Better Than the Best

by Amabel Daniels

  “Why are you still here then?”

  “Short-term memory loss? You demanded I help you.”

  “Clay is supposed to be working now.” He was quick to avoid her eyes.

  “Yeah, well he seems preoccupied. He asked me to give you a hand. The faster he’s done here, the faster we can go home.”

  “Still trying for a place in his bed?” He couldn’t help asking, could he? Kelly bit on her lower lip, tired of the assumptions that she was hooking up with Clay.

  “No. A place in my own bed. The weasel asked me to take him home to avoid confronting Medusa. And now since she caught up to him, looks like I’ll be waiting to go home as well.”

  Will fumbled with the air conditioner.

  “I don’t know what’s worse. He’s trying to coo and baby her so he’ll still have the option of sleeping with her again or she’s so berserk over a one-night stand that she should have known better than to believe a word he said.” Kelly shook her foot from the awkward position of standing tiptoe for so long.

  Will glanced at the couple bickering. “She’s a woman. They’re all crazy.”

  Kelly narrowed her eyes. “Not all women are crazy.”

  “Every one of them. Emotional and not worth a damn.”

  She kicked his shin.

  “Son of a bitch!” Will dropped the wrench to the ground and worked his jaw. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “What’s wrong?” She tapped her foot, still holding the stupid harness above her head.

  “You just fucking kicked me for no reason.”

  “Don’t swear. You’re not in the Marines anymore. You going to finish this or what?” She shook the harness in her hands.

  “Can’t take the Marines out of ‘em.” He rubbed his knee as he moved to stand.

  “It’s vulgar.”

  “See, you’re crazy too. You kicked me for no reason.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be finishing something up there?” She nodded her head to the car above as he paused in his ascent. She cleared her throat at his blunt glare. “And I’m not crazy. I was proving you wrong.”

  “About?”

  “Your stereotype. Why didn’t you want me to kick you?”

  He grit his teeth as he stood straight. “Because it fucking hurt.”

  “Hurt? You mean pain? Gee, sounds like a feeling to me.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “I’d bet with those charming welcoming smiles you’re sending my way you’re angry at me, too. Two emotions in one night.”

  “Try annoyed.”

  “Three. My, how you’re brimming with feelings. Guess our genders aren’t so different after all, landlord. You really are human.”

  Medusa and Clay were still yelling at each other. It had taken a while, but after Medusa screamed at him for ten minutes, he finally lost his cool, too.

  Blood drained in Kelly’s arms. “Are you almost done?”

  Will dropped the wrench as though her voice had startled him. “I would be if that woman would shut up.” He wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Why can’t he give up and tell her what she wants to hear so she’ll go away?” Kelly studied the pipes and pans and hardware above his head.

  He grunted in amusement.

  “What?”

  “Screw what she wants to hear him say. It’d be a lie one way or another. She should move on.” He twisted the wrench and his elbow chucked her in the chin.

  “I swear, the next time he brings home a lunatic I won’t feel sorry for him.” She felt his gaze on her as she followed the maze of parts above them.

  “Jealous?”

  “Of what? A one-night stand with something recycled ten times over?”

  “What are you, a virgin?”

  “No. I choose to not be stupid. One-night stands are pointless.”

  “How so?”

  She broke her absent-minded stare to watch him struggle to free something in his hands. It confused her they had carried on this much of a conversation.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “You’re saying sex is pointless?”

  Kelly watched his bicep bulge as he tried with a wrench. “No, a one-night stand is.”

  “Never had one?”

  “It’s nothing I want to repeat.”

  “You’re going celibate.”

  Kelly groaned. “One-night stands aren’t synonymous with sex in general.”

  “Sex. Copulation. Reproduction,” he said. “What’s the difference?”

  “There are differences,” she said.

  “You stick a dick in a vagina and there you go.”

  She bit her lips. He was mocking her and she laughed at herself. She expected the jerk to understand the concepts of loving someone versus scoring? She was a ninny after all.

