“But it was still safe,” Hurst pointed out. “No pun intended.”
That was when Ren lost his shit. “The trunk of the fucking car doesn’t even close because half of what it needs to do that is still attached to the fucking safe.” Hurst wisely didn’t respond to that verbally, although the blush on his cheeks said it all. “And it’s not about the welding machine, it’s about the danger you put yourselves and anyone driving along that road in.”
Leaning around his grandson, Bill offered, “We weren’t in any danger, Ren. We welded roll bars in the car like in the movie.” All of our heads snapped to look back at the cars, not seeing any of the bars mentioned. “They came off when we got loose from the safe, but Hurst said that was ‘cos the welding machine was shit, not ‘cos…” he stopped when Ren turned the full force of his glare on him. “Shutting up now.”
Figuring now was the best time to leave the men to deal with their grandfathers, I shifted away from them and toward the stairs that led to the office. After this, I needed coffee, preferably with rum in it. Lots of rum.
Opening the door, I shut it softly behind me, not wanting to scare Katy who was standing at the coffee machine herself, staring at something on the wall in front of her. “Yo!”
It wasn’t yelled, it wasn’t snapped, it sounded like I’d said it gently to my ears, but she jumped and then let out a noise like a yelpy squeak as she looked over her shoulder at me. Katy Crew, aka Katarianne Crew, was the quintessential ‘sweet girl’ as my mom called them. That didn’t mean she was boring, homely, or anything like that – it meant that she was so damn pretty that you’d never expect her to have the beautiful personality that she had. Katy would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it, and everything she did let you know this. My mom calling it the ‘sweet girl syndrome’ purely meant that she was as sweet on the outside as she was on the inside. I was of the mind that it should be ‘fucking awesome girl’ syndrome, but my ma wasn’t big on cussing, so I kept that one to myself.
Right now, seeing her wide blue eyes on me, I was even more adamant that fucking awesome should be the terminology used to describe her. The center of her eyes were a medium blue color, but they had an even darker blue ring around the edge of them and were framed with long dark brown lashes, the same color as her hair.
Jerking to look at something in front of her, she then glanced back at me. “Hey, sorry, I didn’t hear you coming up the steps.”
I was a big guy – six foot seven inches tall – but I’d learned to tread lightly as a kid so that I could either get the drop on one of my brothers, or sneak out the house without waking my parents up. I didn’t see the point in stomping or treading heavily as an adult, regardless of where I was, because that expended energy that I didn’t want to waste. Noise also drew attention to you, and I hated doing that, so I tried to minimize anything that would get people’s focus on me unless it was necessary.
I’d always been tall, even in kindergarten, and it had drawn people’s attention. I also had greeny hazel eyes that had a dark ring of blue around my pupils, so they got people’s attention, too, because being half Jamaican they stood out even more. In high school I’d bought colored contacts to hide them, but once I got them in my eyes the first time I couldn’t get them back out again. It took my brothers holding my head still for Dad to get them out, after which he’d flushed them down the toilet. My brothers had similarly colored eyes, so they’d got it, but Dad had sat us down and lectured us about loving what the good Lord had given us and how we were to use it to make us who we were going to be through life.
That advice had stuck with me and on the whole that’s what I did, but I still tried to fade into the background as much as I could. Part of that fading included walking softly, and I’d managed to scare Katy just now without meaning to. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I came up to get some coffee and get away from that,” I pointed over my shoulder at where the men - who were now arguing - were.
The side of her mouth tilted up slightly when we heard Tom yell something, the noise echoing inside the garage. “Yeah, I saw that. I’m not going to ask what they did because it’s Hurst. That man is a law unto himself.” With her back still facing me, she took a couple of steps sideways away from the coffee machine. “Help yourself, I just opened a new box of pods for it.”
