You’re the only one that can stay here and clean up the back room. We’ve been putting it off way longer than we should have.” Foster shifted back and forth on his feet and lifted his hat, running a hand through his hair. “Since Finn quit, we haven’t hired anyone to replace him, and we’ve gotten shipments in that are just sitting on the floor instead of on shelves like they’re supposed be. It doesn’t look good.”

  “This could make or break us. If what they see doesn’t say ‘responsible business owner’ to them,” Thad used air quotes with his fingers, “they could give this contract to someone else. We can’t risk that.” He shoved his hands in his back pockets.

  “If we don’t get the contract, fine,” Foster said. “We’ll deal. But if we don’t get the contract because you were out screwing around with some girl instead of cleaning up the back room, that’s a different story.”

  Thad lifted his brows. “Understand what we’re saying, brother?”

  Libby had known that Thad and Foster were leaving early and heading out. They’d told her they were going to an open house hosted by the trucking company they were hoping to get the contract for, and she had to admit she kind of wondered why Blade wasn’t going with them. But she didn’t think it was her place to ask.

  Typically, the brothers teased each other, but they also seemed to have a real respect for each other and got along fabulously. Especially when she compared them to her family.

  Really, the more time she spent with the Truax brothers, the more she loved them.

  One thing didn’t sit well in her stomach. She didn’t want to examine her feelings about Blade and whatever girl he was running around with tonight.

  But cleaning up the back room did seem like something she could help out with, and since she’d started, she’d heard so much about getting this contract and how important it was to the Richmond Rebels.

  Organizing a parts room seemed like something she could do.

  The guys were big and a little rougher than what she was used to dealing with, so it took her a few seconds and a couple of deep breaths before she called out across the floor, “I can do it.”

  They all stopped talking. The silence was loud as they turned to her.

  She said in a softer voice, “I can stay tonight and do it.”

  Three sets of dark eyes made her want to cringe behind the counter.

  But she squared her shoulders and looked straight at the group, angling her eyes to a spot on the wall just over their heads. Maybe they’d be fooled into thinking that she was looking someone in the eye. Since that seemed to show a confidence and strength that she didn’t have. Maybe if they were smiling, it would be a little easier, but they seemed...shocked, maybe.

  Then Foster’s face broke into a little grin. “Well, there you go, Blade. You’ve got a helper. Maybe it’ll go twice as fast, and you’ll still have time to go out with what’s her face.”

  By this time, Thad was grinning too. And he slapped Blade on the back. “Sounds like a plan.”

  But Blade wasn’t smiling. He seemed to be glaring at Libby.

  Libby cleared her throat. “I, um, I was thinking I could do it myself.”

  “No.” Blade’s word was short and clipped. Not that she expected him to use any other kind of tone with her.

  “Pretty sure we weren’t asking for your permission, Blade.” Thad’s eyes turned to Libby, and his voice carried across the room. “We’ll pay you for it, of course.”

  “I said no. I can do it myself.” Blade’s voice was still just as quiet and adamant.

  Libby thought he was going to say more, and she half expected him to say that he didn’t want to work with her. But he didn’t.

  She didn’t want to get into an argument in front of his brothers, but she said she’d do it. And she meant it. So she looked at Thad. “Thank you. I appreciate it. But I volunteered, and I’ll do it. Everyone else is pulling their weight to try to get this contract, and I know I’m the new person, but I can do something. I actually feel good knowing that there’s something I can contribute.”

  Thad’s smile got bigger, and Foster outright laughed.

  Blade’s jaw tightened, and his hand fisted at his side.

  She didn’t know why he would be so angry about her helping in the parts room, and she certainly hadn’t asked him to help her. Whatever. She wasn’t going to go through life expecting him to like her.

  Thad walked away, like it was settled.

  Blade gave her one last stare, then turned around and strode in the opposite direction. He was still supposed to be working on that frame over in the far bay, but he must have been taking the long way around, because he was heading toward the other side of the garage.

  Foster walked over to the counter. “Are you sure you don’t mind? Some of the stuff is kind of heavy.” He hooked his hand behind his neck and gave her a concerned glance. “You might not be able to get it all, but anything that you can do would be helpful.”

  He shifted and spread his hands out on the counter, looking at them like there was something interesting about them. “I don’t know what Blade’s problem is. I guess he has a lot of anger from what happened to him. Rightfully so.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “You don’t seem to be like the rest of your family, no offense.”

  She shook her head. “None taken.”

  She wasn’t going to get into telling him how she felt her sister lied. That wasn’t something she would discuss with just anyone. Because there was a certain loyalty she felt toward her family, no matter how awful they might be. And she had no proof.

