by Komal Kant
It was then that Bearded Jerk’s startled eyes locked with mine, and the irony of the situation truly hit me.
I had just seen his well-endowed, nicely packaged junk—in a junk yard.
There had to be some kind of twisted karmic fate behind that.
BLAIR FONSEKA HAD JUST SEEN my cock.
After trying to kill me.
What was next? Was she going to drive her run-down Corolla right into my cabin? Ignite it in flames? Put on a leather mask, get on her knees? That was not a thought I needed in my head. Not of her going down after what’d just gone down.
In my scramble to get my jeans back on, I almost tripped over the coffee table and smashed in my skull.
Urgh! That woman was the epitome of a bad omen.
Not bothering with a shirt, I grabbed a stray wrench off the kitchen counter, knocking over an empty beer bottle in the process, and ran outside.
Blair was hurrying towards her car, head bent low, long hair flying behind her like black streamers. Her clothes were as dirty as mine, which was why I’d been shedding them, ready to hop in the shower and wash away the day’s entanglements—and then Apocalypse Blair had struck. Again.
“Oh, no. No, no. Not you!” I yelled, waving the wrench at her like I was warding off an evil spirit.
Blair reached her car and spun around, fists balled up in a defensive stance. Catching sight of the wrench, she flattened herself against the side of the car. Her eyes flitted with every color of the rainbow, like they didn’t know how to feel either.
It wasn’t until she really looked at me that something in her face changed. Her gaze seemed to melt, settling on a yellowy-green, as they glided down my bare chest and fell to my jeans.
“I-I-” Her mud-streaked face turned so red, it was brighter than the damn Corolla. “I didn’t mean to, uh-”
“I didn’t take you for the voyeuristic type, Goochee,” I said, lowering the wrench a little. “Then again, I didn’t think you’d try to fucking kill me either.”
“Um, I really wasn’t trying to. I thought, well, I don’t know.” She tried to take a step back, her eyes wide, but there was nowhere left to go.
“Maybe I should give Officer Monroe a call. Tell him there’s a weird out-of-towner going around spying on innocent men and their junk.” I wasn’t nearly as pissed as I should’ve been at being caught off guard like that. I was kind of getting a kick out of seeing her so caught off guard.
Hey, what could I say? My cock and balls had that effect on people.
This seemed to restore Blair to some of her former rage. She placed furious hands on either side of her hips, giving me a square look.
“You stole my blouse and my shoe! Just one shoe! What kind of a person does that?” With narrowed eyes, she stepped closer. “And look at my car!” She gestured towards the back end of it. “It’s ruined!”
“You’re driving an ’06 Corolla. It was ruined long before you ran into that tree,” I teased, despite the situation.
Despite her seeing my cock.
Fuck.
A part of me actually wanted to know what she’d thought in that moment. It was a stupid want, but it was harmless. This wasn’t going anywhere.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” she warned, eyes flashing with the anger I seemed to be so good at bringing out in her.
“Oh, yeah?” I snorted. “What more damage can you cause, Goochee? You’ve already knocked me down a hill and tried to run me over, and it’s only one o’clock.” I nodded at her Corolla. “You didn’t really think that tiny thing had a chance against my truck, did ya?”
“Idisntreallythihk,” she mumbled, lowering her gaze so her thick lashes sheltered her eyes.
My ears perked up, and I leaned closer. “What was that?”
She lifted those blazing orbs at me, brighter than burning embers, hating me in that moment. “I didn’t really think,” she repeated with clenched teeth.
“Ha! So, you can admit when you’re in the wrong.” I clapped my hands together, as though I’d won a tedious match of wits, and took a step back. “What about spying on me? Got nothing to say about that?”
She shot me a withering look. “That’s not what I’m saying. And, look, I didn’t mean to see your junk.” Her flaming face warmed me, showing she could be vulnerable. “I’m only here because Cole told me this was where the only mechanic in town was located. Some Wade person.”
