by Kat Bastion
Frustrated at everything that wasn’t going according to plan, I growled at the injustice of it all as I walked toward the alley again, back on the course I’d intended last night. Back to the only thing that soothed my soul regardless of the unfairness in life.
As I closed the front gate behind me, cat darting out at the last minute, my phone played Adele’s “Hello.” Kristen’s turn.
I pulled it from my purse and swiped it on, lowering my voice. “Grand Central Station.”
“That busy?”
“Yep. Just missed Kendall the Inquisitive.”
“Ah.” As usual, Kristen didn’t pry. “I forgot to send you the dimensions you needed for the party.” She referred to our next event for Invitation Only, the party-planning business I’d help create with my brother and sisters. “The client loves Loading Zone’s design so much, she wanted your flare with more than the finishing touches. She insisted on using your ‘Industrial Grunge’ nickname for the event. Hope that’s okay.”
I paused halfway down the short sidewalk, something nagging at my sluggish brain. “Sure. I don’t own the trademark.”
“And she keeps saying, ‘Make sure Kiki casts her welding magic.’ To which I keep replying, ‘You know this is Kiki, right’?”
My heart tripped, beginning to race even though I stood stock-still, planted to the cement.
“I just emailed you the measurements for the DJ equipment. Two sound boards, also a front panel for the bar and…”
My brain froze. DJ equipment. Darren.
When Kristen paused, I finally sucked in a lungful of oxygen. “Gotta go.” I muttered absently. “I’ll look for the email.”
In trying to forget my problems at Loading Zone last night, then while in hot pursuit of my next conquest, I’d completely forgotten about the project I’d been tasked with.
Having to do with said conquest.
“Idiot,” I grumbled. Darren had become too entwined in the periphery of my life to have kept him in the running for casual sex play. When he’d first caught my eye, he’d been Loading Zone’s new DJ. But then Cade had hired him on for a couple of Invitation Only parties. Which had eventually become nearly every one. The moment he’d attended the first, I should have discounted him.
With a resigned sigh and enormous willpower, I forced him from my thoughts.
After a few measured breaths, I began to feel close to normal and resumed my routine path. I rounded the corner of the white picket fence and began my ninety-seven usual steps toward my destination, kitten trotting alongside me in perfect feline balance on the cement curbing. At step number thirty-nine, my stride slowed. Before I hit forty-three, I stopped altogether.
My breath caught. My heart began to race as memories flooded in.
Two feet away from where I stood, hundreds of minutes ago but what seemed like the blink of an eye, Darren had stepped into my space—gotten too close.
In that early morning hour, where temps had dipped into the low fifties, he’d towered over me, radiating blast-furnace heat. The spiky black ends of his hair had softened, those deep emerald eyes had darkened, and that broad chest had huffed in ragged breaths.
But out of all that, I was struck by one instant. Suspended in the space between one hard pulse-beat at his throat and the next, through the impenetrable shield he’d erected to keep me and the rest of the world out, he’d been vulnerable.
Breath held, I closed my eyes, reliving the split-second moment: His intoxicating scent coiled around me, sweet with a touch of salty spice. Recognition flashed in his eyes as he gazed down at me.
Of what?
I sucked in a fast breath. My eyes snapped open and I stared at the spot where we’d been.
In the bright light of day, a glaring revelation hit me: I’d chased after someone too like me.
With a hard headshake, panicked about what that meant, I hurried down the alley. Running from the implications made me feel like I had some power in my out-of-control world.
But nothing eradicated the truth: Drastic change had already begun.
Darren…
The following afternoon, I returned to Loading Zone. As usual on Mondays, I laid soundtracks for the upcoming weekend.
But it was the first time I’d been back in the club since…
I shoved the thought from my mind.
I refused to think about Kiki.
“I need you to stop by Kiki’s.” Cade glanced up from where he stood behind the bar.
Fuck.
“What for?”
