Still red in the face, with blubbery cheeks wheezing, the man faced his savior.
“What, what the hell are you doing here? Get away from me!”
The scorn in his voice told Will it was past time to leave. He might be a jerk, but he wasn’t so inhumane to let someone die. Even a Churchston asshole who hated his guts. A bitter scoff tickled at the back of his throat. Who was he kidding? He was no lifesaver. He had let his best friend die.
“He saved your life!” The blonde seemed surprised at the lack of gratitude and Will guessed she was a vacationer, not privy to why he was the chosen black sheep of town.
“What? No. No, he likes to watch ‘em die.” The man straightened, clearing his throat. “Don’t you boy? You couldn’t stand to see him better than you.”
Will had had enough. No one on Earth could understand the raw pain he lived through every day, the ache of the failure when he hadn’t been able to save the one person in the world who had meant something to him. With no energy to defend himself, he let people crowd around him to get close to see the action.
“Where’s the lifeguard?” The man’s wife fussed as she wiped her husband’s sweaty hair from his forehead. “Maybe you should go to the hospital.”
“I don’t need no damn lifeguard.”
Will dunked his hands in the water. Since he had shaved and cut his hair, he felt even more exposed. He wiped at his hoodie in an attempt to chase the man’s sweat off and the crowd parted for one of Churchston’s officers. Fred marshalled forward with a blank expression of authority, followed by a lifeguard clad in the tiniest bathing suit possible.
“What’s going on here?” Fred asked.
“My husband was drowning.”
He nodded to the woman and smoothed his mustache, then directed his deep monotone to the blonde. “Why wasn’t this called in to dispatch?”
Will met her gaze as he caught her staring at him. That damn Braves hat. I know I’ve seen it before.
She faced Fred, her concentration on Will seeming to delay her realization that the cop was holding her accountable. “What are you looking at me for? I work for Burns. And for the last damn time, he was choking, not drowning!”
Fred acknowledged the lifeguard next to him. “Where the hell were you?”
She flipped her hair, then scratched at her nose. “Out here.”
“Why didn’t you see him?” Fred cast a brief eye over the choking victim.
“There are a lot of people out here, okay?” The lifeguard sneered at Fred. “I can’t watch all of them.”
“You couldn’t see a group of people in a crowd and a lunatic screaming ‘he’s drowning’?” the blonde said.
“Lunatic? I’m not a lunatic.” The man’s wife reddened deeper than her sunburn.
“What, you think you can do my job better than I can? You ugly little bitch—” The lifeguard clenched her jaw as the blonde walked off without a glance back. Junior trailed away with her, his face turning back and forth between the blonde and the lifeguard, his attention bouncing to and fro like a tennis match spectator.
“I don’t think you even know how to do your job.” The blonde backpedaled for the kayak hut. “To lifeguard means to guard life, right? What the hell were you looking at if you could miss so much commotion?”
“I don’t need some two-bit bitch telling me how to do my job! You think you’re better than me? Huh?” The lifeguard fisted her hands and chased after the kayak employees. Before her hair could be yanked back, the blonde ducked down and the lifeguard stumbled into Junior.
“For crying out loud…” Fred trotted forward to restrain the lifeguard. “Kendra, take it easy. I’ll need to report this to your supervisor. Break it up, everyone. Show’s over.”
Besides lingering glares at Will, people started to scamper off. With the almost catfight anticipation in the atmosphere, they had completely forgotten his presence. He was thankful for the easy distraction as he headed to the garage to finish past-due jobs.
Chapter 6
Late in the afternoon, Clay came back to the garage with sand on his knees, lip balm on his neck, and a cocky smugness in his eyes. Miracle his dick wasn’t sprung out like a flagpole, too.
“Where the hell have you been?” Metallica roared on the radio as Will slammed drawers shut. He might not be in touch with society, but it didn’t mean he didn’t see. He might not care about the functions and events of the real normal world surrounding him, but like the man choking on the beach, it was natural instinct to want to know what was going on.
