Gearhead

by Evelyn Glass

  “You’ve fooled yourself into thinking Jasper is better than me,” he said, readjusting so he could hold both of my wrists with one hand, the other one free to trail down my chest. His fingers made a line across my collarbone, between my breasts, and down to the hem of my tank top. He pushed it up, and goosebumps rose on my skin. “He’s not. He and I are the same. If you like being with him, you’ll love being with me, too.”

  “I don’t want to be with either of you,” I said. Though, at that moment, I prayed for Jasper to burst through the door and save me.

  Angel ripped my tank top off, and I felt a growl vibrate deep in his chest. “I’ll change your mind.”

  I tried to free my arms from his grip, but he was too strong, and I feared I would break my wrists before I was able to escape. Angel wrapped a hand around my back and unhooked my bra. I whimpered, but it only seemed to spur him on. He enjoyed it. After that, I stayed quiet, not wanting to give him any more pleasure.

  He pushed the cups of my bra up until my breasts were exposed to him. The chill made my nipples hard, but Angel seemed to think it was because of him. He leaned forward and sucked one into his mouth, swirling his tongue around me. “I knew you wanted me.”

  I felt bile rising in my throat, but I fought it down. Whatever happened, I had to stay strong. I couldn’t let him see that he was breaking me, that inside I was falling apart. Angel may have been moments away from taking my body, but he could never take my mind. I had to stay strong.

  Angel ran his hand over my breasts, and I felt him growing hard inside his jeans. He shifted his weight, so our hips aligned, and I swallowed a sob. His cold hand shifted to my thin pajama shorts, and his fingers were just dipping below my waistband when the front door of the apartment opened.

  “Oh my God.”

  I turned to see Kayla standing in the doorway, unsure where she should look. Her eyes found the ceiling and the floor and the far wall, but they always glanced back at my half-naked body and Angel pinning me down, almost as if she couldn’t help herself.

  Angel jumped off of me in surprise, his body in a fighting stance, and I quickly pulled my robe over my bare chest and sat up.

  “I’m sorry,” Kayla said, raising her hands to shield us from her view, and then lowering them. Her entire body was uncomfortable.

  Just as quickly as he’d jumped away from me, Angel composed himself. He shot Kayla an effortless smile and ran a hand through his greased hair. “It’s not a problem. Marin and I weren’t expecting you to be home so soon.” He turned to me and winked, but I saw the threat in the flat line of his mouth. “Perhaps, we will get together again soon.”

  Kayla nodded, but confusion was etched into the lines of her forehead as she watched Angel leave. As soon as he was in the hallway, she slammed the door behind him and locked it. She turned on me. “Who the hell was that?” she shouted.

  I pushed myself off the couch and stood on shaky legs. Could I tell Kayla the truth? It wouldn’t be safe for her to know, but I also felt as though I would crack under the weight of all the secrets I was harboring.

  “Angel,” I said. That was the truth.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “You were about to sleep with a man named… Angel?”

  I pulled my robe tighter around myself, trying to fight off the chill that was coming from inside, and stared down at my feet.

  “And what about Jasper?” she asked. “Was that relationship not wild enough for you? You had to go and find someone even sleazier?”

  I understood Kayla’s anger. My life didn’t make any sense to her, and how could it? She didn’t know the truth. I’d been lying to her for weeks. She was my best friend, yet she didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on in my life. One minute, we were wiping tables at Jasper’s Grill and chatting about the cute boss, and the next I was dating him and spending all of my time at fancy galas and dinners.

  And now, she found me half-naked with a total slimeball.

  “Marin,” Kayla said, her voice softer than before. “What is going on? This doesn’t make any sense.”

  I shook my head, trying to convince myself to stay quiet, to shoulder this particular burden alone. Kayla didn’t need to worry about a gang of bikers potentially breaking down our door and hurting her. She didn’t need to know that the field behind Jasper’s Grill was likely littered with the bodies of murdered bikers. She didn’t need to know that my relationship was a complete sham, and in addition to not having a real boyfriend, I had isolated myself from my one and only friend.

  All of that was too much for her to bear. It was too much for anyone to bear.

  “Why are you crying?”

  It was only when Kayla asked the question that I realized silent tears were streaming down my face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Marin

  Kayla repeated the question several more times, but each time it only made me cry harder. Words became impossible. I sucked in air after each sob, trying to fill my starving lungs. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and led me to the kitchen table. I cried as I watched her heat milk in the kettle on the stove and break large chunks of chocolate into a mug.

  Her hot chocolate was legendary, at least with me. She made it countless times every winter, and whenever we had one of our ultimate best friend chats – we never knew when those would happen, so we kept a small stash of supplies in the cabinet above the stove just in case.

  By the time she sat a steaming mug of thick hot chocolate in front of me, topped with a swirl of canned whip cream and marshmallows, I had finally gained control of my sobs, though silent tears continued to stream down my cheeks.