“I’m some Wade person,” I said with a smirk, using her words. “Wade Welsecky with the junk.”
Blair turned even redder this time and her mouth fell open. That fucking sexy mouth I wanted to taste. “Welsecky? You’re Cole’s brother?”
“Delilah’s too, actually. Our mom was quite faithful to our dad, although she did have a huge thing for Bob Thornley back in the third grade because she thought his stamp collection was ridiculously sexy.” My joke was met with a blank stare.
Brushing it off, I gestured at her car. “So, after trying to kill me, you now need me to fix your car? Funny how things turn out.”
Blair’s face flushed pink as her eyes swept to her car. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find someone else to fix it.”
“Someone else?” I cocked a brow. “There ain’t no one else in this town who’ll fix this for you, unless you bring my dad out of retirement or get my brother to do an honest day’s work. If he even knows what he’s doing.”
She sniffed at me. “Fine, I’ll go to the next town.”
I flipped the wrench in the air and caught it swiftly, pocketing it. “Trevor Wagner’s gout got worse last week. Sent all his customers my way.”
“Fine!” she snapped, throwing her arms up in frustration, like she was trying to strangle the life out of the air. “I’ll just buy a new car!”
The ludicrousness of her statement left us both in a minute of silence. Finally, I started chuckling. “Alright, Goochee, whatever you want.” With that, I turned in the direction of my house, taking slow, deliberate steps and whistling a random tune just to piss her off even more.
One.
Silence.
Two.
Shit, she was a stubborn ass.
Three.
She was really pushing it now.
Fou-
“Fine!” she cried, bringing a smug smile to my lips. “I need you to fix it for me!”
Composing my features as I turned around, I found that her face was even redder than before and contorting as though she’d ingested poison. I had that magical effect on people.
“Alright, Goochee, no need to yell.” I returned to where she stood by her car and walked around it to inspect the damage she’d idiotically inflicted on it. “Looks like you smashed the right rear quarter panel and hit it so hard, the lower control arm cracked.”
“What does that even mean?” she asked, staring at her car with lines of concern etched deep into her forehead.
“It means it’s gonna cost ya,” I said, appraising her, no, the damage of the car. “I’ll have to order parts. New ball joint and control arm.”
“I have money!” she spluttered, her ears turning pink. “I’m actually a reporter back in Chicago.” There was pride in her voice.
Reporter.
She was a fucking reporter.
I hated reporters, always sticking their damn noses where they didn’t belong. No respect, no boundaries—they were the bottom feeders of society.
And that’s when everything about Blair Fonseka made sense. That familiarity sank in again, wedging itself deeper into the darkest part of me.
“Right.” I turned back to the car, not wanting to engage with her any more than I had to. “Well, since I don’t know you and have no interest in knowing you, I’m gonna need cash.”
She snorted. “What? Your fine establishment doesn’t have a card reader?”
Ignoring her snobby question, I said, “This is gonna take me a few days. Could be more depending on when the parts get in.”
“A few days?” Her forehead bunched up at this
news. “I’m leaving on Monday.”
“Not now you’re not,” I told her, my tone abrupt.
“Are you always this rude?” she demanded, hands on hips as she regarded me with derision.
“Are you always this uppity?” I straightened up, almost nose-to-nose with her. “I’m trying to help you.”
A low chuckle came from behind us, and we turned to find Cole walking around the bend, his eyes dancing. “Good to see you two are getting along.”
We’d been so engaged in our conversation, neither of us had heard the crunch of Cole’s tires as he pulled up in his truck.
“Hmmph,” was Blair’s response, arms folded across her chest.
“Sorry I took so long,” Cole said to Blair, placing a hand on her lower back in greeting. “I had to drop Delilah off first.” He glanced my way, eyes bright. “So, did you guys get it figured out?”
Blair glanced at his arm in surprise, but didn’t move away. She shot me a fierce look, and I couldn’t help thinking she was letting his arm remain there to piss me off. Which was stupid. It didn’t matter to me what they did together.