First his mechanic had gone to flirt with the blonde at the kayak booth. Then he had walked over to play with the lifeguards. All was fun and grand in the world of Clay. Will saw it all. The whole world could testify Clay was a player. It wasn’t any business of Will’s who he slept with, but it was his concern it took Clay an hour to return. Especially when the pastor’s wife wanted her car back pronto. Customers waiting for their vehicles put him in the position to handle small talk. He didn’t do small talk. He didn’t even do talk anymore.
“Lunch break.” Clay rolled his eyes at Will as he passed and went to the workbench for his shirt.
“The lady for the Prius came back. Her AC should have been done a half hour ago. Some crazy bitch keeps calling for you on line two. And I need to get this engine in the Ram before the man comes back at four.”
Clay sighed and nodded like a sullen teenager. Will remembered when he would smile and goof off with him, when there wasn’t constant nagging and tension and annoyance. He could remember the way a lot of things used to be. He didn’t have time for memories and had no regrets but one. He should have died instead of Matt.
Ever since he had bought the garage right out of tech college, they had always worked together, really Clay for Will, but they were a team. Partners almost, if he could have ever trusted Clay with numbers. Frankly, he had thought then and still thought now—Clay didn’t want the responsibility of being a partner.
“I’ll do the AC then I’ll help with the Ram.”
Will slammed another drawer of sockets shut in the cabinet and went off to resume working. “I just finished the AC.”
“Why the fuck did you bother telling me about it then?”
Clenching his jaw, Will went into the next bay for an oil change. Simple, stupid, fast. Then he’d take a break. Sighing in the muggy air of his garage, he wiped the sweat off his forehead and winced in pain. His damn scar was going stiff on him again. And his knee. Worse because of the anatomy-literate bimbo needing his help to free the hot dog from fatso.
Some days he could take the pain, others, he barely got by. Last thing he needed was Clay acting like a punk when he was hurting so badly. But Will knew he didn’t matter in the world and the world didn’t matter to him anymore either.
He was overdoing it. If he followed up with VA docs, they’d pump him with drugs, tell him he’s drinking too much, he’s being too hard on his body.
It was all he could do. There was the bodily pain. The nerve-stinging stiffness in his knee which sometimes it took an hour in the morning to break it in. Not often, but sometimes. He didn’t limp. He didn’t break his gait or stride. The runs. The weights. He couldn’t stop, and he wouldn’t. Breaking his body was all that kept him going. If he stopped pushing, he would break his promise to Matt. He had already let him down so much.
Clay dropped something in the other bay and Will barely flinched. Ozzy on the radio smoothed the corruption before the sound frayed his nerves and whatever calm he thought he had.
Maybe he’d go for a run at night. He’d pay in pain the next morning, but it would soothe him. Dull the other harsher pain of missing his best friend.
“Will. The woman for the Prius is here,” Clay called out.
“Then give it to her.” His answering yell was toneless.
Will had stopped caring about the little details. How much money he was making. Even before hell broke loose, before Matt died, before his injuries, Will had never worried about
his garage. As far as he was concerned, cars weren’t a fad and there would always be a demand for repairs. If he was making less money than he potentially could, it didn’t make him lose sleep.
Sleep was already a joke. He couldn’t bring himself to drink like his dad, all the while knowing sleep would be easier and without nightmares if he took to the bottle more often. It’s what he pushed his body for. Maybe one day he’d push his body too far and that’d be the end of it.
Will didn’t bother with such thoughts. He tried to survive the day. The absences were hardest to acclimate to. No more Matt to go for a ride with. No more enemies trying to blow your head off. No more looking for bombs. No more making plans. No more relaxing. Real world after the war had been harsh for him.
After Clay left without a good-bye, Will closed down the garage to go home. He stopped at the stoplight in front of Elmer’s bar and considered it a moment. Lights flashed from the TVs inside and he felt the tension in his chest. Too much noise, too many people, too many lights. He swallowed and waited for the light to change.