  “What the hell is going on, Marin?” she asked, her voice thick with concern.

  I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to speak, but I wasn’t sure where to start. So, I opted to take a drink of the hot chocolate. It was far too hot still, and my tongue got burnt almost instantly, but it was worth it. Chocolate coated my throat and made the whole world feel altogether less terrible.

  I sat the mug down on the table, took a deep breath, and told the truth. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Then just start. If it doesn’t make sense, I’ll put the pieces together. I’m a smart girl.” She smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone.”

  She nodded.

  “I mean it, Kayla. No one. Ever. It’s dangerous.”

  She nodded again but narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re making me nervous, Mar. What are you tangled up in?”

  I started at the beginning. I told her about that night at Jasper’s Grill when I closed. She gasped at all the right parts but otherwise didn’t interrupt. I told her about the nights spent at Jasper’s house, the fancy dinners, the biker party. I told her everything I knew about Angel, and how he’d shown up at the apartment that night.

  “How did he know where you lived?” she asked.

  “He said he’d been following me. And he knew you were at work, so I have to believe him.”

  She nodded, but I could see her mind whirring. Finally, she was beginning to realize how much danger I had put her in. Certainly, she would move out and never speak to me again. I should have told her immediately – given her the chance to disassociate herself with me, continue on in her normal life.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, the sobs threatening to return.

  “Don’t be sorry. You didn’t ask for this. None of this is your fault. But this is really bad. Should we call the police?”

  “I can’t. I witnessed a murder, and I didn’t report it. I could be charged.” I buried my head in my arms, the warming effects of the hot chocolate beginning to dissipate. “Should I tell Jasper?”

  “We have to tell someone.”

  Kayla was right. Angel could come back, and Kayla and I wouldn’t be enough to hold him off. He could kill us both. Jasper had the resources to protect us both.

  As I sat there, thinking about how I would explai
n everything to Jasper, my stomach began to churn. Nerves twisted my insides, and suddenly, I knew I was going to throw up. I pushed away from the table and sprinted for the bathroom, crashing to my knees and throwing the toilet seat open just in time. The hot chocolate didn’t taste as nice coming up as it did going down.

  Kayla leaned against the doorway, and I looked up at her briefly before another round of throwing up. “Are you all right?”

  I leaned back against the tub and nodded. “I guess. I shouldn’t have inhaled the hot chocolate like that.”

  Kayla said something, but I didn’t hear her. I’d caught sight of my tampon box on the floor next to the toilet, and a calendar page was flipping back in my head. I was counting and recounting days, certain I’d done my math wrong.

  “Earth to Marin,” Kayla said, waving her hand in front of my face. “I asked whether you want some crackers?”

  I stared up at her, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. “Have you had your period yet?”

  “Duh. It ended a week ago. You know that,” she said.

  It was true, keeping track of Kayla’s monthly cycle was as easy as tracking my own. Since we’d lived with one another for so long, our cycles had synced up, so we got out periods at the same time every month. Only, this month my period hadn’t come.

  It took Kayla a few seconds to realize what my question meant, but when she did, she slapped her hands over her mouth. “Are you pregnant?”

  I stayed in the bathroom while Kayla ran to the convenience store on the corner and bought me a lifetime supply of pregnancy tests.

  “I figured you’d want to take more than one,” she said, spreading them out on the counter. “I also bought you some ginger ale, and I bought myself a packet of gummy worms. Think of it as my delivery fee.”

  I’d given Kayla my debit card to buy the tests, and usually, I would have given her a hard time for buying something for herself with my money, but the last thing on my mind was a one-dollar bag of gummy candy. I closed the door and peed into one of the red plastic cups Kayla had found in the very back of a cupboard in the kitchen.

  The box said it would take three minutes for the test to give me my result, but the second pink line appeared almost immediately. I continued staring at it until the timer on my phone went off though, just in case the line would disappear, and this whole thing would be something Kayla and I would laugh about later while we sipped wine and ate grilled cheeses – the ultimate sick food.

  “You’re sure?” she asked, her face pulled back in a wince.

  “I took three tests.”

  “Shit.”

  “Shit,” I repeated.

  Kayla offered to stay up and talk everything through, but I didn’t have much to say. The night had unfolded at a dizzying speed, and I needed a second to stop and wrap my mind around everything. I double-checked the front door was locked and then hid away in my bedroom, the comforter pulled up under my chin.

  I was pregnant. With Jasper’s baby.

  For a second, I tried to think whether it could be even remotely possible Jasper wasn’t the man who had gotten me pregnant, but of course he was. He had been the only man I’d slept with for the last few weeks. An image of a round baby face with a crop of dark hair and Jasper’s blue eyes rose to the forefront of my mind. I rubbed my flat stomach.

