by A. K. Evans
“Are you suggesting that I’m unreasonable in my expectation that someone I don’t know shouldn’t be putting their hands on my things, especially my underwear?” I pressed.
His eyes left mine, ran the length of my body, and returned to my face. “It’s not like I peeled them off your body,” he retorted. “Fuck, I was just trying to do something nice. Evidently, I was wrong. I already apologized. I’m not sure what else you want me to say, but I’ll give you this. Thanks. Thank you for showing me it would have been a mistake.”
“What would have been a mistake?”
Shaking his head, he answered, “It doesn’t matter. You have a good night.”
With that, the man turned and walked out. I wasn’t too proud to admit I watched him walk away. It wasn’t until I could no longer see him that I moved to the folding table to get my clothes.
As I looked through them, I started to feel a twinge of guilt. Perhaps I might have had a slight overreaction.
Because even though I didn’t know who the man was, he’d obviously gone to great lengths to be kind to someone he didn’t know. Not only that, he hadn’t exactly left my delicates sitting out on the top of the pile for anyone to see.
Not liking the way I felt, I tried to remind myself that despite how handsome he was or how nice he’d been, it still didn’t give him the right to do what he did.
On that thought, I gathered my clothes up in my arms and walked out.
What the hell had I been thinking?
I must have been the biggest fool there was if I thought the woman I’d first approached just over an hour ago was meant to be anybody special in my life.
I wanted to laugh at myself for thinking that just because some unexplainable feeling came over me that she was the woman for me.
I had just felt such a strong pull toward her, something that wouldn’t be ignored. Shaking my head with disappointment as I drove back home, it started to sink in just how stupid it had been for me to make that assumption about her.
Damn.
She was beautiful, too.
I guess part of me could understand why she was bothered by my actions. She didn’t know me. Hell, she didn’t even know my name, and I’d technically had my hands on her panties. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t feel an appreciation for them and seriously consider what they’d look like on her nearly naked body, but it wasn’t like I’d been standing there like a creep sniffing them or anything. I was genuinely trying to be nice.
Worse yet, I had stuck around until she returned because I was hoping to be able to ask her out on a date. She was pretty, seemed a bit feisty, and I was too caught up in that feeling not to take that chance.
What a mistake that would have been.
I was surprised I managed to stick around in the laundromat as long as I did. I couldn’t even imagine being around her again for a prolonged period of time. She was far too uptight and entirely too nasty.
Nope.
Walking away was the right thing.
I was the kind of guy who could tolerate a lot. Most things didn’t bother me. But people who were downright rude or cruel were just one of those things I couldn’t overlook.
Even though there was a lingering feeling of disappointment about how it went down and the fact that I never even got her name, I had no doubt this was for the best.
So, I drove myself home and repeated those sentiments in my head.
Then I spent my weekend pouring my time into my house, something I knew I’d appreciate the effort of when it was completed. And I did it while trying not to think about the nameless woman who stirred something inside me at a laundromat on a Friday night.
It was time for a break.
I’d spent my entire Monday morning working on a project for a customer and had just finished it up. After moving some cars around in the shop and getting my next job set up in my workspace, I walked across the shop toward the office to grab some lunch.
Everything had been business as usual. In fact, for the last several weeks, things had been picking up in the shop. The guys and I were accustomed to this. The racing season always made things a little bit crazy for us. Every year we’d always get bombarded by projects that had varying degrees of difficultly and deadlines. Luckily, we’d gotten used to it over the years and have figured out how to manage it well. And now that we’d had Avery in the office for the last year or so, things were only running that much smoother.
No matter that we each had our own specific titles, if any one of us needed a helping hand in the shop, someone else would be more than happy to lend it. That was one of the things I loved about where I worked. I considered myself very fortunate to be working alongside the people I did. Not only were they all incredible at their jobs, but they also were some of the best people I’d ever met in my life.
Walking into the break room, I was surprised to find only Kieran and Ryker there.
“Hey guys,” I greeted them.
“What’s up?” Ryker returned.
“Where’s everyone else?” I wondered.
“Kendall showed up a little bit ago to go out with Logan, Knox, and Avery,” Kieran answered.
Lifting my chin in understanding as I moved toward the refrigerator to grab my food, I asked, “You mean Kendall and Avery didn’t pull Scarlet and Elise into the mix as well?”
Once I sat down, Kieran answered, “Elise is busy in meetings at Flynn Beauty all day. Hell, she’s been in them all week. There’s been so much she’s trying to restructure in the company since everything went down, so I try not to demand extra time from her during the workday.”
“That makes sense. What about Scarlet?”
Ryker replied, “Scarlet is on a self-imposed deadline right now. I’m lucky she stops writing when I get home from work.”
“You mean she’s not going crazy planning for the wedding?”
Ryker chuckled. “Oh, she is,” he insisted. “She just waits to do most of that until I’m around. It’s everything I can do to find ways to distract her from everything that’s stressing her out. Luckily, she’s nearly done with this book, and then she’s not writing another one until after the wedding.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Good luck. I can’t even imagine how stressful that must be.”
