by Jade West
Tonya let out a gasp as I swung my trusty little Ford into Trent’s yard. The adrenaline had me on edge, over-steering enough that I nearly clipped Betty Baker’s old Mini Cooper, but from the looks of the bumper on it, another little knock would be the least of her concerns. I pulled up with a screech beside Darren’s hulking black beast of a truck, and Tonya opened the passenger door right next to it, swung her legs out to give her a clear view of the garage entrance, then lit up a cigarette.
“I’ll wait here and block his exit,” she said. “Holler if you need me.”
“Enjoy the show,” I snipped.
She blew out a long plume of smoke. “I’m here as your cheerleader, not for entertainment.”
I rolled my eyes.
My legs felt weird and shaky as I crossed the tarmac to the garage office, mood veering between rage and this nasty little shard of hurt that wouldn’t stop stabbing. Darren Trent, trusted local mechanic, father of two. Foul-mouthed, arrogant, loyal, hardworking, infuriatingly stubborn, brooding, blunt, honest, hot…
… Gigolo.
Gigolo.
A fucking man-whore.
I still couldn’t quite believe it.
I tried the handle, but it was locked. Impossible. No way would Darren close up on a Monday. And his truck was here, bold as brass. You couldn’t miss the fucking thing.
I tried the handle again and it rattled but wouldn’t budge. I pressed my face to the dirty window and peered inside and there was nobody, just an empty counter. I knocked. Nothing.
What the fuck?
I walked around the side to the main shutters, and my heart did a flip as I saw the sports car there. A red Porsche, the kind of car that screams money. I checked out the badge and the licence plate — expensive and new and definitely not from these parts. I took a step towards it, checked out the scarlet paintwork, peered inside to see a woman’s jacket there, her makeup bag still open on the passenger seat. The shutter doors were down and bolted, the whole place closed up tight.
But Buck’s estate car was in its usual spot.
I rapped the shutters, then pressed my ear to the metal.
Nothing.
I rapped again until they rattled and shook.
Nothing.
I stepped back, looked around, scoped out my options as my heart thumped. He was fucking. Of course he was. The woman from the Porsche.
I shouldn’t care. Didn’t want to care. But the girls…
The village…
I hammered on the shutters again and this time there was rage in it.
“Darren! I know you’re in there! I need to talk to you!” Nothing. Not one fucking sign of life. I hammered again. “Darren! It’s about the girls!”
A clank from inside, and I knew he’d heard me. I folded my arms, waiting for the doors to open, not truly ready to believe he was fucking some posh Porsche-driving bitch in there on a Monday morning, but of course he fucking was.
She strolled out as soon as they cranked up, ducking a salon-blonde head under the door with a lipstick-smudged smirk on her face. Her dress was crumpled and her hair was greasy, and she had a black smear across her insanely huge cleavage.
Her diamonds caught the light and twinkled, and her toned legs looked so tanned. Her lips were plumped, and her eyes were glazed and cock-hungry.
She looked me up and down as she passed, and her snarky smile told me everything. She’d weighed me up in an instant and found me lacking, and suddenly I felt plain and awkward, my fingers brushing at the butter stain on my top even though she’d already seen it, already seen the circles under my eyes from a night up with Ruby’s night terrors, already seen the limp mousy hair that hadn’t seen a bottle of dye in years and the eyebrows that drastically needed shaping.
She’d seen me, and she’d judged me. Signed me off as a plain Jane battering down her ex’s door.
She shot a glance back towards the garage before she got into her car, blew a kiss and gave a big smile. “Till next time, boys.”
And then there was Darren, half-clad in the same pair of tatty old overalls he’d been wearing since he’d opened this place, yanking down the plain black t-shirt he’d certainly just pulled on over his head. His arms were as toned as they’d ever been, the dark lines of his tattoos twisting up around his elbows, smeared with oil.
He barely even nodded in Porsche Bitch’s direction, gave her nothing but the faintest hint of a grunt in farewell. His eyes were fixed on me, heavy with questions and that bristle of brusque he’s so fucking good at.