  Medusa threw something at Clay. Will and Kelly both whipped their heads to the side at the commotion. By ducking his head lower, Will’s face was inches from hers. She held her breath.

  Up close for the first time, she studied him. The rugged face. His scowl. The weathered lines of hard work and sun. His nearly black hair still in a crew cut. Muscles. Hard, tanned skin. She averted her eyes to the ground. Heat soared through her body in waves, a warmth she hadn’t felt since before she met John.

  Whoa. “Why are you standing on one foot?”

  He gave a heavy pause before he answered. “Because.” He cleared his throat.

  “Where is the manager? The owner? Your boss?” Kelly looked around and pulled at her collar. “He lets you guys work late whenever you want? Couldn’t he get rid of Medusa?”

  Thinking back, she realized she had never seen anyone but Clay and Will work at the garage. She often delivered food fit for multiple people and she assumed it was for a few mechanics. And thinking even further back, she wondered who Clay’s boss was, the man who was stud competition before Matt died.

  “Medusa is Clay’s problem so he can handle it like a man,” he said.

  Her attention caught on the flex of his biceps again. Kelly frowned and focused to not stare. Or drool. If Clay’s voice was panty-wetting, Will’s was a premonition she should invest in a morning-after pill.

  “Come on, landlord, don’t kid. Clay’s not a man. He thinks he is. That and God’s gift to women.”

  He coughed. Not even the hint of a smile. He really was a robot. “Believe it or not, I have a name. Stop calling me ‘landlord’. It makes me feel like I’m Fred Mertz or something.”

  “You feel? Damn, Will, I thought you said only women have emotions.”

  He deadpanned.

  “Who owns this place?” she said.

  He let the air conditioner come down in his hands. Finally. He set it on the ground and exhaled tiredly before he reached up to take the harness from her. He shoved it into the myriad of parts.

  “I do.”

  “You?” She rubbed her arms.

  “Yeah.” He walked to the bench for a towel to wipe his hands. He ripped paper towels down to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  Him? He avoided her and busied himself with his work, going in and out of a little office. She wrangled her brain and tried to remember everything the guys had said. Will?

  So much for pegging Will as a common brainless mechanic.

  Clay came over sans Medusa. “Crazy bitch.”

  Kelly stood up. “Serves you right.”

  “Don’t bring your women here anymore,” Will said as he moved around them, putting tools away. “No more screaming whores. And I don’t want her tagging around here either.” He pointed at Kelly then opened his sub.

  “I delivered the food!”

  “Then don’t stick around after.” He opened a jar of pickles and put a few in the middle of the sub. “Find some other way to get into his bed.”

  “Pickles on a pizza sub?” To each his own, she figured. She crinkled her nose before his words hit.

  Clay was faster. “Fuck you. She’s not like that!”

  “I came to give him a ride!
”

  “She’s not like that?” Will smirked. “She’s just another woman. They’re all like that.”

  “Go to hell.” Kelly flipped him off.

  “Already there.”

  “You’re such an asshole. You used to be cool and now you’re an asshole.” Clay spoke as though he had acid in his mouth.

  Kelly had never seen Clay so peeved. After a few rounds with Medusa, though, she could be sympathetic.

  “I had to ask her for a ride home because you’re too twisted and pissed off at the universe to give me a ride when you live right next to us!”

  “You need a ride home because you don’t know when to keep your dick in your pants and your mouth shut,” Will said. He ate his sub as he went around shutting down lights.

  “Asshole!” Clay pounded his fist on the workbench. “You’re nothing but an asshole. Go on. Take a piss on your friends. Go to Elmer’s and drink like your dad. But don’t take it out on her!”

  “Soft on her already?” Will said without a flicker of emotion on his face. He glanced at Kelly. “You work fast.”

  “He’s a friend.”

  “Men and women aren’t friends. They fuck. What they’re made for.”

  “Well, it’s not what I’m made for,” Kelly said and went for her purse.

  “You’re frigid?” Will said.