As he wound his way to the lake, he passed the Burns’ property and saw the blonde picking the kayaks up. Probably the last run of the day for her. At home he saw smoke coming from behind the townhouse duplex. Clay was cooking out again. On cue, Will’s stomach growled and a faint memory of past cookouts with his friends almost itched into his mind before he shut it out.
Exhausted, he slumped on the couch and ran his hands over his face as the answering machine played. A message from the VA doctor for a missed follow-up appointment for his knee. Some ditz from the bank. Randy had called a couple times. A couple hang-ups which he guessed were Randy’s as well. Then a couple clients about engine rebuilds.
The bank and Randy. It couldn’t be a coincidence. He had more money than he knew what to do with. Since he’d returned to Churchston, Randy did his bookwork for him. But Will never told Randy about the savings account. How his best friend had made him the sole recipient in his will. How before Will left him to die, Matt had decided to give him the townhouse and adjacent stone lodging. Never saw any reason for anyone to know.
Before he could stop it, he was asleep and drowning in nightmares.
He dreaded waking up, the sun harsh on his eyes from fitful sleep, knowing he had to make it through another day. First thoughts ran with remembering where he was, in the territory of enemies or the base. Then he’d recall he wasn’t in the service anymore. He gave up trying to find a reason to get up, but the training ingrained in him and the memory of his friend forced him to stand and work movement into his knee.
In the morning, Will ran hard on the beach, the humidity sending rivulets of sweat streaming down his skin under the hoodie. His knee was unforgiving and he thought of the VA doctors. Grunting a moment, he focused on his labored breathing and the lapping waves on the lake.
The garage was supposed to be closed on Sundays. Since the prospect of going home with nothing to do but avoid thinking and feeling, Will came in to the garage to keep his hands busy. To put shit away Clay never would. Clean up spills. Mop his office. Organize the workbench. With the radio blaring, it was as close to peace as he could get. Not as soothing as running, but it was better than being at the stone house. The house wasn’t home. Matt had been. Now he had nowhere and no one.
Between his knee and the mess Clay had left in the garage, Will was in a sour mood. His thoughts ran between the war, Matt, responsibility, and alcohol. He had half a bottle of rum at home but then the memories of his father came fast. And remembering his father reminded him of his mother. So when Randy came knocking on the windows on the garage door of bay three, Will was pissed.
“Hey.” He opened the door reluctantly for his old friend. Will was no one’s friend anymore. It was his own fault. Randy used to be cheerful and relaxed and always responsible. He still was responsible, and that’s why Will suspected he had an argument coming.
“Long time no see.” Randy was dressed down in jeans and a polo shirt, probably not showing any houses today.
Will resumed sweeping up broken glass from a windshield Clay had replaced.
“How’s it going?” Randy’s question was an awkward one. As far back as Will could remember, Randy had been borderline shy. Will was sure it was the Downs’ influence. The prestigious pampered precious family of Churchston. Matt’s family. Will cringed. He gave a blunt raise of his eyebrows to Randy.
“Stupid question. Right.” Randy leaned his hip on the workbench stool. “Your leg doing okay? Still running, I see.”
“It’s doing as well as it ever will.” Will wished he could snap out of it. He was a jerk and Randy most likely had good intentions. But Will was sick of everyone’s good intentions. Not many people even cared about him.
His father had been a neglecting drunk when he hadn’t been an abusive one. Hardly a father. His mother had left before his first birthday. In a lifetime of hardening and shutting down, there wasn’t a long list of people he considered close.
The problem with other people’s good intentions was he had to live up to them, he had to meet and exceed these well-caring people, please them he was doing okay because he’d only be an asshole to let them down and have them burdening their heads with worrying about him. He had never been skilled at meeting people’s expectations and he had lost the desire to try before he hit puberty.