Tearing my eyes away from Cole’s arm, I said, “Yeah, we’ve got a couple of other cars to get through first, but it’ll get done. Once I get the parts ordered, I’ll give you a quote, but it’ll probably be a few hundred even if your insurance decides to cover it.”
Since the town was so small and we weren’t a big operation, Harris was the only one who worked with me. In fact, what with Trevor Wagner’s jobs and Blair’s car, this might be the busiest week we’d had in months.
“I’m sure you could give an old friend a discount,” Cole appealed to me with a stupid, little smile.
“It’s fine, I don’t need a discount. I’ll figure it out,” Blair snapped, before I could respond.
Moving away from Cole, she pulled open the passenger side door of her car, giving me an incredible view of her curvy ass and slender legs. I tried not to stare, but my eyes automatically ran up her legs. Fuck, I wanted to run more than my gaze up those legs.
It was then that I noticed the black flip-flops she was wearing that were such a stark contrast against her coordinated outfit that it tugged at my icy feelings.
For a split second, I considered returning her other shoe. That is, until she opened her mouth again.
Not knowing the effect she’d just had on me, she straightened up, clutching her purse against her chest. “Let’s go. I have better places to be than a junk yard.” She said it like this place was beneath her. “Take care of my car.” She threw me a dark look.
“No better than you already have,” I taunted.
Grumbling something under her breath, which sounded a lot like “Assface”, she stormed off around the bend in her flip-flops to where Cole had parked his truck.
Cole threw me a wave and followed after her. No doubt she was the next conquest on his list. The idea burned me, but I tried not to care. I shouldn’t care.
I was just glad to see the back of Blair, especially after she’d seen, well, everything.
“IS THERE A REASON WHY you and my brother are both covered in mud?” Cole asked as we drove away from the junk yard, the twisted metal glinting in the side mirror.
“Is there a reason why you didn’t tell me that asshole is your brother?” I returned, evading his question.
Mostly because I didn’t want to relate to him the way Wade and I had fallen into each other’s arms, his rough, mud-streaked hands on my thighs, and then seeing him naked-
My body burned hot at the memory, and I was glad I had the clammy weather as an excuse to fan myself.
Cole sighed, cranking up the A/C as he turned onto Clarkson Road. “You clearly didn’t like him, and I didn’t want you to think we were anything alike just because we’re brothers. He has the gift of pissing off any living thing within a one-mile radius of him.”
“Trust me,” I snorted. “You two are nothing alike.”
This seemed to please him, and the edge of his mouth turned up just the slightest, pleased by my comment.
Even though I’d only reacquainted myself with Wade a day ago, I was starting to see that in contrast to Cole’s friendly and outgoing personality, he was impervious and stoic with the perfect poker face.
“Were we really friends when we were kids?” I asked, changing the subject and hoping to distract myself from thinking about Wade.
Cole nodded, glancing at me quickly, a smile growing on his face. “Yep, seventeen years ago, we used to rule the fields outside my old house. Wade and his friends were about thirteen then and thought they were too cool to hang out with a couple of nine-year-olds. They’d hide deep in the tallgrass, smoking cigarettes, and we’d throw water balloons at them just to piss them off.”
Splinters of images flashed through my mind, and I laughed at the faint memories he’d roused, relishing in the fact that I’d tormented Wade even as a nine-year-old. It was good to know I was consistent. “That sounds like fun.”
“It was.” Cole’s tone grew flirty, suggestive. “You couldn’t stay away from me back then. That’s a habit I wouldn’t mind you falling back into.”
“Are you always this much of a manwhore?” I asked, my tone incredulous but not hostile.
He let out a deep, rumbling laugh, his golden head tilting back against the headrest. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Fonseka.” He shot me a quick wink before fixing glittering eyes back on the road.