Moving to where she’d just been, I reached for a cup and saw a puddle of coffee on the counter as I placed it in the machine. That wasn’t unusual, and she’d probably been about to clean it up, so I wiped it with paper towels while my cup filled so she had one less thing to do. The guys here were slobs, that’s the only way to put it. They spilled, they dropped, they did whatever, and rarely did they go back to try to clean up after themselves unless it was to put tools back. Hell, most of the paperwork was covered in oily fingerprints because they didn’t wipe their hands off first. I was guilty of that myself, but I wasn’t guilty of not picking up my shit, and I knew Katy had OCD tendencies so it had to drive her crazy.
Once the coffee was done, I threw the towels in the trash, grabbed my cup and gave her a chin lift as I turned back to the door. I wasn’t immune to Katy Crew, in fact far from it, but because she always left me feeling off center, I tried to keep our interactions quick and casual. It wasn’t because I was shy, I just didn’t know what to say or do around her, so it was easier this way.
Closing the door quietly behind me, I blew out a breath and made my way back down the steps toward the car I’d been working on before Hurst and Bill had arrived. The Townsends were still arguing it out, so I resigned myself as I got back to work to the fact that it was going to be another eventful day. Fucking joy!
Katy
As soon as the door shut behind Jarrod, I pulled my coffee drenched top away from my boobs and let out the little squeal I’d done my best to smother when I’d jumped and tipped the hot coffee on them as he’d said yo.
“Hot tits, hot tits!”
Moving quickly to the small bathroom, I grabbed a chunk of paper towels and wet them with cold water, lifted my t-shirt up and placed them on the red skin. Fortunately, I had a change of clothes with me seeing as how getting dirty here was a common occurrence, but that didn’t stop me worrying about long lasting damage to the area the hot water had landed on.
Lifting the wet towels up, I looked at the skin and figured I’d probably get away without needing to bandage my entire chest, which would mean having to explain it to someone here because it started at my collarbones and they’d see the dressings. That would mean I’d probably be known as the chick with burned boobies, something I’d really rather not happen.
Slightly burned boobies, though, that I could live with.
Two
Katy
I’d only just dried my bra out with the hand drier and changed my t-shirt when the door to the office opened and in came some of the Townsend women. When I’d started working here six months ago, they’d all come in and introduced themselves to me and we’d become friends, so I had coffee with at least one of them every day while I was working.
“Hey, babe, what’s shaking,” Ren’s wife Maya called as she plonked her ass down on one of the chairs in the room. With her were her sister-in-laws Ebru, Sabine, and Layla, and Isla Montgomery who was married to Luke Montgomery and who was a close family friend of the Townsends.
Sweeping my hand in a wave at them all, I moved back behind my desk and dropped down into my chair, shaking my head. “Jarrod came in twenty minutes ago and when I jumped because he walks like a ghost on those stairs so I hadn’t heard him, I got coffee all over me,” I gestured to my boob area, nodding when they all winced. “Freshly made coffee, too, so I’ve just had to get changed.”
Resting one butt cheek on the edge of my desk, Layla grinned down at me. “Bet you gave him the wet t-shirt shot of his dreams. What color was your top? You got lace on under it today?”
Leaning away from her, I ruined her excited vibe. “I hid it from him because I didn’t want to look like a dick
.”
I mean, how the hell could spilling coffee and burning your boobs equal a sexy wet t-shirt shot? It was coffee, this was a garage, they were my boobs, so they definitely didn’t fit into the sexy category (more like boringly average), and Jarrod would probably have preferred a Playboy style bunny doing it. With water. And huge gadunkadunks that screamed ‘these are for you, Jarrod Kline’. I was only just a C cup, I was me, I was also only five foot seven with heels on – and even then that was pushing it because I was probably only five foot six with them on a good day – and I wasn’t even close to a Jarrod Kline level of woman.