“What’s up?” he said as he strolled over. His eyes were so light and his hair was so dark. His jawline solid; rugged with at least a weekend’s worth of stubble. He lit up a cigarette, and his eyes didn’t leave mine. “Well?” he prompted. “What’s going on with the girls?”
The engine of the Porsche roared into life but he didn’t look away.
I stared into the eyes of the man I’d known since he was just a kid with big dreams and a bad attitude. The man who’d claimed to not give a shit for anyone or anything, but had taken my hand and held it tight in his, who’d loved me like he’d never let go.
The man I thought I’d spend my life with.
I sighed. “Ruby’s been swearing. Miss Davies grabbed me this morning. I sent you a message.” I tried not to make the words barbed, but they came out that way anyway. He dug in his pocket for his phone. Took a drag on his cigarette as he scrolled through his messages.
“Didn’t see it,” he said. “Busy.”
“I gathered.” I folded my arms.
He let out a low laugh, his eyes glittering with a moment of amusement as he read my text. “Used the C word, did she?” He turned back to the open shutters, and I saw the bulk of Buck looming inside. “You’d better stop teaching my daughter bad fucking words, Buck, you big fucking prick. She called her teacher a cunt.”
Buck shot him the finger, and he was laughing, too. “Like I taught her to say cunt, you soft cunt.”
I gritted my teeth until Darren’s attention was back on me. “She didn’t call her teacher a cunt, Darren. She got frustrated and called the netball hoop a cunt.”
He shrugged. “Same fucking deal. Kids swear. All fucking kids, Jo. Some just hide it better.”
I shook my head. “Don’t. Just don’t! She’s only eight years old. She shouldn’t even know the word exists.”
Darren Trent has the most intense eyes of anyone I’ve ever met in my life. There’s an aggression to his stare, even when he doesn’t mean it. Just… something… it makes my skin prickle, but there’s always this heat underneath. This burn.
He’s straight and blunt and his eyes hit hard, and they hit me hard right then and there.
“I’ll sort it,” he said.
I couldn’t temper my disgust. “How? What’s your big plan? Hey? Are you going to be the one who assures Miss Davies that Ruby isn’t going to spew obscenities again? Are you going to be the one who pulls Ruby up on her behaviour? You going to be the one who makes sure it doesn’t happen again? Is that you? What the fuck are you going to do, Trent? Hmm? Have a chat with her? Play the big bloody disciplinarian for the day? You going to be the one who tells her off and teaches her that bad language has repercussions? Break the habit of a fucking lifetime?”
“I said I’ll sort it,” he grunted and his eyes were fiery. He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Was that everything?”
I just stared at him.
“What?” he said. “What’s with the big fucking chip on your shoulder today? I’d have got your message and you fucking know it.”
My heart raced. “Who was that?” I pointed to the space the Porsche had left.
“Who was who?”
I rolled my eyes. “Miss Porsche. Who was she?”
“Customer,” he said.
“A customer?” I scoffed. “Sure she was.”
“In for a service. No big deal.”
I stared him out. “And what kind of service was that? What kind of stuff are
you offering down here?”
And he knew. His eyes said it all.
“Mandy fucking Taylor,” he said, and there was humour in his tone.
I felt sick. So sick. Practically puked on the spot. “It’s true then?”
He shrugged. “Depends what you’ve heard.”
“How about that you’re running some seedy gigolo outfit, charging people for gang bangs?”
He tipped his head to the side. “Maybe a bit of truth in it.”
“It’s all around the fucking village, Darren!” My hands were up and at him before I could stop them, gesturing madly. “Everyone fucking knows! Everyone!”
“Let them fucking know,” he scoffed. “Who the fuck cares?”