  The rest of the night passed in a sleepless blur. I awoke the next morning to a missed call from Jasper. I was supposed to meet with him to go over some of the finer details of my new position as his charity consultant, but I wasn’t ready to face him yet. I powered my phone off and stayed in bed all day.

  Kayla brought me soup and crackers, treating me as though I had the stomach flu rather than a baby growing inside of me, but still, I couldn’t complain. It was nice not to have to worry about anything other than how I would tell Jasper the news.

  I didn’t have any basis for how he would react. As I saw it, there were four options: one, he would ask me to get an abortion; two, Jasper would want me to give the baby up for adoption; three, he would abandon me and tell me to keep the entire pregnancy a secret; and four, he would be excited.

  The fourth option seemed the least likely, so I dismissed it almost immediately. I needed to focus on how to handle the other options.

  I couldn’t get an abortion. My mother had talked about getting an abortion during her last pregnancy. Her lousy excuse for a boyfriend had abandoned her, and with so many other children to worry about, she’d considered it. But then she’d decided not to, and I was grateful every day. I couldn’t imagine our family without Luca’s blonde curls and mud pies.

  Adoption was an option to consider, but I was pretty certain I wouldn’t be able to go through it. Even though I sometimes resented my role as caretaker for my younger siblings, I loved children. I wouldn’t be able to feel a baby kicking and growing inside of me and then give them away. I would spend every day wondering whether they were safe and cared for, whether they looked like me or Jasper.

  The third option seemed like the most likely. Jasper didn’t seem like the fatherly type. He wouldn’t press pause on his life to take care of me and his child. As soon as I told him, he would probably break off our relationship – if you could even call it that – and wish me luck. And honestly, I knew I could handle it. My mom had been more or less a mess her entire life, yet she’d still managed to raise her brood. Plus, from a young age, I had taken on more than my share of childrearing duties. If anyone was prepared to be a single mom, it was me.

  I grabbed my phone from where it had sat on my nightstand all day. I turned it on, and immediately it began to buzz with missed calls and messages. Jasper had called me six times. I called him back, pressed the phone to my ear, and listened to it ring.

  “Hello?” he asked, surprise mingling with annoyance.

  “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jasper

  Marin hadn’t been picking up her phone all day, but that didn’t stop me from calling and texting her. She’d always been responsive to my calls, so her radio silence felt out of character. Especially since I’d just offered her the charity consultant position – basically her dream job. She should have been falling over herself to thank me; instead, she was being ungrateful.

  The front door opened, and for a split second, I thought perhaps it was Marin, but it was only Tats and Bear. I’d asked them over to check on the security measures around the property. Angel shouldn’t have been able to get up to the front door without me being alerted.

  “Everything looks good, boss,” Tats said, shrugging his shoulders. “We checked every camera and sensor, and they are all in full order.”

  Bear nodded in the background.

  “Thanks for looking into it,” I said. “I’m not worried about Angel or the Jackals, but I would like to know how he bypassed my system.”

  It’s not like I was living in a fortress or anything. There were definitely holes in my security, but none obvious enough that someone like Angel should be able to figure them out. Even still, I wasn’t afraid. I slept with a gun strapped to the back of my headboard for a reason. If Angel came at me, I’d be ready.

  Tats was in the middle of a tirade, going on about sticking it to the Jackals, attacking them on their turf, but I was saved the task of responding by my phone vibrating loudly on the desk. Marin’s name popped up on the screen, and as I answered, I was aware of how quickly I’d jumped to answer it, and how it must have looked to Tats and Bear.

  “Hello?” I tried to cover my eagerness with a layer of aloofness. It worked, and Tats and Bear lumbered out of the room to give me my privacy.

  “We need to talk.” She sounded somber, and suddenly I was nervous. Was she breaking up with me? No, of course not. We weren’t really dating. Plus, as far as she knew, ending things with me would also be the end of her life. She wouldn’t be so foolish.

  “About what?”

  “Please come over.” She hung up.

  Was I mistaken, or did it soun
d as though she’d been crying? Her voice had the recognizable thickness of someone swallowing back tears.

  I immediately grabbed my motorcycle key from the hook next to the fridge, threw on my leather jacket, and tore out of the driveway. The wind was cool on my skin, and I drank it in. A ride always helped clear my head, and lately, I’d had more on my mind than usual. Marin had been filling my thoughts, though I’d tried hard to ignore it. She was supposed to be a cover, a pretty face for the local tabloids. It was never supposed to be serious.

  But there I was, flying down the interstate towards her apartment, trying to think of anything I could have done to upset her, any reason she would have to be angry with me, dissecting our phone call to try and discern whether her tone was frustrated or concerned. I was annoyed with how much I cared and with how little I was getting from her in return. I sat around thinking about her all day while she ignored my calls and hung up on me? It was absurd.