“Ah, my darling,” the boss’s voice softened like that of a grandparent with his favorite granddaughter, “there you are. I didn’t see you hiding back there. I will take my leave then.” Garrick knew Maddie had her own set of keys. “Do not stay too late.”
“I think we’ll be right behind you,” Maddie replied with a chuckle. “Bye.”
Garrick threw in a “Have a good evening,” too, and Mr. Corsini waved as he let himself out through the front.
Maddie wiped her face with a white towel and then shoved the end into a back pocket. “What do you say, G?” She reached toward the ceiling, stretching her back and arms. “You ready to call it quits for tonight?”
“Sounds like a plan. I just finished the rims.” He jerked his head toward the wall. “So it’s a good stopping point.”
Maddie came around the car and squatted in front of Garrick’s work. “Wow.” She didn’t touch, but she ran her fingers over the air in front of one of the rims, as if she could feel its new smooth texture. “They look fantastic.” As she stood back up, she whistled. “My brother has no idea how lucky he is that you came across this junker, and that you know so much about the details that are going to make it a perfect mirror of the original.” She glanced at him and held his stare. “I really appreciate your help.”
Discomfort warmed the back of Garrick’s neck. “It’s not like I’m doing it for free.” He would have, but Maddie wouldn’t hear of it. After they were finished restoring the vehicle, and Devlin purchased it, Maddie intended to force Garrick to take a cut of the commission, as well give a piece to Mr. Corsini for allowing them the garage space to work. “Besides, it’s not such a big deal for a car junkie like me to have some knowledge about certain classic muscle cars. It’s nothing.”
She sent an eye roll his way that would have made Garrick’s own little sister proud. “Take the compliment, G. And my appreciation.”
Garrick just slipped his hands into his coverall pockets and dipped his head.
“Okay, fine.” She threw her hands in the air. “If you won’t take my thanks, how about taking me up on a meal instead?” As Maddie talked, she peeled off her coveralls and revealed a pale blue T-shirt and mile-long, tan legs in skimpy cut-off shorts. “I’m starving. My brother has a date tonight so I’m going home to a sad, tasteless microwave dinner unless you come with me and make it worth ordering a couple of pizzas. What do you say? Watch a baseball game together? The TV is high def,” she enticed with a sing-song tone, “and honking big too.”
Devlin has a date? A noise kept buzzing in Garrick’s ears, so he figured Maddie continued to speak, but he couldn’t process anything past her throwaway comment that her brother had a date tonight. If Devlin has a date, maybe he has a boyfriend too. Garrick froze against the emotional blow; it felt as if someone ran a blade right through his stomach and ripped out his guts.
“Garrick?” Maddie jabbed him in the arm. “What do you say?”
“Um, yeah, sure,” he answered, his mind still conjuring images of Devlin eating with, laughing with, confiding in, kissing and fucking--he’s mine!--another man.
“Great!” Maddie’s jubilant tone snapped Garrick out of the nightmare looping in his mind. “Get those coveralls off so we can get out of here.”
Great. Wait. What great? What question did I just answer?
Maddie jogged to the back door, slid the double bolts home, and started throwing the light switches. “Come on. Get crackin’ on those coveralls. You can wash up at my apartment.”
Her voice got him moving, even though he could think of little else except Devlin falling in love and giving his body to someone else.
What did you think would happen when you crushed his heart all those years ago, you asshole? That he would hide his perfection away from the world and wait for you to come back to him?
Intellectually, Garrick knew Devlin had probably been with any number of men in the time since their weekend in San Francisco. Knowing that in his head, though, abstractly, didn’t soften the reality of hearing that the man he’d thought about every night for five years straight might very well be involved with someone else.
Maddie pulled a curtain on a rod around the Trans Am, blocking the controlled mess of their workspace from the rest of the garage. He followed her in silence, out of the building to his own truck, and kept an eye on her vehicle as they made their way back to town.
All the while, Garrick raged at himself inside. He couldn’t be Gradyn, but he wanted Devlin to be faithful to that person he used to be. He needed Garrick to be a whole new person, with no ties to Gradyn’s past, yet he’d run to Redemption, knowing full well that Devlin lived here.
Garrick had prayed, prayed, and prayed some more that Devlin would not recognize him as that man he’d spent two scant days with so long ago; his life could depend on it. Yet something in his soul had wept and swelled yesterday when it appeared Devlin had so immediately connected the two.
Now here Garrick was driving toward where the man lived with his sister.
Good Christ. I’m such an idiot.
Garrick had not clearly thought through relocating to Redemption. In hindsight, it was simply flat-out the dumbest move he had ever made in his life. Then again, in fairness to him, when he’d made it, he’d still had blood on his hands from killing a man.
That tended to scramble ones’ ability to make rational decisions.
* * * *
Maddie paused with her key in the lock. “Huh. That’s weird.”
Years of cautious living had Garrick pushing away from the hallway wall and scanning the empty, florescent-lit walkway. “What’s weird?”
“The bolt isn’t locked.” She pulled a
