by Jamie Knight
I walked over and sat down in the passenger’s seat of the car, watching her wild eyes glitter in the light. There was something about her that just radiated excitement.
“You might want to put on your seatbelt,” she cautioned, pushing her foot against the gas to rev the engine.
“Are we going racing?” I asked her.
“Oh no,” she said, clutching her chest. “I don't want to do anything that might be too strenuous for your pacemaker.”
I hadn't expected her to say that. My mouth fell open in surprise. She had poked fun at the elephant in the room, our vast age difference.
But, it was almost like a joke because being around her, I didn't feel like there was much of an age difference between us. In fact, she had an air about her that made her seem more mature than her young age suggested.
She sped down the road, leaning into curves so sharp that I thought we were going to tip over sideways. But, despite the fact that she was driving fast, giving the engine a chance to stretch its legs a little, so to speak, it wasn't reckless. It was purposeful and fun. It was liberating and exciting. It was everything that I imagined Natalia to be.
Chapter 10
Bradley
I had to stop myself from thinking those thoughts. I didn't know how, but I had to find a way to release myself from this trance where all I seemed to think about was her. And thinking about her in that way would only lead to trouble.
What that trouble could be, that was yet to be seen. But, it was the implications of that trouble, the impact that it could have on my friendship or, hell, my living situation, that I most worried about.
“Maybe we should head on over to the store,” I said, trying to move things back into the right direction.
“Boo, you're no fun,” said Natalia, faking a frown and turning the car down a road leading to the highway. We drove for a few minutes before hitting a strip mall that had an auto parts store in it.
Her insult stung only a little bit. I didn't want her to see me as the no-fun-having old guy that her dad had staying in their house. But I also didn't want to start developing feelings for her and complicating things. I knew that holding up my end of the bargain and helping her to get her car situated would help me to focus on something else.
I had to admit, though, that being out here with her driving me around made me feel like we didn't have a care in the world, like we were just a girl and a guy out having a good time.
When we arrived at the store and went inside, Natalia looked around at everything like she was confused.
“All of these things go inside my car?” she asked.
I chuckled.
“I take it that you've never been inside an auto parts store?” I asked.
She shook her head hard.
“No,” she admitted. “My dad has always taken care of all of the car stuff for me.”
“Well, if you're going to get on the fast track as a female mechanic, it might be a good idea for you to get familiar with this store.”
She beamed at me warmly, rocking on her heels. It was so easy to joke and laugh with her. I hadn’t had this much of a natural connection with someone for a long time. What a fucking pity that she had to be so much younger— and my friend’s daughter.
She walked slowly through each aisle, carefully looking over item after item. It was like she was taking a mental inventory of everything. I stood watching her. I wasn't quite sure how much she was retaining, but I liked watching the process of her learning. It made me look at my profession in a whole new light, through a new set of eyes.
I walked up to the counter and saw a guy in his twenties standing there. He had on a long sleeved flannel shirt and he had rolled up the sleeves. He reeked like he had been chain smoking cigarettes right before coming to stand behind the counter.
“How can I help you?” he said emotionlessly.
“Yeah, I actually need to get a replacement for this battery,” I said, putting the battery up on the counter. I didn't know my own strength and it slammed harder than I thought that it would.
“Whoa there, take it easy,” said the guy, sounding a little annoyed.
“One battery, please,” said Natalia.
She had walked over to the counter and stood in front of it, leaning down so that I thought that her breasts would spill out of her shirt. The guy behind the counter's eyes almost bulged out of his head like a cartoon wolf ogling a hot girl.
“Well, hello there,” he said, leaning on the counter so that he was almost eye-to-eye with Natalia.
Natalia stood up straight, the smile leaving her face. She was just trying to be friendly and this guy was trying to flirt. I could tell that Natalia was not interested at all.
The guy, however, did not get the memo. He continued to lay it on thick.
“What's a hot girl like you doing in here?” he asked as he rang up the battery and charged her for it, ignoring the obvious signs that she wasn't interested in him.
I groaned loudly. Guys like him really pissed me off. It was one thing to flirt, but it was another thing altogether to do so ad nauseum, ignoring clear signs that your flirting is not fucking welcome.
“I'm here doing what everyone else is doing: finding parts that I need to fix my car,” Natalie replied.
He nodded, licking his lips as he stared at her.
“So, your dad is teaching you how to fix your car?” the guy asked. “That's pretty awesome. Maybe once he finishes with his lesson, you can come have a private lesson with me.”
I could feel the smoke behind my ears. I was fucking livid. This punk automatically assumed that I was her father.
I looked over at Natalia and saw that she had a pained expression on her face, as if she was really embarrassed. But, just as quickly as the look came, it went. Instead, she smiled that sneaky smile of her and moved closer to me.
“This isn't my dad,” she said, nudging her body against me. “Well, he's not my biological dad. But, I do like to call him daddy sometimes.”