Ryker shot me a look of disbelief. Seeing it struck me as odd, so I slid my gaze to Kieran to find he was giving me a similar look.
“What?” I asked.
“You can’t be serious,” Kieran started. “You? Stressed? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you even remotely frustrated. Not even just in the moment when you’re working on something that’s being difficult.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. It was the way I’d always been. I just didn’t see any reason to get stressed out and worked up over anything I was working on. Not only did I not ever actually feel stress about it, but I also knew it would do little to help me complete whatever I was trying to accomplish. I’d seen it over and over again with the guys in the shop, especially with Ryker. Something would start causing a problem, and he’d get frustrated to the point he’d start throwing tools and swearing. Of course, that had improved drastically since he and Scarlet had gotten back together, but I always saw how much it hindered his performance when he went on a tirade.
It wasn’t worth it to me.
Cars were supposed to be fun. I got enjoyment out of working on them. If the day ever came that I no longer enjoyed what I was doing, I knew it would be time for me to move on.
“Why would I get upset about this stuff?” I asked. “At the end of the day, none of it really matters.”
Kieran gave me a look that told me he could completely understand where I was coming from, but it was Ryker who asked, “So, is there something that does get you upset?”
I didn’t know what I was thinking when my mind instantly went to my encounter at the laundromat. Maybe it was the fact that it was the most recent thing I’d dealt with that upset me. Regardless, I didn’t keep it to myself and mutter
ed, “You wouldn’t have wanted to see me on Friday night.”
Ryker cocked an eyebrow. “Friday night? Did you go out?” he pressed.
I shook my head. “Not exactly,” I answered. “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Kieran cut in. “If you’re telling us you got worked up about something on Friday night, and you’re the guy who never gets worked up, then it was definitely something.”
I sighed. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. It wasn’t that it bothered me to discuss anything with my friends, but I knew they would make more of this than there was.
Knowing that, I couldn’t understand why I asked, “How did you know?”
“What? How did we know what?” Ryker asked.
“When you met Scarlet,” I clarified before shifting my attention to Kieran. Then I continued, “Or when you met Elise. Did you know that she was the one for you? Or did that come with time?”
Ryker sat back and said, “I’m letting you take this one, Kieran. I talked to Scarlet for the first time on my sixteenth birthday. I’m not sure I had the capacity to decide at that time about the rest of my life. But I will say that I knew there was something about her that was different than every other teenage girl I knew, so that’s what drew me to her. That said, it didn’t take long for me to know I never wanted to live without her.”
“Elise and I locked gazes in the airport,” Kieran started. “There was this undeniable attraction between us. Within minutes of talking to her, I just knew it was her. All I’d had with her was that one flight, but I still told Ryker she was the one for me.”
I nodded my understanding.
“Why are you asking this?” Ryker questioned me. “What happened on Friday?”
“I met someone,” I said.
My friends’ eyes widened, and a smirk spread across Kieran’s face before he replied, “Nice. Where’d you meet her?”
“The laundromat.”
“The laundromat?” Ryker repeated. “That’s different.”
Shaking my head, trying not to laugh, I agreed, “Yeah. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as I had hoped. That’s why I was asking how you knew when you’d met the one.”
“Well, what happened that made you think you might have? And if you thought you had, why are you saying that things didn’t go as you had hoped? Did she turn you down? Was she married?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly,” I started. After taking a deep breath, I explained, “Since I’m renovating at the house and the laundry room is torn apart, I decided to go wash my clothes on Friday night. I wanted to spend the whole weekend working on the house, so I figured it was best to get the clothes dealt with ahead of time. Anyway, I was loading the washing machine and felt this strange vibe come over me. I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that it completely consumed me, and I couldn’t ignore it. When I turned around, I saw this woman standing over by the dryers. She was fighting with one of them—”
“She was fighting with a dryer?” Kieran cut me off.
Nodding, I confirmed, “Yes. So, I got the washing machine turned on and decided to see if I could help. As it turned out, the dryer door was stuck, she had to run what seemed like a pressing errand, and she was beyond frustrated. I offered to stay and attempt to open the dryer while she ran her errand.”
“Did you?” Ryker asked.
“Of course. The latch was just a bit out of alignment, causing it to get hung up,” I explained. “It didn’t take me that long, and I had everything put back together long before she returned. I even had time to run to the pizza shop a couple of doors down.”
“So, she came back and couldn’t find a way to thank you for all your help, right?” Kieran pressed.
I shook my head.
Confusion washed over both of my friends, so I figured it was best to elaborate. “She lost her mind because I’d taken her clothes out of the dryer and folded them for her,” I said.
“Are you serious?”
I nodded. “I thought I was being nice by folding them before they sat in the dryer too long and got wrinkled,” I began. “But apparently, when you fold the clothes of a woman who doesn’t know you, especially when that clothing includes undergarments, she doesn’t exactly take that lightly.”