“The Industrial Grunge party this weekend. She needs to secure the metalwork she’s made to your equipment.”
Right. My brain pinged back to the email I’d gotten from him Friday about the latest party Invitation Only had hired me for. I’d fired off a reply with measurements. Then I’d totally spaced it.
He tore off the bottom edge of a paper pinned to his clipboard, scribbled something on it, then handed it to me.
I scanned the paper. “I’ve been there. Gave her a ride home a few times.”
“Only transportation?” Doubt weighed his tone.
“Yeah.”
Cade planted his hands on the bar top, then dropped me a hard stare. “Tread lightly there.”
“Can’t tread any lighter.”
“I mean it. She’s…” Cade lowered his gaze, then glanced up. “There are things she keeps inside. She seems tough. But more is there than meets the eye.”
“I know, man.” I gave him a hard nod. “Nothing to worry about. We’re just friends.”
He snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Why? Because Cade hadn’t been able to be “just friends” with Hannah? Night and day comparison: He’d been available then, I was nowhere close.
“Nah, I’m good.”
I drove the usual route from the bar to Kiki’s, but something nagged at me. When I turned down her street, I dug into my front jeans pocket, then pulled out the paper Cade had given me. The last number in the address was different. Same street. But instead of 2115 it was 2117.
I slowed in front of the picket-fenced house: not the address. Cruising past, I checked out the house numbers of the neighboring property. Too high.
How could her address be in between?
I stared down the alley—the one she’d been standing in thirty-six hours ago. Then I turned into it, following the fence line until white wood pickets ended and chain link began.
A large warehouse with corrugated sides and high glass windows towered in the back of a property littered with scrap metal. Walls made of mangled items stood four to five feet high in an undulating maze through about a quarter of an acre: a rusty oxygen tank here, a weathered motorcycle fender there.
Mounted into a post made of dozens of welded metal parts that now resembled a gnarled tree snag was a mailbox, camouflaged as a dark knot in the trunk. Out of the side jutted a four-inch iron “broken branch” with a red cardinal that pivoted up to indicate outgoing mail.
I glanced at the address Cade had given me. The numbers on the mailbox matched.
Confused, I pulled up beside a light blue Prius, then parked in a space just beyond it. “Kiki, what the hell?” I muttered aloud to the industrial area no girl should be hanging out in.
A glass-and-wrought-iron security door stood propped open a few inches by a good-sized rock. I rapped on the doorframe, then waited. After a couple of minutes with no reply, I let myself in.
A blower-like noise echoed off the walls as the door banged against the rock behind me. A second later, the sound stopped.
“Chip Monkey? Is that you?” Kiki’s voice echoed from somewhere ahead.
Before I had a chance to respond, the low-pitched blowing noise resumed.
I followed the odd sound, weaving through metal sculptures spaced a few feet apart that stretched from one wall of the warehouse to the other. After a dozen yards, all the metalwork disappeared. I stepped into an open area lit by several large skylights that were in the metal roof some thirty
feet up.
To the left, a couple of worn couches faced each other, one green, the other yellow. Both had throw pillows covered in bright flowers in each of their corners. Clothes had been tossed haphazardly over the back cushions. A low metal table sat between them, fashion magazines scattered over its surface. Dead ahead was an enormous wooden worktable, rusted clamps and vices fastened to various edges, some gripped pieces of metal, others were screwed open, ready to be used. To one side sat two stacked piles of envelopes, a coffee mug, a plate with a half-eaten sandwich with sprouts spilling out between two pieces of grainy bread, and an unopened green banana.
Beyond the table, in a wide-open space surrounded by large pieces of equipment, the source of the sound became apparent: A bright white light glowed from a torch in Kiki’s hand.
I froze, not wanting to startle her.
And to just watch her.
Her face was hidden by a metal welder’s mask with a viewing slot, but wild pieces of black hair poked out from under the back strap, curling off in every direction. She leaned forward in steady concentration, applying a now-orange flame to the joint between a curving section of rebar and some kind of woven-metal latticework.