Eyes narrowed on me, Layla took me in, no doubt trying to think of something to say to make me feel better. What she said instead made my stomach drop into my big toe. “Ok, don’t take this the wrong way, but this has to be said. I get that humans are fickle, even I’m guilty of that a lot of the time, but men want what men want and if you think that Jarrod doesn’t see what we see,” she shook her head looking over at the others who were nodding back. Taking a deep breath in, she turned back to me. “Katy, babe, you’ve got it going on. You’ve got beautiful hair, your face looks like someone drew it for a fairytale, you have all that,” she gestured at my body, making me look down to it even though I knew it better than anyone. “And you have the advantage of being a height that makes men melt. They see this pretty petite babe, hair that’s fucking outrageously beautiful, and it brings out their alpha protective rawr side.” The word was accompanied by a slashing of her nails through the air like a tiger.
“Add in the shyness with an edge of nerd to it and you have major alpha protective rawr,” Maya added, getting a head nod from Layla and making me shift uncomfortably.
“I think we need a girls' night out,” Ebru mused, watching me closely and no doubt reading me perfectly.
Before any of them could say anything, I repeated, “A girls' night?”
Leaning so that she could see me around Layla’s back, Sabine nodded. “I’m in agreement with this suggestion. I think you need a night out with us. One that involves cocktails and getting drunk.”
Before I could say anything else, they all started throwing out suggestions. Some of them freaked me out – especially when they said things like going to a strip club could wait until the next night out – and some of them left me confused.
“So, it’s decided. Saturday we’re going to Sheeves, so you need to get out a little black dress and get your dazzle on,” Layla informed me, grinning widely.
“But I’ve just moved into my new place so I was going to unpack some more boxes.”
This was an unnecessary reminder of my recent move into my new place, the first one I’d ever lived in that was just mine, seeing as how they’d all helped me do it two weekends ago. They’d also seen how bad my OCD could get when the guys had started putting boxes in whatever room they wanted to, totally ignoring the room marked on them. I hadn’t lost it when I’d discovered it, but it didn’t take a genius to see the immediate anxiety that had hit me when I had. Being the great people that they were, after that they’d made sure they all went in the right place. For a moment, old insecurities about it had hit me, but the Townsends had glossed over it like it wasn’t a big deal. Moving was hard for someone who liked everything in the right place, so them reacting like they had meant more to me than I could put into words.
And with that in mind, I decided not to be rude and say no. “Actually, you’re right – I need a night out with the girls. I’ve already unpacked my clothes and shoes,” and they were all organized perfectly in my walk-in, I didn’t add, “so let’s do it.”
I had two nights to unpack after work before it happened which meant I’d only have about five boxes of books left to unpack on Sunday. I’d deliberately left my books until last because it always took me a while to organize them. I was still undecided if I wanted to put them in the bookcases in alphabetical order based on the author or the title, or if I wanted them done by color. My bookcases were white and split into square boxes, so organizing them by color would look awesome. Then again, organizing them alphabetically was what I was used to for them, whereas color was what I used in my wardrobe… it was a tough choice.
While I’d been musing through this dilemma, the girls had apparently been making more plans, because I heard Maya say, “Get da man plan.”
“Nah,” Ebru snorted, waving her hand. “That’s lame. We’ll think up something better.”
If I’d known they were talking about me, I probably would have thrown myself down the steps in front of my office to get out of it. Instead, I figured they’d been talking about someone else or even Layla, so I laughed with the rest of them.
Stupid books!
* * *
“Ok, ok,” Maya snickered, wobbling on her stool. “GYMP!”
Finishing off my drink, I lowered the glass back to the table with more force than I’d meant to. Damn Sex on the Beach cocktails were freaking fine!
“Who’s the gimp?” Layla slurred, reaching for the pitcher and frowning when she saw it was empty. In fact, all seven of them were empty. “Bar keep,” she called, waving her hand in the air and giggling when Ethan turned around and glared at her. “Yoo hoo, we need more of your wares.”
Rolling his eyes, he leaned over the bar to the guy who’d been making the drinks for us all night and said something as he gestured with his thumb at us. The guy – who was actually kind of hot – burst out laughing and nodded, before moving off to do something that hopefully involved more cocktails.