“I care, Darren. Me.” I saw him swallow, his eyes widen, just a little. “About the girls,” I clarified. “About how they’re going to fucking feel when their schoolmates tell them their dad’s a man-whore who fucks for money.” I put my head in my hands. “I can’t believe you’d do this! Do this to the girls, to us, in this village! Why would you? How fucking could you?!” I was on a roll. “It’s selfish, Darren! It’s so fucking selfish! A quick scheme to get your dick wet, only you have to get paid for it as well, right? Like fucking for free isn’t bad enough!”
His expression hardened. “I’m doing this for the fucking girls, Jo.”
“Jesus, Darren,” I snapped. “How the fuck can you be doing this for the fucking girls?”
I met his eyes, but he’d closed up again. His expression was hard and disengaged. “Forget it. I’ll sort it.”
“Forget it?!”
“Yeah,” he snapped back. “Forget it.”
I stared aghast. Just aghast. “You’re really fucking for money, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Way I see it, people need plenty of things. If I can give them what they want and charge them a fair price, I’ll do it. This is no different, Jo, it’s just a fucking gig, same as the others.” He gestured at the cars around us. “Just like the motors, only I use a different fucking tool.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe this… I just can’t…”
He lit up another cigarette. “I’ve been keeping it away from here.”
“By fucking that big-mouth Mandy Taylor?!”
“That was Buck,” he said. “Likes her. Said she was sound.”
“And now it’s out! It’s every-fucking-where! I have to face everyone in the village, and I will. But what about the girls?! What the hell do I tell them?!”
“Nothing,” he said. “Tell them nothing, Jo.” He scowled. “It’ll blow over. Gossip will be chip paper next week.”
I laughed a snarky laugh. “Sure it will.” I shrugged. “Just like the broken washing machine will blow over, and Ruby’s swearing, and every other thing that goes belly up around me.” I had the most horrible, pitiful urge to cry, so I walked away. “It’ll all just blow over, right, Darren? I’ll just keep waiting, shall I? Pick Ruby up from school and pretend her dad isn’t fucking half the locals?”
“I’m not fucking half the locals,” he said.
“You think that’s what they’ll tell our girls?! Your dad isn’t fucking half the locals, just a few?!”
“They can tell them what they fucking like, it’s not true.”
My phone bleeped in my pocket. I considered leaving it alone, but I never can. In case it’s Nanna, or the school, or my parents from the coast whenever they get a quiet few minutes. It was Lorraine, my boss.
Can you cover Emma for a few hours this afternoon? You’d be a lifesaver.
I’m always a lifesaver, always running around after everyone else. And I’d had fucking enough of it.
“You can pick Ruby up, then,” I said. “See how you like dealing with it.”
He nodded, didn’t flinch. “Fine. I’ll pick her up.”
“Half three,” I said. “Don’t be late.”
“I never fucking am,” he snapped.
“Good,” I snapped back. “At least I can count on you for something.”
I didn’t give him another glance.
I busted a fucking nut to get those cars done. Didn’t even eat the sandwiches Petey came back from the shop with. We all worked hard, all knuckled down — even Hugh and Jimmy O — and at twenty-nine minutes past three I had my foot down in the truck as I sped across the village to get my little girl. The thought of her spouting cunt around the place shouldn’t make me laugh, but it did. It really fucking did. Ruby’s so pissing funny, you can’t help yourself.
I didn’t bother with the car park, just mounted the verge and pulled the truck to a stop. I could see the curtains twitching, people stopping midway about their village business to stop and gawk at me.
There he is. Trent. The gigolo. The whore.
The fucking dick.
Like I give a fuck what they think.
I don’t know how Jodie manages to smile through this same old village playground shit every day of her life. The place was humming with people judging each other behind their fake-assed smiles, squawking on about what’s what around here. They were all gossiping, all moaning about some shit or another, but every set of eyes in that school yard were on me. I kept my cool, lighting up a cigarette as I stood at the gate, right at the edge of the no smoking zone.
The snooty mum brigade always hated that, but there was a bit of a sizzle through them today. Their lingering glares in my direction were laced with something else.
