To me, black shirts over blue jeans feels great, especially with grease on the denim.
Productivity.
Problem solving.
Hard work.
I kept the age-old tradition of sewn-on name tags. Always liked them.
And right now, by the look on Lexi’s face, she’s surprised but not in a good way.
Makes me wish I hasn’t said that. No, that’s not fucking true. It makes me wish I’d thought before I said it to prepare myself for what a girl like her would think.
It was predictable.
I should’ve been ready.
Instead of this disappointed.
Would’ve been the same answer.
What’s done is done.
Chapter Eight
GAGE
I grab my keys, toss and catch them, and stroll over, twist to unlock my deadbolt. “After you.”
She’s nibbling her lips, gaze cast down in thought.
I caught the last name — Cocker, when Wyatt said it. I’d heard it before of course, though I felt no impact save for recognition. Celebrity doesn’t sway me in any direction. I judge people by actions. Not title. Not status.
Those can be bought and paid for.
Lexi seemed to me not stuck up at all, so what did I care? She was fun, easy going. Crazy, sure, but in a good way.
What was she expecting I did for a living? From the confused and unimpressed look on her face, something higher up the chain.
But that guy Brad didn’t seem too impressive. I’d think for a girl like her — if having the name she has impacts her choices since its attached to a star quarterback, high-profile politicians, and a rockstar millions pay good money to see perform live — she’d have chosen someone a little more…interesting than him.
But what do I know?
As we walk to the Bronco, its shine dulled by a thin layer of yellow pollen, Lexi walks ahead of me, flirtatious sway in her hips gone.
Signed up for one night.
That’s what I got.
That’s what I gave.
She’s in love with someone else.
And I’m a mechanic.
My eyebrows twitch as Lexi reaches for my truck’s passenger door handle, then falters and drops her hand to wait. This small action bugs the shit out of me. Last night she waited, like she deserved to, but now there’s hesitation?
I don’t think it’s anything about her not deserving it now — I think it’s about me deserving it. Like in her mind I’m somehow lower and she doesn’t want to insult me more by ‘serving her’ like a peasant, rather than the courtesy and show of respect it normally is.
We lock eyes as I reach to open the door.
Long time ago…
When was she a dancer?
Still got the grace, grabbing the bar and climbing into the high bucket seat, facing forward for me to close her door.
She jumps as I slam it.
I wince, because I didn’t mean to do that.
Walking around the hood, I cut a glance through my windshield, find her frowning at me. Shaking my head I focus on my quiet street, a man mowing his lawn three houses over, finches landing on a dogwood tree just ahead.
Pretty day. Shame.
Hopping in the driver’s seat, door shut with zero aggression even though it’s a struggle, I ask, “Where am I taking you?” and hit the ignition.
“My house?”
“As if I’d call you a car.”
Confusion is in her quiet, “I didn’t think that you would.”
“Where is it?”
“Huff Road, West Midtown.”
I back the truck up. “Off Howell Mill?”
“Yes.”
We don’t say anything for a bad ten minutes, not until after we’re crossed I-75/85 and taken a right. “Always lived in this neighborhood?”
“No…I was raised in yours.”
I remember with a frown, “That’s right.”
“After that I got a place here with my sister and cousin. You saw them last night.”
From memory I can’t make a direct connection, one blonde and one brunette. “Which was your sister?”
Lexi tells me the blonde with brown eyes is Sam, and that they inherited opposite traits from both of their parents — Mom with brown eyes with red, curly hair. Dad, blonde hair, green eyes, though much lighter green than Lexi’s. “Kinda like yours but less yellow.”
“I’ve got yellow in mine?”
“Yours are the color of a crocodile. His are sea-foam green.”
“Huh.” Never heard that description before, but I can get on board.
She continues, and I soon discover the cousin is the brunette, Zoe, and she’s the sister of the two guys I didn’t really meet. There’s real pride in Lexi’s expression as she tells me their professions — a fireman and a cop hailing from the same immediate family. Heroes.
We drive past busy coffee shops and boutique stores closed until eleven, since it’s Sunday. “I’m familiar with your family, but their names didn’t ring any bells last night.”
Lexi and I look at each other at the same time, and I return to driving.
“They’re not the famous ones, if that’s what you mean.”
“I wasn’t meaning anything. Just explaining why I needed the explanation of who they were.”
“Turn left up here.”
I mutter, “Oh you mean where it says, Huff Road?”
As if just figuring out the key to me and all of my secrets. Lexi announces, “You don’t like not knowing things!”
I shift my weight, switch hands on the wheel. “I don’t know a single guy who doesn’t wanna know everything.”
As we stop at the light, sunbeams bouncing off the silver glass of a modern furniture store to our left, Lexi wiggles in the seat, proud of herself, “Yeah, I’ve got a lot of men in my life, thank you very much,” relaxing for the first time since climbing in, “but I can tell that you, Gage, even more than them, don’t like not knowing things!”
It’s amusing she’s so entertained by this. I consider it one of my failings, so there’s a smile behind my, “I know a lot of things.”
“Well you must have to, with a fear like that.”
I chuckle, “I don’t have any fear,” turning my wheel as the light goes green, “It’s not a fear.”
“Not a fear like I’m-afraid-of-spiders fear, but it’s a fear!”
I shake my head, unwilling to argue with her.
I’ve