“Yikes.”
I let out an audible sigh. “It’s such a shame.”
“Was she cute?” Kieran asked.
Cute? Cute was not the word I would have used to describe her. So I didn’t.
Shaking my head, I replied, “She was beautiful. But she was just plain nasty.”
In the silence that followed my declaration, I shrugged and sat back. “Oh well. I guess I got it all wrong, and that vibe I felt was a warning.”
“Sorry, man,” Ryker muttered. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
The guys and I continued eating our lunch and turned our conversation to work-related topics from that point forward. We all discussed our current projects and what was ahead for the next few weeks.
A little while later, Ryker’s phone rang. Picking it up off the table, he announced, “That’s Scarlet. I’m going to take this.”
“Yeah, I’m going to head back out and get to work,” I said, standing up and gathering my garbage to toss it before I walked out to head back out into the shop. Kieran did the same; only he went from the break room to the cleanroom.
Ten minutes later, I was preparing to take the wheels off the car I needed to start working on next. I’d put it on the lift, raised it, and started taking the lug nuts off. After I’d gotten the first wheel off, I moved to the other side to do the same. Once the lug nuts were off, I put my hands on either side of the tire.
Then, as I pulled it off, something tweaked in my back, unbearable pain shot through my body, and I collapsed. I yelled as it happened, but nobody was in the shop with me. Breathing deeply through the throbbing pain, I slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. Luckily, I hadn’t already taken it out and set it on my workbench.
Groaning, still in excruciating pain, I managed to pull up Kieran’s name and call him.
“Nash?” he answered.
“Fuck, Kieran,” I gritted out. “I need your help in the shop. I just fucked-up my back.”
“I’m coming.”
Though I was sure he didn’t waste any time getting out into the shop, it felt like hours had passed before Kieran was there. Ryker was with him.
“What happened?” they asked in unison.
“I can’t move,” I declared.
Their bodies froze, and I realized they thought it was the worst possible scenario. “I have feeling in my arms and legs; I just mean I can’t move. It’s my lower back.”
“Do you want us to try to help you up?” Ryker offered.
“Please,” I pleaded with them.
The guys crouched down on either side of me. With a lot of maneuvering and a bit of finesse, they managed to get my arms wrapped around their necks.
“Ready?” Ryker asked.
I swallowed, not sure what I was going to feel once they moved me. Even still, I knew I couldn’t remain on the floor forever.
“Yeah,” I finally answered.
Ryker and Kieran locked eyes as Kieran counted, “One, two, three.”
As they lifted me, I couldn’t stop myself from screaming in agony.
“Fuck, man,” Ryker muttered once they had me completely upright and were bearing all of my weight on their shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve never felt this much physical pain in my life,” I said.
“Ryker, can you brace for a bit more of his weight?” Kieran asked. “I have to shift a bit here to get my phone out. I’m going to call Logan and let him know that we’ve got to get him to the hospital.”
“I’m good,” Ryker confirmed.
If I hadn’t been in such excruciating pain, I would have interjected and said something. But I couldn’t. I was doing my best to avoid vomiting from the intensity of the pain I felt.
I continued to breathe.
“Hey, Logan. We have a problem,” Kieran started. There was a brief pause before he continued, “Nash just injured his back, and it took both Ryker and me to get him off the ground. I think he needs to go to the hospital.” The silence stretched much longer this time. Eventually, Kieran responded, “Does she think that’s the better option?” Silence again. “He’s standing and can feel all his extremities. He’s in a lot of pain.” Another pause. Then, he ended, “Right. I’ll let him know what Kendall recommends, and then I’m going to take him. Can you give them a call and let them know we’re coming? Ryker will hang here.” Silence again, then, “Later.”
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Kieran said, “Kendall suggested you go to a chiropractor.”
“Dude, I don’t give a fuck right now,” I replied, my voice strained. “Take me wherever they’re going to fix this.”
Kieran’s phone chimed, indicating he’d received a text.
“That’s Logan,” he said. “He sent over the name of the doctor Kendall recommended. Let’s get you in the truck.”
For the next few minutes, Ryker and Kieran helped me maneuver through the shop. I was moving so slow; I wasn’t sure we’d ever make it to the truck, let alone to the doctor. It was quite some time later when I was finally in the truck.
“You alright, man?” Kieran asked once he’d gotten in and pulled away from the shop.
“Fuck,” I cursed.
“Just hang tight,” he urged. “We’re only fifteen minutes away. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get right in.”
There was nothing left for me to do anyway, so I sat there and continued to breathe through the pain. My pain tolerance was high, but I’d never felt anything like this before in my life.
Thankfully, Kieran got me to the doctor in record time. It was a bit of a painful process to get out of the truck, and with each step I took toward the front door of the office, I thought I was going to fall to the ground again. There was no doubt in my mind that if Kieran hadn’t been taking the brunt of my weight, I would have fallen the minute I tried to stand up.