  “I don’t know whether he’ll help you or not. If not, anything you can do to make it look a little better before they get here tomorrow would be great. I’ll spend some time before I go tidying up out in the shop here, and if you can make sure that everything looks good behind the counter and with the paperwork, I’d appreciate it. I have no idea what they look at. And I know you don’t know a lot about the records in the system, but I know that Ms. Reva would have kept everything in line.”

  Libby nodded. Ms. Reva was super organized and had done an excellent job. “I think everything here is in really good shape. But I’ll double-check to make sure. Is there anything else I can do to help?”

  Foster mentioned a few jobs that she could do when she had finished with the records, and then he smacked his hand on the counter.

  “Don’t let Blade bother you. He’ll come around eventually.” He grinned. “And if he doesn’t, Thad and I like you enough to make up for him.”

  Despite his easy grin, there were shadows in Foster’s eyes. Libby had gotten the impression that he had some demons of his own. She hoped he got them work
ed out, because he would be a really great guy for some lucky girl.

  Although he didn’t seem to be the slightest bit interested in her, at least in the short time she’d been around. As much as he loved to tease Blade about it.

  But he was smiling a lot with her, he teased her some, and he seemed to be genuinely nice. He’d gone out of his way to be considerate to her. She knew he wasn’t as bad as everybody seemed to think he was.

  “I like you guys too.” She gave them a little smile. Foster and Thad were nice, but they didn’t make her heart race like Blade did.

  “No matter what the folks down at the church say about us, huh?” Foster’s lips pulled up, but there might’ve been a little bit of hurt in his eyes.

  No, definitely there was hurt in his eyes.

  “That’s just because they don’t know you.” Libby was being dead serious about that. People looked at them and made judgments, like they did with everyone.

  Of course, maybe the Truaxes had earned their reputations when they were younger. Bad reputations were hard to shake. She supposed it had to do with reaping and sowing or maybe choosing a good name. The preacher could put whatever spin on it he wanted to, but true repentance meant that God didn’t see a person’s sin anymore, all he saw was the blood.

  She wasn’t going to get into doctrine with them though. “If you are as nice to the ladies at the church as you are to me, you’d be married by this time next year. Somebody would snap you up, that’s for sure.”

  She had to laugh as Foster’s cheeks got red.

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll make sure to stay far away from the church.”

  They laughed together, and he walked away.

  She spent the next couple of hours going through the system, making herself a little more familiar with it than she already was. Then she filed every scrap of paper, emptied the garbage cans, and even found a bottle of cleaning liquid and wiped down the counter. She cleaned the door as well and figured why not as she went to the bathroom.

  The bathroom wasn’t that dirty, but she gave it a good scrub down. Thad and Foster must have left while she was in there, because they were gone when she got out.

  She didn’t see Blade around anywhere either. But she knew how to lock up.

  She texted Justice so that she wouldn’t worry when Libby wasn’t home at her regular time, and then she went to the back room.

  Blade was already there. But it looked like he had just gotten in there, or the room really had been a mess, because things were scattered everywhere. Boxes were stacked haphazardly, randomly scattered on the floor, and leaned against the wall in chaotic profusion.

  He hadn’t seemed like he wanted her to help, and she was a little intimidated to just start working. So she glanced around the room.

  She’d been in it a few times; it was a nice-sized room. Big enough to hold the parts they needed most as they welded. Much of their work, from what she’d seen in the few days she’d been there, was from trucking companies in town and as far away as Richmond. There were a lot of metal pieces on the truck, and apparently they broke in all different ways. Not that she’d ever thought about it before.

  A lot of the parts were large and took up a lot of room. There was an entire shelf full of flat metal pieces. Bolts and boxes, and things that she now recognized as welding rods. A week ago this time, she wouldn’t have had any idea what they were.

  Other tools and supplies that she still didn’t recognize. She really had no idea of how it should be organized, other than the boxes should be stacked on the shelves neatly. But there was probably some kind of method to their madness, and Blade seemed to know what it was since he looked at the box in his hand before walking over to the left side of the far shelf and putting it down.

  She walked a little farther into the room. There was no help for it, but she would have to say something to him. They couldn’t exactly work side by side with each of them organizing a different way.

  He hadn’t turned to look at her but bent down to pick up another box at his feet. She took another sweep around the room with her eyes. Her gaze snagged on the box that he had just set up on the shelf. There must’ve been something underneath it when he slid it in because it wasn’t sitting level—she could see it from where she stood at a small distance. It looked like it was slowly falling back out.

  She squinted, watching for a second or two, thinking maybe she was seeing things. But the slow centimeter by centimeter sliding that the box had been doing gained momentum.

