by A. K. Evans
“I hope you finally realize now that she’s not fucking around with Ricky behind our backs,” he clipped.
I found it funny that he thought the fact that I had been the one to kiss her was enough proof that Avery was completely trustworthy. While I might have been having doubts about my initial assessment of her, I didn’t know why he thought what happened last night between Avery and me was the proof we’d need. All it told me was that she could be feisty, fight back, and was a heck of a kisser.
“Obviously, she didn’t tell you the full story or the honest version of what actually happened then,” I noted.
“There wasn’t much to tell,” Ryker shot back.
“Getting it from her, I can imagine why,” I argued.
Confusion and frustration washed over him just as the microwave shut off. “Knox, how much more proof do you need? I mean, she didn’t even tell me anything. I saw it with my own eyes,” he said.
Ryker saw?
How did he see?
Nobody was here.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Her car,” he answered. “I saw the coolant line with my own eyes.”
“The coolant line?” I repeated.
“Yeah. What did you think I was talking about?” he questioned me, ignoring his food.
It was at that moment I realized Ryker and I were not on the same page. In fact, I was beginning to think that I’d missed some important piece of information.
I shook my head and said, “Nothing.”
“It’s something,” he insisted.
“I thought you were talking about me kissing her last night,” I blurted.
Ryker’s eyes flared. “What?”
“Isn’t that why you’re pissed off?” I asked. “Isn’t that why I walked into the shop today to find both you and Nash looking like you wanted to kill someone? I mean, if it had just been you, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But Nash is the most easy-going guy I know. He was pissed.”
“Yeah,” Ryker muttered. “We were pissed because Avery showed us what she found last night. We looked like we wanted to kill someone because what they did to her was seriously fucked up.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You were here last night and you have no idea what I’m talking about,” he stated. “How the hell do you not know what’s going on but somehow managed to kiss her? And if that actually happened, why hasn’t either one of you acknowledged the other today?”
I stayed silent. What was I supposed to say?
“Fuck,” he hissed. “You took advantage of her being upset, didn’t you?”
“Christ, Ryker, I was trying to get an answer out of her,” I retorted.
Jerking his head back, he asked, “And you thought you’d accomplish that by kissing her? And an answer for what?”
I shook my head, not wanting to recall seeing her with those tears rolling down her face. Even still, I replied, “We were both working for a while when I realized I hadn’t heard any noise from where she was. I looked over, didn’t see her, and went to her. She was sitting on the floor with tears running down her face.”
“Can you blame her?”
“I don’t know, Ryker,” I started, feeling seriously impatient. “I can’t exactly answer that because I never found out why she was so upset. I tried asking her what was wrong and she lost it on me. The next thing I knew, I was kissing her.”
Ryker narrowed his eyes as though trying to figure out if I was being completely honest. He could stare at me all day long if he wanted to. I wanted answers.
“What’s wrong with her car?” I asked.
Snapping out of it, Ryker’s voice dipped dangerously low when he answered, “They could have killed her.”
My body tensed. “Who?”
“Ricky and the guys who work with him,” he answered. “They caused her to crash.”
“What?”
“Knox, I just saw it with my own eyes this morning,” Ryker shared. “The coolant hose was routed from the overflow tank and pointed right at the front tire.”
With those words, my whole body went cold. They sabotaged her. They wanted her to crash.
Fuck.
Fuck!
“You’re kidding me,” I said, my voice now a level of menacing even I didn’t recognize.
Ryker shook his head. “I wish I was.”
A million thoughts ran through my mind. She had been sitting on the floor crying last night because she’d just learned that the only reason she crashed was because someone meant for it to happen. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how she must have felt.
And then, to top it off, it was me who was here with her last night. Me. The guy who’d been a complete ass to her.
Screw up wasn’t even the right phrase to describe what I’d done.
This was a fuck up of epic proportions.
I’d accused her of working with Ricky in an attempt to bring down LT Motorsports when she’d been betrayed by the man himself.
“You know you need to go out and apologize to her, don’t you?” Ryker asked.
“I can’t,” I told him.
Shooting me a questioning and disappointed glance, he said, “You can, and you need to. Knox, she hasn’t done anything wrong. She was wronged by them, and she was wronged by you. Not in the same way but still. The way you’ve treated her for the last week was uncalled for, and I would think you could see that. Especially now.”
“I know. I do.”
“So then what’s the problem?” he wondered.
I swallowed hard before I admitted, “She told me never to speak to her again.”
“Damn it,” he hissed. After a lengthy pause, he insisted, “You better figure out how you’re going to make this right.”
“I know. I know. I’m working on it,” I told him.
I had no quick solution, no easy answer. But I knew this was too important to continue letting it linger.
Not sure that it would work, but having no other options, I declared, “I’m just going to go and apologize.”
“Knox, don’t,” Ryker ordered.
“Apologize for what?” Nash asked, suddenly appearing at my side.