Sparks arced in all directions from the contact point. I winced, averting my eyes after I caught myself staring at the blinding core of the flame.
Seconds later, she turned her torch off again.
I cleared my throat.
She jumped slightly, rested the torch tip on the cement floor with a soft clang, then lifted her mask.
“Darren.” An instant smile curved her lips as she pulled off a pair of leather gloves.
And damn, if that bright smile didn’t warm a spot in the center of my chest.
Not for you, D.
I blew out a quick breath. “Cade wanted me to bring the sound equipment for the party…”
“Yes!” She stood and pulled the mask from her head before tossing it onto the worktable. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders.
Charcoal smudges marred her face, one dotting the tip of her nose, another streaking just below her cheekbone. A pink flush crept up her olive-colored skin from her collarbone to her cheeks. Under thick dark lashes, her eyes turned electric blue in a shaft of sunlight that angled down from a high window.
She blinked heavily, smile widening a fraction.
I blinked too. I tried to remember why I’d come, needed to think of something to say to fill the growing silence.
Instead, my gaze lowered. Used to seeing her in nightclub outfits, earlier a skirt, sometimes jeans and a sparkling top, the casual clothes were something new—better, in my opinion.
Beneath a tan leather welding apron with three pockets riveted into the bottom, she wore two tank tops; a purple one peeked from under a green one, the straps of both twisted chaotically together on one side. Black yoga pants hugged her hips.
Suddenly she moved—breaking my dumbfounded trance—and crossed to the table. She lifted her mug, then paused with it halfway to her mouth. “Want some coffee?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Was I? Something needed to jolt me out of my sudden Kiki-stupor. “On second thought, coffee would be great. Black.”
With a satisfied nod, she turned and went to a narrower table running along the wall, lifted a half-full pot from her coffeemaker, and poured steaming dark liquid into a red mug with white lettering. When she handed it to me, I read the saying aloud, “‘Eat, Drink, and Be Merry’?”
She gave a one-shoulder shrug while gulping from her mug. “If only life were so simple.” Her tone was laced with cynicism. Which surprised me.
Then I realized her place looked lived in. Like lived in. “So you work here?”
Her gaze darted to the clothes thrown over the couches.
Mine wandered to other signs that she spent a lot of time in her workspace: two small pizza boxes stacked on a plastic trash can in the far corner, those stacked envelopes on the table looking a lot like unopened mail—to her, with her same address on it.
She let out a low sigh as her shoulders slumped. “And live here.”
“Why the big production with the dolled-up house in front?” She’d lied to me. Or at least stretched the truth.
Slowly her shoulders shrugged up to her ears along with her eyebrows. The hint of a smile curved her lips. “I didn’t want you to judge me?”
“For where you live?” I shook my head. “My house is no palace.”
Her hands dropped to her hips and she leveled a piercing look at me. “I was after sex. This?” She gestured around us with a wide sweep of her outstretched arms. “Only provokes questions.”
“Like where you sleep?”
Her soft laugh broke the tension. “Yeah. Up there, by the way.” She pointed above our heads to a large room built into the rafters. In the center front wall of that room stretched two floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Soft light glowed on a finished ceiling beyond them.
“This place is cool. Why wouldn’t I like it? It’s like a giant man-cave.”
“For a girl.” Her tone was off, but I couldn’t place why. She seemed…nervous.
I glanced around at all the heavy tools and rust. “Not much girly in here.”
“True.” She unfastened and pulled off her welding apron, then dropped it over her stacks of mail. “Where’s your sound equipment?”
“Back of the truck.” I took a sip of coffee, then winced. For a girl who created awesome art, she made nasty coffee. I put the mug safely on the table.
“Want to fasten it together out there?” She gave a nod toward her front door.
“Would that work?”