Slowly – or that could have been the alcohol giving the world a Matrix style vibe – Ethan turned back and walked over to where we were, coming to a stop right behind my stool.
“If you cause any damage to my property or get on the karaoke machine,” he aimed this at Tabby, the sheriff’s wife who had the most beautiful pink hair, “you’re banned.”
Ignoring the hot owner of the club, Ebru cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Yo, Joe!” Before stopping and bursting out laughing. “Holy shit, that rhymes.”
All of us started laughing with her - probably harder than the situation warranted, but, ya know, alcohol - and I realized how happy I was that I hadn’t thrown myself down the steps and caused an injury that would have prevented me from enjoying tonight.
Remembering what she wanted, Ebru called out asking for more cherries for our glasses and if we could have more shots, too. That’s how the mess had started when we’d first entered Sheeve’s. We’d looked at the cocktail menu, decided on shots but seeing as how we all wanted different ones we’d done them in waves. By that I mean, we’d all had choice number one, then the next round was the next person’s choice and so on. After that, we’d wobbled to a table, sat down, and stuck to our pitchers of Sex on the Beach.
Big hands landing on my shoulders distracted me from the discussion on which shot we should have, and I tipped my head back on my shoulders so that I was looking at the owner of the hands upside down. Because of that and the alcohol consumption, it took a moment for me to recognize the owner of them.
Grinning widely, I greeted, “Hey!”
I think Ethan’s mouth smiled back, but it could have been a frown. Alcohol and understanding upside down directions were apparently incompatible. “Hey, Katy. How’s your brother?”
My brother…
I had two of them and I hadn’t even thought about them tonight, so again it took time for me to figure out what he was asking. Initially it was a question of – I have a brother? Then it went to – oh my god, I have two brothers! How awesome is that? That was quickly followed by – aw man, I love my brothers.
Finally, it ended on – “I have two brothers who are the bombdiggidy. I mean, they were mean when we were little and cut bangs on me that started here,” I put my hand halfway across the top of my head to show how far back they went, “and were like this,” I moved it up and down like a wave because what they’d done looked just like that. “Then they got Mom’s hairspray and spr
ayed it so it stuck up like this,” I lifted my hand up into the air, high above my head, still making a wave like motion with it. “And then Jonny Dobson dumped me the next day because he said I looked like a donkey.”
I faintly acknowledged the fact his shoulders were shaking, but that could just have been me shaking with the movement my hand was still making until I dropped it just then.
Looking away from him, I muttered, “It was a shame because I was really into Jonny Dobson, he was seriously hot. Hey, do you know Jonny? I need to show him my new bangs so he doesn’t think I look like a donkey now.”
That was a genius idea.
Shaking his head, he replied in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled for some reason. “No, I don’t know Jonny, but that sounds like it sucked. How old were you?”
“Totally broke my heart, bruh,” I sighed. “I was seven, but you never get over heart break. I learned a lesson from it, though, so now I make sure no donkey has wonky bangs, and if they do I trim ‘em in straight line and feather them a bit. Nothing worse than wonky donkey bangs.”
His head disappeared from his shoulders - which was the coolest and freakiest trick I’d ever seen - and the sound of his laughter drowned out the voices around me. When it reappeared, his face was bright red and he was wiping under his eyes. “I was talking about your brother Major.”
A flood of love hit me hearing my brother’s name. “I love Major,” I breathed, trying to figure his face out. He had eyes on his chin and a mouth on his forehead, and even when I closed one eye to check his nose was upside down. “He’s like the best big brother in the world. I’ve got another one called Ammon and a sister called Aura, you know?”
“That I did know.”
“Hey, Katy,” one of the girls called, and I remembered where I was. “We’ve got slippery nipples.”
Talk Flirty To Me: Cheap Thrills Series Book 4 Page 2