He was probably right, but once again, relationships of any kind had been off my radar for three years. I wasn’t about to change that now.
Watching the scenery of trees and farmland go by, I tried to sift through my memories of Pine Bluffs, but most of them were cloudy and insignificant. A tiny blond boy with bright eyes squirmed his way into my mind, but nothing beyond that.
Before we could continue the conversation, the road curved slightly to the right and then sharply ascended through a thicket of trees. Around the bend, a hill came into view, and atop that hill was what I could only assume was the Welsecky Estate.
My mouth dropped open.
This was the last thing I’d expected to see.
The exterior of the mansion was a cool, grey stone with marble pillars lining the front. As Cole drove up the long driveway, passing several parked cars, I noticed it was paved with a smooth network of grey and brown cobblestones. It wasn’t the dusty affair that most people in town had.
A small marble fountain with horses spouting water from their mouths greeted us as Cole pulled up in front of the mansion. There were large stone steps leading up to a set of wooden double doors, but I was more distracted by the surroundings.
The grounds were well-manicured and maintained. The neatly trimmed hedges grew tall, with numerous statues of angels with trumpets spaced along them. I felt like I’d been transported to a different planet.
They really were the Hiltons of Pine Bluffs.
“Urhhh.” Shocked beyond comprehension, I stumbled out of the truck in a daze. “What the hell do your parents do?”
“My dad started the junk yard when he was really young and made some good investments that paid off,” Cole relayed to me, walking around the truck and up the steps. “And my mom bought some real estate that she leases out.”
There seemed to be more to the story, but I didn’t want to push him on it. Not when he’d gone out of his way to help me out today.
“And you?” I asked, climbing up the steps after him.
“I help out where I can,” he said, waiting for me at the open double doors. “I’m still trying to find my purpose in life.”
“You sound like my brother,” I commented wryly, slipping inside. “He traveled through Asia for a year and then settled in Nepal for another year instead of going to college. Now he spouts off wise one-liners like he’s a freaking guru.”
Even though I gave Drew a hard time, I supported him in whatever he did. Even if it had involved him eating lentils and rice for a year on a reclusive spiritual pilgrim
age. But for me, I needed a guy with direction in his life.
“We can’t all be as successful as our older sibling.” Bitterness edged his words, and I wondered how he could possibly be envious of Wade. Sure, he probably worked hard at the salvage yard, but it was only a salvage yard, after all.
It was then that I truly noticed the interior.
A large chandelier adorned with teardrop-shaped crystals was suspended in the center of the foyer. A winding staircase ascended and disappeared off to the landing on the right.
“Wow,” I breathed, staring around the large foyer.
“We have a small ballroom on the first floor,” he informed me, as we stepped through the front doors. “That’s where the reception is.”
With only a moment to process everything I was seeing, I followed Cole through a large arched doorway, framed with white panels that had an intricate floral detail.
My head was shooting in all directions so quickly, I was amazed it didn’t snap off. The floor was lined with glossy, white tiles. There was tasteful art on the walls, mostly of landscapes, but a few portraits of people I didn’t recognize.
“Your house-uh-mansion is incredible,” I told Cole, who was a few steps ahead of me.
He shrugged, motioning at the open door on the left. I figured he’d use his home as one of the main ways to get women, but really he was being pretty humble about it.
Stepping through the doorway, I was met with a large, open ballroom filled with the hundred funeral goers from the service. Another chandelier was the main feature of the room, which had floor to ceiling windows that spanned along the left and around to the back of the room.
The space had been painstakingly decorated with long-stemmed lilies in crystal vases that sat on tall glass tables around the edge of the room. The bar was to the right, opposite the windows, and a buffet table with various hors d’oeuvres had been set up close by.
“Blair!” Mom came rushing over to me just then, her face frantic with worry. “Are you okay? Delilah just told me you got into some kind of an accident.” She paused, taking in my appearance, her expression aghast. “And you’re covered in mud! What happened to you?”