"Enjoy the show," I snipped.
She blew out a long plume of smoke. "I'm here as your cheerleader, not for entertainment."
I rolled my eyes.
My legs felt weird and shaky as I crossed the tarmac to the garage office, mood veering between rage and this nasty little shard of hurt that wouldn't stop stabbing. Darren Trent, trusted local mechanic, father of two. Foul-mouthed, arrogant, loyal, hardworking, infuriatingly stubborn, brooding, blunt, honest, hot …
… Gigolo.
Gigolo.
A fucking man-whore.
I still couldn't quite believe it.
I tried the handle, but it was locked. Impossible. No way would Darren close up on a Monday. And his truck was here, bold as brass. You couldn't miss the fucking thing.
I tried the handle again and it rattled but wouldn't budge. I pressed my face to the dirty window and peered inside and there was nobody, just an empty counter. I knocked. Nothing.
What the fuck?
I walked around the side to the main shutters, and my heart did a flip as I saw the sports car there. A red Porsche, the kind of car that screams money. I checked out the badge and the licence plate - expensive and new and definitely not from these parts. I took a step towards it, checked out the scarlet paintwork, peered inside to see a woman's jacket there, her makeup bag still open on the passenger seat. The shutter doors were down and bolted, the whole place closed up tight.
But Buck's estate car was in its usual spot.
I rapped the shutters, then pressed my ear to the metal.
Nothing.
I rapped again until they rattled and shook.
Nothing.
I stepped back, looked around, scoped out my options as my heart thumped. He was fucking. Of course he was. The woman from the Porsche.
I shouldn't care. Didn't want to care. But the girls …
The village …
I hammered on the shutters again and this time there was rage in it.
"Darren! I know you're in there! I need to talk to you!" Nothing. Not one fucking sign of life. I hammered again. "Darren! It's about the girls!"
A clank from inside, and I knew he'd heard me. I folded my arms, waiting for the doors to open, not truly ready to believe he was fucking some posh Porsche-driving bitch in there on a Monday morning, but of course he fucking was.
She strolled out as soon as they cranked up, ducking a salon-blonde head under the door with a lipstick-smudged smirk on her face. Her dress was crumpled and her hair was greasy, and she had a black smear across her insanely huge cleavage.
Her diamonds caught the light and twinkled, and her toned legs looked so tanned. Her lips were plumped, and her eyes were glazed and cock-hungry.
She looked me up and down as she passed, and her snarky smile told me everything. She'd weighed me up in an instant and found me lacking, and suddenly I felt plain and awkward, my fingers brushing at the butter stain on my top even though she'd already seen it, already seen the circles under my eyes from a night up with Ruby's night terrors, already seen the limp mousy hair that hadn't seen a bottle of dye in years and the eyebrows that drastically needed shaping.
She'd seen me, and she'd judged me. Signed me off as a plain Jane battering down her ex's door.
She shot a glance back towards the garage before she got into her car, blew a kiss and gave a big smile. "Till next time, boys."
And then there was Darren, half-clad in the same pair of tatty old overalls he'd been wearing since he'd opened this place, yanking down the plain black t-shirt he'd certainly just pulled on over his head. His arms were as toned as they'd ever been, the dark lines of his tattoos twisting up around his elbows, smeared with oil.
He barely even nodded in Porsche Bitch's direction, gave her nothing but the faintest hint of a grunt in farewell. His eyes were fixed on me, heavy with questions and that bristle of brusque he's so fucking good at.
"What's up?" he said as he strolled over. His eyes were so light and his hair was so dark. His jawline solid; rugged with at least a weekend's worth of stubble. He lit up a cigarette, and his eyes didn't leave mine. "Well?" he prompted. "What's going on with the girls?"
The engine of the Porsche roared into life but he didn't look away.
I stared into the eyes of the man I'd known since he was just a kid with big dreams and a bad attitude. The man who'd claimed to not give a shit for anyone or anything, but had taken my hand and held it tight in his, who'd loved me like he'd never let go.
The man I thought I'd spend my life with.
I sighed. "Ruby's been swearing. Miss Davies grabbed me this morning. I sent you a message." I tried not to make the words barbed, but they came out that way anyway. He dug in his pocket for his phone. Took a drag on his cigarette as he scrolled through his messages.
"Didn't see it," he said. "Busy."
"I gathered." I folded my arms.
He let out a low laugh, his eyes glittering with a moment of amusement as he read my text. "Used the C word, did she?" He turned back to the open shutters, and I saw the bulk of Buck looming inside. "You'd better stop teaching my daughter bad fucking words, Buck, you big fucking prick. She called her teacher a cunt."
Buck shot him the finger, and he was laughing, too. "Like I taught her to say cunt, you soft cunt."
I gritted my teeth until Darren's attention was back on me. "She didn't call her teacher a cunt, Darren. She got frustrated and called the netball hoop a cunt."
He shrugged. "Same fucking deal. Kids swear. All fucking kids, Jo. Some just hide it better."
I shook my head. "Don't. Just don't! She's only eight years old. She shouldn't even know the word exists."
Darren Trent has the most intense eyes of anyone I've ever met in my life. There's an aggression to his stare, even when he doesn't mean it. Just … something … it makes my skin prickle, but there's always this heat underneath. This burn.
He's straight and blunt and his eyes hit hard, and they hit me hard right then and there.
"I'll sort it," he said.
I couldn't temper my disgust. "How? What's your big plan? Hey? Are you going to be the one who assures Miss Davies that Ruby isn't going to spew obscenities again? Are you going to be the one who pulls Ruby up on her behaviour? You going to be the one who makes sure it doesn't happen again? Is that you? What the fuck are you going to do, Trent? Hmm? Have a chat with her? Play the big bloody disciplinarian for the day? You going to be the one who tells her off and teaches her that bad language has repercussions? Break the habit of a fucking lifetime?"
"I said I'll sort it," he grunted and his eyes were fiery. He shoved his phone back in his pocket. "Was that everything?"
I just stared at him.
"What?" he said. "What's with the big fucking chip on your shoulder today? I'd have got your message and you fucking know it."
My heart raced. "Who was that?" I pointed to the space the Porsche had left.
"Who was who?"
I rolled my eyes. "Miss Porsche. Who was she?"
"Customer," he said.
"A customer?" I scoffed. "Sure she was."
"In for a service. No big deal."
I stared him out. "And what kind of service was that? What kind of stuff are you offering down here?"
And he knew. His eyes said it all.
"Mandy fucking Taylor," he said, and there was humour in his tone.
I felt sick. So sick. Practically puked on the spot. "It's true then?"
He shrugged. "Depends what you've heard."
"How about that you're running some seedy gigolo outfit, charging people for gang bangs?"
He tipped his head to the side. "Maybe a bit of truth in it."
"It's all around the fucking village, Darren!" My hands were up and at him before I could stop them, gesturing madly. "Everyone fucking knows! Everyone!"
"Let them fucking know," he scoffed. "Who the fuck cares?"
"I care, Darren. Me." I saw him swallow, his eyes widen, just a little. "About the girls," I clarified. "About how they're going to fucking feel when their schoolmates tell them their dad's a man-whore who fucks for money." I put my head in my hands. "I can't believe you'd do this! Do this to the girls, to us, in this village! Why would you? How fucking could you?!" I was on a roll. "It's selfish, Darren! It's so fucking selfish! A quick scheme to get your dick wet, only you have to get paid for it as well, right? Like fucking for free isn't bad enough!"
His expression hardened. "I'm doing this for the fucking girls, Jo."