  Blade was still bent over, arranging something on a bottom shelf, and in about three seconds, the box was going to smack him on the head.

  She unstuck her feet from where she stood. Sprinting had never been something she’d been able to do. Walking was hard enough. But having lived with her disability all her life, she figured out that she could do kind of a skip-skip-hop that was a lot faster than her normal walk-limp-walk.

  Thankfully, the room wasn’t big. She didn’t even think to consider that the box might be heavy until she reached him. She also hadn’t gotten her mouth to work. But it was probably okay, since it was her legs that were the important things.

  She reached him just as the box fell. He straightened. She shouted.

  He turned. Her mind took a snapshot of his annoyed look.

  Then his eyes widened as he saw her so close. Or maybe it was the expression on her face. Horrified.

  Whatever it was, he began to turn. As her eyes flicked from his face back to the box, her hands lifted.

  She wasn’t sure whether she thought she was going to catch the box or what, exactly, she was going to do. But she decided at the last second to just try to knock it away.

  Later, she figured that was probably the smart choice. Not that she’d known that at the time. It was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction.

  She knew as soon as she hit the box it was something heavy. She didn’t recognize what it was; she hadn’t been working there that long.

  But she hit the box similar to the way she’d seen volleyball players hit the ball. Not that she played much volleyball in her time. Some. There was nothing she hated worse than to have special treatment. Even though there were a lot of things she couldn’t do like a “normal” person.

  “Ouch,” she yelped. She didn’t mean to. But the shock of the falling box hitting her hands zinged up her arms and reverberated in her shoulders.

  Thankfully, she was able to change the trajectory of the box just enough so that it completely missed Blade and landed with a smack on the floor.

  Unfortunately, the hit unbalanced her, and she fell into Blade.

  He was a little off balance, apparently, from looking at her then twisting to see the box, and the weight of her smacking into him knocked him to the floor.

  She couldn’t regain her balance and fell on top of him.

  She’d been cursed with a face that turned bright red over a little bit of nothing. Constantly. This was slightly more than a little bit of nothing, and she could feel the heat radiating off her cheeks as her hand rested on his shoulders and her legs twisted with his.

  “I suppose, in hindsight, it might have been better to let the box hit you.”

  Since she was still lying on top of him, it wasn’t hard to feel his breath puff out. She assumed that was a snort laugh?

  His lips were quirked up a little. It was almost a smile.

  Well, she couldn’t let that go to waste. “So all I had to do to get you to grin at me was to plow into you and knock you to the floor?” She shook her head. “And people say women are complicated.”

  Yeah, he definitely laughed at that. Sort of a huff more than a laugh, but it was definitely a laugh.

  “So this is you trying to get me to laugh?” His chest vibrated underneath her.

  In her brain somewhere, she knew she should try to get up. One didn’t plow into a man and then lie on the floor with him. One scrambled up immediately. However, her brain hadn’t gotten that memo, at least the part of her brain tha
t controlled whether or not she scrambled. And in its defense, her body was perfectly happy lying right where it was.

  “The next time you want me to laugh...” He paused, and this time there was no doubt that his lip quirked up. “Just say so.”

  It was her turn to shake as she giggled. “So you’re one of those sadistic people who are happier when people attack you?”

  His eyes clouded over, and she wished she hadn’t said that.

  But he seemed to shake that off. “I guess it just depends on who’s doing the attacking.”

  He didn’t add anything more, and she didn’t press him on it.

  Maybe part of the reason she hadn’t scrambled up right away was because she wasn’t very good at scrambling. There was no point in trying to pretend she was or in hoping that he wouldn’t notice that she was clumsy and that her leg got in the way.

  “I, um, I’m going to get up.”

  “Oh really?” he said before she could say anything more. “And here I thought you were going to lie on top of me all night.”

  Yup. If her face could get any more red, it would probably catch on fire. In fact, as hot as it was, if he had marshmallows, he could probably roast them.

  He hadn’t needed to point out that she’d been lying on him much longer than necessary or proper.

  “Well, it would serve you right if I did, after you’ve been so mean to me. But what I was trying to say—”

  “I haven’t been mean to you.” His eyes were serious, but she didn’t think he really believed what he was saying. Maybe that was his way of apologizing, odd as it was. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who actually said, “I’m sorry.”

  She could press the point. Maybe stare him down. She probably wouldn’t win a staring contest with him, but she could make him feel guilty, because they both knew that he had been mean to her.

  So she pursed her lips, lifted her brows. And, just to rub the point in, she folded her hands on top of his chest and hunkered there. Tapping her fingers, showing him she was waiting.