She moved in closer and kissed me right on the lips. The counter guy was shocked, his mouth falling open wide with shock. I had to admit that it caught me off guard, too. Her lips were soft and warm. Her kiss tasted so sweet. I couldn't believe that it was happening.
We stood there kissing for what seemed like an eternity, but probably actually was only a minute or two. When she pulled away, the counter guy wasn't even standing there anymore. He had wandered off to go help another customer that had walked in and was looking lost.
It was a good thing that no one else had been standing there because it took me a minute to get my bearings. The kiss had caught me off guard, but there was something else…
She was an amazing kisser.
“That was awesome,” said Natalia softly, like she had been surprised herself.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding dumbly.
“Do we need anything else, then?” she asked, looking around the store.
I just shook my head, not even trusting myself to speak. I was sure that my words would have come out unintelligible. We walked out of the store, listening to the bell chime behind us. I felt like I was walking on clouds, like I was in a dream that I didn’t want to wake up from.
I slid into the passenger’s seat, surprised that my feet had somehow worked long enough for me to make it to the car. Natalia sighed and growled, frustrated.
“Did you see how that guy was acting?” she said, as if I could have ignored him, even if I had tried. “The nerve of him to assume that you were my father. What if you were my husband?”
She paused, a faraway look crossing her face. I would have paid a million dollars for her thoughts if I could have. Then she shook her head and looked down at the steering wheel, clutching it so hard that her knuckles whitened.
She spit out, “It’s just that I hate when people make assumptions like that. It was really rude and I was truly embarrassed. I’m sorry that you had to experience that.”
I couldn’t believe that she was ap
ologizing for someone else’s behavior, something that she could not have controlled. But, I appreciated the fact that it did make her so upset. It seemed like she cared.
“It’s okay, really,” I said, shrugging. “I guess it’s something that I just have to get used to. I mean, I am pretty old compared to you. And having these injuries doesn’t make it any easier for people not to think that I’m not just some crippled old man. Maybe we should go by the mall on the way back and get me some cool, young clothes to wear. And I’ll start saying words like ‘adorbs’ and ‘fleek’ and ‘bish’, maybe get a piercing or two so that people won’t mistake me for some sweater-wearing old geyser anymore.”
I smiled, hoping that my jokes might make her smile. When she laughed weakly, I knew that it had worked.
“You’re not old,” she said as her manner strengthened. “It’s just that people need to be more sensitive to what they say sometimes. And even if you were an old, bent over man with an oxygen tank and a full walker, on what planet is it okay to reference a customer’s age while ringing up a part?”
I stammered out a few words in an effort to answer her question, but the truth was, I didn’t have an answer.
“Anyway, I just want to apologize for that,” she said, turning the car on and revving up the engine.
“It’s fine. You don’t have to apologize,” I said, smiling at her sweetly.
I wanted to reach over and brush my hand against her cheek, but I stopped myself. The kiss had been more than enough for the day.
We rode in silence the rest of the way home, listening to talk radio discuss everything from the news antics of the president to the latest movie that had everyone flocking to the theaters. To me, it was just white noise. My mind was still focused on the kiss. I could still feel her soft lips on mine. I kept feeling her body pressed against mine, delicate, soft, and warm.
The more I thought about it, the more turned on I became. I felt an erection beginning to build in my pants and I started to panic. I didn’t want her to see it. That would creep her out for sure. I shifted in my seat so that my body was turned away from her and I crossed my leg at the knee.
She looked over at me, confused.
“You okay?” she asked, trying to keep her eyes on the road and not look at me. “You look very uncomfortable.”
You have no idea, I thought.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, trying to think about baseball or someone puking, anything to stop the rock hard boner that I was trying to hide from her.
It had finally calmed down by the time we got back to her house, so I hurried out of the car and to the door before she gave me another raging boner and then had a chance to see the enormous bulge that had formed on the front of my pants. It seemed this girl did very powerful things to me that made me want her so badly I could hardly stand it.
Chapter 11
Natalia
When we arrived back at the house after leaving the auto parts store, Bradley took off from the car to the house like he couldn’t wait to get away from me. I hadn’t expected that response and I didn’t know what to think, to be honest.
Was it okay? Will he tell my dad I kissed him? I had so many questions circling my mind that I couldn’t concentrate.
I went to my room and lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and holding a teddy bear, deep in thought. I smirked at the thought that I had made a move, even though it wasn’t quite at the time or place that I thought it would happen. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t really thought about how things would happen. But, it seemed like it was just right.
Seeing how Bradley reacted, though, left me on pins and needles until I knew what he thought. Maybe he was repulsed by my impulsiveness. Maybe he was in his room packing up his things to leave, and trying to figure out how he would explain things to my dad.
My dad. If he found out about this, I wasn’t quite sure how he would react. And I wasn’t ready to find out. I figured that the only thing that I could do was just wait and see how it would all play out.