  “No. I’m not another easy piece of ass.”

  “Leave her alone,” Clay warned Will.

  “Then what are you hanging around him for? Go on, Clay, have mercy on her and give her what she wants.”

  “He’s a friend,” Kelly crossed her arms, irritated at his jab. “When I let someone in my life for sexual pleasure, it will be to someone who matters. Someone to make love with me.”

  Will looked to the ceiling and scoffed. “There’s no such thing as love. It’s a myth. Can I lock up now?” At the door, he held his sub in one hand and his keys in the other.

  Kelly and Clay went for her car.

  “I’m sorry what he said,” Clay told her.

  “I’m not. It doesn’t matter to me. He’s angry and had to vent.”

  He turned to her as she drove, confusion and anger in his eyes.

  “It’s hard for me to walk away from an argument. Call it my weakness. I never know when to shut up.”

  He raised his brows.

  “Oh jeez, why should I care what he thinks? Stick and stones…”

  He had no answer. As she pulled up in the drive, he patted her thigh. “You’re right. I think you are the coolest neighbor I’ve ever had.”

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, Kelly tutored Junior to avoid the boredom of slow business at the kayak hut.

  “Like this.” She beckoned him to come at her. He reached for her arm and she spun him into a headlock. “No. You’re not twisting fast enough.” Since she had deflected not one but a few catfights, it seemed Junior had developed the exaggerated idea she was the expert of all kinds of martial arts.

  “I did!”

  “If you did, you wouldn’t be caught.” She squeezed her arm tighter to tease him, then released him. She waved him to try again.

  “How did you learn this?” Junior wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  “My brothers. They figured I should know how to defend myself. Finn was a boxer, so he taught me the basics. Wade got me into Judo. Grant took Maga classes with me. I played around with Tae Kwan Do. Good exercise. Sometimes people would get physical in the ER, so it paid off.” She blocked his arm and encouraged him to try again.

  Despite Will’s hostile attitude at the garage, Kelly couldn’t chase away her fascination with the man. “You were saying he got a medal?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said Will got the Medal of Honor?”

  Junior grunted when she slammed him down to the sand. “Yeah. Some kind of service award.”

  “Was he always an asshole?” She helped him up.

  “No, not really. I dunno. He was gruff, but always gave a hand when it was needed. He helped Dad one time. You mean people would threaten you? Like the guy who died and made you quit?” He readied to tackle her.

  Kelly sighed at the doubled conversation they were dancing through. He wanted to know how she knew self-defense. She wanted to learn more about Will.

  “The guy didn’t make me quit. I was already in a rough spot. I wasn’t cut for watching people suffer.”

  “But you said his daughter came after you.”

  She sighed. “After he died, she went hysterical. He’d disowned her years ago because she was a starving artist drug addict. When I contacted her, I had to coax her into seeing her dad, to give him a chance. And she did. They seemed to have mended their differences. After he died, she blamed me. Blamed me for contacting her. Blamed me for letting her think she had a future with him. Blamed me for not looking out for him.”

  She hadn’t realized she had stood still for a moment until he cleared his throat. “You didn’t kill him, Kelly. I mean, not deliberately.”

  She scoffed and waved him to come forward. “Yeah. That’s what they all say. But it doesn’t change the fact it’s on my conscience. Betsy gave him the heparin. I told her to check all his meds with me. I would have spotted the problem immediately if she had done it a minute earlier. It’s done now. Nothing I can do about it.” She spun him to the ground. “You have to duck more. Will helped your dad how?”

  Junior twitched his head to shake back his bangs. “Will was like ten, or something. Dad’s truck stalled coming in to town and his leg was in a cast. So Will pushed the truck to the garage.”

  She nodded. “Why does he—”

  “So she…” Junior slipped on the sand before he could grab her arm. On his back, he squinted at the sky. “So she tried to attack you and then she killed herself?”