“Might need to pull it down, but no sense in dragging it all the way in here. C’mon. Help me with the panels.”
She pulled a screwdriver off a workbench, tucked it into the back of her pants and grabbed her gloves. She put them on as she led me through her work area. We entered a back corner loaded with large stacked items. Industrial shelving units lined the walls and held open boxes of sorted smaller pieces.
“So whose house is up front?”
“Landlord’s.” She moved aside what appeared to be a metal coatrack in progress.
“And you have a key to his place?”
“Her place.” She nodded toward a stack of six metal sheets. “And yeah. She owns five parcels: three houses up front, two industrial properties behind. The prior owner collected and worked on motorcycles. She rented the warehouse and scrapyard parcels to me when she couldn’t sell them.”
“What’s that got to do with you having a key to her house?”
“I watch over it when she travels on business trips. She’s gone most of this month.”
“But…I’m seeing where you live now. How did you expect to give me the panels?”
She pegged me with an exasperated look. “We were supposed to have one night of wild sex. End of. But we didn’t. Then Kristen emailed me with the specs. On Sunday. Day after said wild sex was supposed to happen.”
Ah. Her attempt to set boundaries. Play. Work.
“Technically, same day. I dropped you off at 2:30 a.m. On Sunday. And how did you make them so quickly?”
Her nostrils flared.
Yeah, I was giving her shit—couldn’t help it. Also couldn’t help noticing how sexy she looked when annoyed.
Her cheeks grew a deeper shade of pink. “I accomplish amazing work when channeling sexual frustration.”
Ah, got it. I scanned her warehouse filled with art. “You must be frustrated a lot.”
Gaze locked to mine, she exhaled slowly. Then she squatted beside the stack of panels. When she glanced down and wrapped her hands around the edge of one, a lock of her dark hair fell over her face.
With a stout puff, she blew the curl away from her eyes and stared up at me. “We swapping life stories…or are you helping me?”
I didn’t answer. Because learning about where she lived and what aggravated her only made me want to know more—what made the fascinating girl in front of m
e tick: what made her scowl, what made her laugh.
So I bent down, gripped my side, then lifted.
The metal panels she’d created were incredible. Rusted foundations supported fluid patterns of countless smaller welded pieces: a slice of gleaming hubcap, rows of oxidized chain, curling strips of tarnished steel, a field of uniform scales.
“These are amazing, Kiki.”
Her eyes lit up. “Thanks.”
And then she smiled. At first, it was tentative, a gentle curve of her lips while she scanned over her work. Then she glanced at me, and I got the full effect. Genuine. Heartfelt.
Damn. I suddenly wanted to learn more of how to make that happen.
Not for you, D. If I repeated it in my head enough, maybe I’d believe it.
The panels were heavy. It took us three trips to transport them to my truck, two stacked panels per run. The edges of each sheet were curved inward, so even though she wore gloves, I gripped them with no problem. Once we laid the last pair outside, I pulled my sound board stands down from the truck bed and set them on the ground.
She pointed to the nearest panel. “That’s an end. Lift it and hold it in front of the right side.”
When we moved it into place, she inched it forward. “There. Can you lean that against the frame? Good.”
We followed with the longer front piece, angling it up until the seam lined up flush with the first.
“Can you hold them steady like that?” She examined the edge where the pieces fit together.
I nodded, then lowered into a comfortable squat, keeping a firm hold on each panel.
The ends had hinged brackets bolted onto the outside. She reached behind her, pulled out the screwdriver from where she’d tucked it into her waistband, then began screwing them into place.
She hovered close, near enough for her vanilla scent to waft around me. A slight breeze caught strands of her hair, brushing them over my arm. When she tilted her head and turned, her upper body leaned into my side. She fit perfectly there.
My brain fogged. “Plenty of places for sex.”
Her twisting hand paused, midturn. “What?” she croaked.
“At your real place, the warehouse. No questions. Plenty of places.”