“He needs to apologize to Avery for being a dick to her,” Ryker answered. “Especially since he was a dick all week long that decided to kiss her last night.”
Nash’s eyes flew to mine. “What?”
I shook my head and turned to walk out. “Ryker can fill you in,” I told him.
“You can, too, because Avery already left.”
“What?”
“We finished pulling the motor on the car,” he started. “It didn’t make sense then, but now I get it. She seemed to be in a hurry to finish it up and get out of here. Now I know why.”
I strolled back across the room and fell into one of the seats at the table. Pressing my palms into my eyes as I leaned my elbows on the table, I let out a frustrated sigh.
This was going to be miserable.
She wanted nothing to do with me.
And I… well, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
There were only a few minutes left before I could leave for a bit to go out for lunch. I hated that this is what my days had become.
It was currently Friday, late morning, and I’d spent the entire week living in fear. Not real fear for my physical safety or anything like that, of course. But fear of an entirely different kind.
The last week had been exhausting to say the least. On the job front, things were great. The shop was exceptionally busy, which was good for me. The time spent on the phone with clients scheduling appointments, updating them on the progress of their projects, or discussing new projects with potential customers was a welcome distraction from what was happening in my personal life.
So, I had no complaints on the job front.
From a co-worker standpoint, things were mostly great there, too.
Obviously, Nash and Ryker had already known why I ended up crashing
my car at the race a few weeks ago, but Kieran and Logan didn’t learn the truth until Monday. They were mortified, to say the least. These four men took me into the fold, offered do anything they could to help me rebuild when I found a new chassis, and made me feel like I was finally part of something good again.
It had been two weeks now that I’d officially been part of LT Motorsports, but I finally felt like I was part of the team. They respected me on a level that other men in the industry didn’t. They never made me feel like I wasn’t capable simply because I was a woman. I couldn’t have been more grateful for them.
There was, of course, the issue of the final member of the team.
Knox.
This was where the exhausting part of my week had come in. Not only had I been unable to sleep well in the days that followed the night he kissed me, but my work week resulted in me going above and beyond to avoid being alone with him.
It wasn’t that I feared he’d do something to harm me. I was simply terrified that he’d attempt to talk to me, and then I’d have to deal with all the emotions I was feeling over what happened.
I still couldn’t believe I actually told him that I thought he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I cringed to think I had such little control over the things I shared when I was angry. The only thing that gave me a smidge of comfort was recalling him being angry that one day he was in the break room with Kieran and Ryker. The day he was so worked up he shared that he thought I was gorgeous.
Any time I recalled those words, which was often, a shiver ran down my spine.
And then, feeling that shiver, I ended up remembering what it felt like to have him kiss me. God, it was incredible. I continuously craved experiencing that again.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to happen considering I not only told him to never touch me or speak to me again, but I was doing everything I could to make sure he couldn’t.
Over the last week, I’d managed to avoid him in the morning by arriving to the shop after he did. He was already out working by the time I walked through the front door. Two other days, I had pretended to be on the phone when he walked in. And one of the days, I didn’t have to work too hard to avoid Knox because it was Monday. With everything still so fresh in my mind, I happened to be in the midst of telling Logan and Kieran about what Ricky and his crew had done to my car at the race.
When Knox walked in that morning, he greeted Logan and Kieran. They returned friendly sentiments, but he didn’t stick around much longer. He gave me one quick glance, had a look on his face I couldn’t read, and walked out into the shop. I ended up continuing to field questions from Logan and Kieran about Ricky, my car, and the apparent sabotage.
Now that I’d made it to the end of the week having successfully avoided any encounter with Knox, I should have felt relief. There was some but not much.
Because it was race weekend. This weekend there was a race at Wyoming International Raceway. It wasn’t a huge event that brought a lot of out-of-state racers like the first big event of the season—the one I crashed my car at—brought out. It also didn’t bring anywhere near the number of racers that the last event of the season—the one I hoped to be able to make it to—would bring. People came from all over the world to compete in the Rocky Mountain Madness race every year.
Great air temps, near-perfect track preparations, and a year of testing cars made for a hell of a race weekend. Records and many personal bests would be set. There was just a general feeling of excitement that built up over the course of the year for this event.
I truly hoped I’d be able to make it.
So, this weekend was mostly going to be a laid-back weekend without much pressure. It would be a weekend to collect data on the cars, make adjustments, and keep striving to reach the goals. LT Motorsports had a few customers that would be racing, so we were all going to be there. And given the relaxed atmosphere of this race, Logan decided he’d be taking his car to see if he could run that six-second pass.
I was excited for my first weekend with a crew who, for the most part, felt good to be around. Even better than that, Kendall was going to be there on Saturday.
And while I didn’t know her all that well yet, I was hoping today would change that. Because Kendall reached out to me on Sunday afternoon and asked if I wanted to get together for lunch on Friday to celebrate the end of the week and prepare for race weekend. I couldn’t have been more excited and immediately agreed.