  “She ambushed me in the parking lot. Landed in a psych ward. Last I ever heard of her. The LPN, Betsy, hung herself the same night. Couldn’t handle his death on her conscience. Come on, it’s getting too sunny out here. We’ll practice another time.” A customer approached the hut. “You want to get them a boat? I’ll grab your bag.”

  Junior trotted off to take care of business and Kelly lugged his backpack into the hut. He often studied when he worked the hut.

  “What the hell do you have in here?” She slapped it on the counter and peeked through.

  “I gotta prep for the entrance exam,” he said as Kelly riffled through the texts.

  She nodded. “Mechanical memorization and caffeine. Best advice I’ve got.”

  “I’m mostly nervous about the USMLE.”

  She smiled as she flipped through the pages of a familiar text. “It’s not bad if you study.”

  “You took the USMLE for your RN license? I thought it was for MD.”

  “It is for MD. I took Step 1 of the exam for the hell of it. Wondering if I wanted to do something more.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Ninety-eighth percentile. Only one person scored higher in my section.”

  Junior gave her an incredulous look of awe so she poked his side as a tickle. He wasn’t so bad to be around when she reminded him to give up hope. She was too old for him. Junior was like a kid brother with kindred career interests. Well, her former career, at least.

  He wrestled her away with a smile. “Holy shit!”

  She shrugged.

  “How can you stand working here?” Junior laughed. “It’s boring as hell. You’re like a genius! You don’t belong here.”

  “I don’t think I belong anywhere anymore, Junior.” She frowned at him. She hadn’t been fit to be a nurse, a wife. At least she was still a good daughter and sister.

  “Why don’t you go back to school?”

  “For what? I don’t want to watch people suffer and die. I can’t.”

  He shook his head. “You’re wasting your talent. You were like, awesome with Todd on the beach.”

  “Who the hell is Todd?”

  “The man who was choking
on the beach. You saved him. You were right there—”

  “Will saved him. I couldn’t get my arms around him.

  “You could be helping people.”

  She shook her head.

  He hurried to his bag and rifled through it. “Here.” He thrust out a flyer. “What about this?” It was an advertisement for a paramedic program.

  “I can’t handle it anymore—”

  “Think about it. You wouldn’t have to be there to save people. You would be there to stabilize them. I bet you could transfer your credits and bypass the technician program. Go straight in for paramedic.”

  She flicked the paper from his hand. He grinned. Not wanting to stomp on his good intentions, she gave in an inch. “It’s not a completely bad idea. Come on, let’s grab some Chinese at the end of town. I’m tired of eating subs.”

  Junior slapped the counter window shutter closed and she led him towards her car, her arm around his lanky shoulder.

  Since her Subaru wouldn’t start—dead battery, they deduced—Kelly took Burns’ truck instead. She’d be coming right back to the hut anyway.

  ***

  Checking her appearance in the grimy mirror, Emily nodded approval to herself. The wig’s shiny, ebony strands reminded her of when she had killed Mama—her first kill. She was only ten. Mama had been whoring then, and collecting extra revenue selling Emily as a plus. Sometimes she’d be the sidekick assistant.

  Never better than Mama, of course.

  Mama had presented the first steal that night. The man who paid fifty bucks for an orgasm from the whore and her ten-year-old daughter. He hadn’t even noticed when Mama didn’t come back in the room. Emily finished his blow job and left Mama’s body in the tub.

  Staring at the depth of her pupils in the mirror, Emily relived the details of stabbing Mama in the face, blood streaking through the black wig she had been wearing. Her first adult kill. Steal Number One.

  With a steady breath, Emily focused on the present.

  At Jared’s ice cream stand, she spoke in an accent as she ordered a drink from the clerk on duty, Allison. Emily took her drink to a bistro table on the patio in front of the stand and pretended to text on her phone, a prop while she eavesdropped and spied. Brent got in line and flirted with Allison’s coworker. He hadn’t even recognized Emily and she’d been sucking his cock every other day on the public beach. Emily gambled Allison wouldn’t even have recognized the single person who was listening to her. A perfect identity.