At the very least, I had two weeks until my dad made it back into town. I wouldn’t imagine that, even if Bradley did plan on telling my dad something, that he would do it over the phone. I was about to get up and see where Bradley went off to when I heard a soft knock on the door.
“Who is it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Bradley,” came the muffled reply. “I was wondering if you were ready for your car repair lesson?”
I paused, trying to decide if that was a good idea. I thought that it would be a good way to pick his brain and get a feel for what might have been running through his mind after the kiss.
“I’ll be right out,” I called out.
I ran over to the dresser and stood in front of the mirror. I ran a hand over my hair, trying to get it to lay down. I pulled on a new t-shirt, then took a deep breath and headed out the door, toward the garage.
When I got to the garage, Bradley was already standing in front of the car with the hood up. He was fumbling around with the battery when I got there and didn’t look up once. So I walked up to the car and stood next to him.
“Alright, I’m ready,” I said, in my best Spongebob imitation.
I laughed at my joke. He didn’t. He shrugged his shoulders, making me realize that he probably had no idea who Spongebob even was. I cleared my throat and leaned over to get a better look of the engine.
“Okay, let’s go ahead and get started. So, this part here is where you attach the battery…”
I could hear him talking and see his lips moving, but I really wasn’t paying much attention to what he was saying. I just kept thinking about how sexy he was and how good it felt kissing him. In fact, the more that I watched his lips move, the more I kept being drawn back to that moment when our lips touched.
The way he moved his body, I honestly couldn’t tell he was injured. It was like his every move had strength, certainty and know-how woven into his muscles. That turned me on like crazy.
None of the guys my age had that kind of power and appeal. I wanted a king, a pirate captain of a man, not one of his little boy foot soldiers. The thought of putting myself in Bradley’s hands, naked, open, all his and at his mercy to work me like he worked this car engine— this was beyond distracting.
“Okay, your turn,” he said, thrusting a screwdriver in my direction, smiling at me.
I took the screwdriver reluctantly. I felt embarrassed that I had no idea what he had been talking about, so I didn’t know what he was expecting me to do.
I leaned over and looked underneath the hood, hoping that seeing it would give me some sort of clue as to what I should be doing. After staring at the engine for what must have been an uncomfortably long time, Bradley asked me if everything was okay.
“Um…yeah, it’s fine. It’s just that… Crap, I’m sorry. I have no clue what I’m supposed to be doing here,” I admitted, hanging my head shamefully.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know that it can be a lot to digest right now. I’ll go over it again.”
He started talking and I tried hard to listen to him, but again found myself struggling. I hoped that he would think that maybe I was having a blonde moment and that’s why I was struggling.
I also hoped that he wouldn’t suspect the real reason why I was having a hard time focusing: being so close to him was turning me on, all over again. I could smell his manly scent and it made me want to be closer, dangerously closer, close enough to where we could have another go at kissing.
Maybe even more.
Chapter 12
Natalia
I couldn’t help but go over the moment that Bradley and I had first kissed, over and over again in my mind. His delicious mouth, his warm, teasing tongue. I wanted to figure out exactly how he might be feeling and what he might be thinking about the kiss, especially since he was acting like it didn’t happen. I watched him talk on like nothing just went down—just talking about the car and focusing on giving me a lesson.
; When I had leaned in to kiss him, I saw his eyes open wide in shock. I went in hot, and kissed him passionately, more to give the guy behind the counter a show than anything else. I didn’t expect that he would respond at all.
But, he did. Maybe not at first, but after a few moments, he started to kiss me back. A few moments after that, he was devouring my mouth, kissing me back so passionately that it made me lose all track of why the kiss even started.
I kissed him in hopes to shock the guy behind the desk. I wanted that jerk to feel really embarrassed about making that assumption, calling Bradley my dad. But, I hadn’t even seen his reaction, so I don’t even know if it served the purpose that I had started with.
Instead, it did something else. It gave me the chance to have my first kiss with Bradley. He probably knew that my kissing him was to get a reaction out of the counter guy, but I couldn’t help but think that his response to the kiss was a real one.
He had his eyes closed and he kissed me back so genuinely, I almost lost track of everything that was going on. I felt a little off center as I tried to navigate our way out of the store. It was a wonder that I had managed to make my way back to the car and got us home safely because my mind definitely wasn’t on the road or driving.
In fact, my mind started thinking about how I could orchestrate things so that I could be alone with Bradley again. But, as he ran out of the car when we first pulled up to the house, I wondered if I had been off-base in thinking that the kiss was something that he wanted.
I started to think about things further. He hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid me. He could have easily found some excuse not to have the car repair lesson, yet there he was, patiently showing me how to fix the car and even repeating things when my scattered brain refused to stay focused on what was going on.
Everything in me told me that he liked the kiss and might even be open for more.