As though she knew I was thinking about her, my phone rang.
“Hey, Kendall,” I greeted her.
“Hi, Avery. I’m doing as promised and letting you know that I’m heading out now. I should be at Lou’s in ten minutes,” she shared.
“Okay, I’ll leave now and meet you there.”
“Great. See you then!”
We disconnected the call, and I quickly gathered up my things. None of the guys had come in for lunch yet, which was great because it meant I was able to avoid having to tense up every time the door opened in case Knox walked through to take his lunch break. Luckily, Logan already knew that I was meeting Kendall for lunch and that she was going to call me when she was leaving, so I didn’t have to let anyone know I was heading out.
Truthfully, Logan had been really great about everything. He knew there was a bit of a sticky situation with Knox and me, not the full truth of everything obviously, but it wasn’t possible for anyone to work and not know that there was a bit of hostility there. For that reason, I loved that Logan was as accommodating as he had been.
Roughly twelve minutes after I’d gotten off the phone with Kendall, I pulled into the lot at Big Lou’s Restaurant and Saloon. It was a hot spot in Rising Sun for night life, but the restaurant still offered a great place to have a weekday lunch.
No sooner did I walk through the front door when I saw she was already seated. I made my way over to her and slid into the bench on the opposite side of the booth.
“Hey, sorry if you were waiting long,” I lamented.
“Not at all,” she insisted. “I literally just sat down. I didn’t even order a drink yet.”
“Oh, good. I have to tell you I’ve been looking forward to this all week long,” I told her.
Kendall smiled and said, “Me too.”
For a few minutes, we perused the menus and made our lunch selections. When the waitress took off, Kendall asked, “So, you’ve got almost two weeks at LT Motorsports under your belt now. How’s it going?”
“Really great. I feel like I’ve finally gotten the hang of everything, and Logan hasn’t held back from letting me know how much I’m helping to free up his time,” I replied. “Surprisingly, any resistance I thought I’d get from the customers hasn’t really been there either.”
“That’s great. Did you expect you’d get some?” she wondered.
Nodding, I confirmed, “Absolutely. I mean, there have been a handful of customers who I could tell were a bit wary, but I do what I have to do to ease their minds that they’re getting sound advice.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, I have to tell you it’s definitely working,” she started. “Logan is a lot less stressed. He obviously still works like a maniac, but he has shared with me how great it is having someone to handle the day-to-day things that were simply tedious for him. Plus, what you’re doing is not what he loves doing, so you’ve made it so he’s able to focus his attention on the things he really enjoys doing at the shop.”
That was good to hear. It was one thing for Logan to tell me that he appreciated my hard work, but it was even better to know that he’d told Kendall about it.
“I’m so glad,” I said.
“So, I heard about what you found out with your car,” she remarked. “I’m so sorry. It’s awful to think someone would ever intentionally set out to do that knowing how fast you’d be driving and how dangerous it was.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Yeah, it definitely came as a shock.”
“Logan was pissed,” she shared.
“But I guess all the guys were, right?”
I gave her a look of indifference and said, “Nash and Ryker were there the day after I figured it out. They were livid. I didn’t get to tell Logan and Kieran until Monday when everyone was back at work. But, you’re right, they were all very upset.”
“Knox, too. Right?”
I shook my head. “Knox and I have a bit of a volatile relationship,” I offered. “He has had an issue with me since the first day I started working there.”
“Okay. Full disclosure?” she said.
I dipped my chin.
“I already kind of knew that. Logan has shared that it’s not exactly been the best situation between the two of you,” Kendall began. “I knew Knox had an issue with Logan hiring you, but I thought he’d at least be furious on your behalf about what happened.”
“He doesn’t know,” I told her.
“What?”
“Knox doesn’t know,” I repeated. “Or, at least, I never told him.”
“He knows,” she insisted. “There’s no way that not one of those guys didn’t tell him. And that’s what strikes me as so odd. I mean, I remember how he was the day of the crash. He was just as concerned, if not more so, than the rest of us.”
This was news to me. I sat up straighter and was about to ask her to explain, but our waitress returned. As she set our food down and asked questions that Kendall thankfully answered, my brain felt like it was close to exploding.
The minute the waitress walked away, I leaned forward, lowered my voice, and asked, “What do you mean? How was Knox on the day of the crash?”
“If I’m being completely honest with you, it started before the crash,” she shared.
“What?”
“The first time I met him, he was great. Super nice guy. Ryker was the grumpy guy. But the day of the race and one other occasion prior to that, which also happened to be after Logan decided to hire you, I was around Knox and thought he was miserable. When I asked Logan about it, I learned that it was because Knox had feelings about you working for LT Motorsports after having been employed by Altered Atmosphere. I told Logan that I didn’t think Knox was wrong for feeling the way he did. I understood his frustration. Of course, I quickly realized there was nothing to be concerned about, but Knox is evidently holding on to it.”