It made me crack a grin to myself.
For all their whining and fucking moaning they all wanted a piece of Mandy Taylor’s action. They’d be condemning with one hand while rubbing one off with the other, that’s the way of the fucking world.
I’d just finished up my cigarette when Ruby’s classroom door opened and kids came pouring out. She was one of the last, yapping on to Miss Davies, in a world of her own as she trailed her school bag after her. Her hair was a tangle, her freckles glowing in the afternoon sun, her toothy grin hitting me in the gut and making me so fucking proud.
When it was just Jodie and me, when things were good, I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in the world. As much as it’s possible to love anyone, that’s what I thought. I’d have walked through fire for her, thrown myself under a truck for her, clawed through Hell just to make her happy.
And then Mia came, and Ruby after her, and then I knew I was wrong.
As much as I loved their mother — and fuck, I loved their mother — I’d have thrown us both to the fucking wolves if those girls needed it.
That’s love.
I also didn’t come up with that shit. Some celebrity guy came up with it and I read it in some crappy newspaper somewhere down the line, but that’s beside the point. The guy who said it could have reached inside my heart and found exactly the same feeling. He just said it first, and said it better than I would have.
I’m not so good with words.
I waited, and waited, and Ruby kept jabbering on to her teacher, barely watching the path ahead. And then she saw me, and that toothy grin grew bigger.
“Daddddd!”
She was still a bit gangly, awkward feet pounding the tarmac until she launched herself right at me. I scooped her up, and she hung around my neck, hoisted herself up on my hip and started her school day monologue about dinosaurs and making a cup out of foil and how she’d fallen out with Sophie Green at lunchtime.
I dropped her at the truck and she shot round the other side, clambered up into the passenger seat, where her feet hung far above the footwell. She clipped her belt, pulled her pink sunglasses from the glovebox and grinned at me as I climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Where’s Mum?”
“Work,” I said. “Extra shift.”
“Cool,” she said, just like that. “Can I come to the garage?”
“Sure,” I said, and then I had to do the deed. I cleared my throat before I pulled away from the school. I gave her a look as I indicated out of the street. “You’ve been busted, Rubes.
”
She paused for just a second. “Busted?”
I sighed. Did my best to sound serious. “Did you use a garage word at school the other day?”
A pause and then a shrug. “Might have done.”
“Remember what we said about garage talk?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Garage talk stays in the garage.”
I tried my best not to smile. “And why does it stay in the garage?”
She sighed. “Because people get all butt-hurt if you say bad words in front of them.”
I had to laugh at that. “Who’s got butt-hurt now, do you think?”
“Miss Davies.”
“And who else?”
“Mum.”
“And what does your mum do when she gets all butt-hurt? Who does she come and moan at?”
She kicked her feet in the footwell. “You.”
“Yeah, that’s right. And then I have to moan at you, and we don’t want to be dealing with this shit, do we?”
She shook her head.
“So, where’s the place for butt-hurt words?”
“The garage,” she answered in a beat.
“And when’s the time for garage words?”
She looked right at me. “When Mum’s not there.”
“Right.” I smiled. “We sorted here?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
I ruffled her hair. “Good girl.” I headed over to the garage and Ruby stared out of the window. “When you’re an adult you can butt-hurt whoever you like.”
She grinned. “Like you do?!”
I grinned, too. “Yeah, like I do.”
She sighed and folded her arms. “I can’t wait until I’m a grown up and I can butt-hurt Sophie Green.”
I pulled up at the bus stop to wait for Mia, and grabbed my mobile, scrolled until I found Jodie’s text.
Mine to her was simple. Like always.
Sorted, it said.
I watched Ruby with Buck, passing him tools as he worked on Clare Evan’s old Mercedes. I watched the concentration on her face as she stared at what he was doing, soaking it all in like a sharp little sponge. Usually I’d help out, tell her the extra details, answer her questions, but today I was sorting tyres with Mia, prompting her on the finer details of high school life.