The two men endured a long uncomfortable silence as the Black Keys blared from the radio. In a perverse way, Will hoped he could cram enough decibels in his head so he really would go deaf sooner than later. His strategy would save him the heart-pounding adrenaline rush of jumping at every sound which resembled a bomb detonating.
Randy scoffed, the lack of communication too tense to ignore. “Jerome Larkey said he saw you trying to jump off the bridge again. Looks like you’re back on the suicide story.”
“Uh huh.” Will inhaled deeply. The stupid shit people wanted to believe. To fill the gaps when gossip ran low, they switched from his tragic hero image to the troubled suicidal veteran. Jump a bridge? He had been a fucking Marine. And the water was only five feet below the damn road. It’d be more like a nice soak on a hot day than a personal termination.
Randy stood, then paced some, clearing his throat like a lifelong smoker. “Guess this brings us to the last thing I can say. I called a few times.”
Will passed him to dump the dustpan of shards, his face still devoid of emotion.
“I’m worried about the garage. It’s going under.”
Will crossed his arms and leaned against the workbench. He waited for the lecture to take its course.
“Bills are getting paid, but not for long. You might need to advertise or cut down on services, or…”
“Or?”
“Or not be an asshole to everyone who comes in here!” Randy lost his temper, something not easily achieved. “Mrs. Ronaldson was livid at the diner. Said you barely listened to her and called her stupid.”
Lack of parental units had left Will empty-handed for manners and grace for most of his life. The Marines, however, had turned the rowdy bad-boy into a man. He gave Randy the expression of bored skepticism.
“And if you didn’t say the words, you implied it.”
“You try explaining the difference between a carburetor and a piston to a pastor’s wife.”
“You can’t blow off customer service. You have a service business. You can be an ass to everyone in the world, but you have to pretend to be nice if you don’t want to go bankrupt.”
Will twitched his mouth. “Don’t tell me how to run my business,” he finally said. “Do the books. I don’t care.”
“You don’t care.” Randy swore under his breath and resumed his nervous pacing. He had never been one for confrontations. “You don’t care about anything.”
Randy wouldn’t understand. No one would. Will grabbed his thermos and got ready to leave. The clock told him it wasn’t even noon yet. He’d have a whole damn day of nothing. Another run? He didn’t know i
f he could test his knee.
“There you go. Walk away. Can’t face your problems. Don’t want to hear it.”
Will spun back and grabbed Randy’s shirt at the neck. “Don’t.” He was provoked, but he had nothing to add. He released the shirt and stormed off, hoping the garage locked behind him.
In his truck, he sped faster than he should have in town, daring, daring the dipshit cop Eric to pull him over. He was spoiling for a fight, the temper coursing his blood, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. When he came onto the road home, his gaze pulled to the duplex which had once been his and Matt’s home. The sight on the porch chilled his blood at the same time it boiled his body.
Chapter 7
“What the fuck.” Will worked his jaw as a woman took a sledgehammer to the wooden rail. Matt’s rail. The first woodwork he had ever done. Back in senior year, both of them had been ambitious and eager to take on the world. Matt in a carpentry shop. Will in his garage. Big dreams that had died too young. He slammed on the brakes, then drove up to the porch and ripped his truck door open.
“What the hell are you doing?” His yell was unheard over the music blasting from speakers. Why ask, when it was obvious? Clay pissed off the wrong woman. Again. And she was taking it out on the porch. Damn idiot.
He reached the steps before she swung and he pulled the sledgehammer from her hands. Her lips parted in an ‘O’. It didn’t take her long to react. First she narrowed her eyes. Then she shoved him and he fell. While he was down, she took the sledgehammer back, turned the radio down a little, then stood back.
Her Braves hat had fallen to the ground in the brief struggle.
It was the kayak girl. The little beach blondie. Blue, no, green, wait, blue-green eyes. High cheeks. Mussed hair. Will couldn’t stop staring. Sleek arms, her breasts heaving from rapid breathing under a little tank top, her hips, her legs, and legs and legs. He shut his mouth and squinted a closer look.
Better Than the Best Page 5