RYE
“I want to pay you back,” Brin argues, following me around my office as Wrench works on her car. I refuse to let her go down to the work area, even though she’s begged. Numerous times.
“I’ve already said no. I told you I had the parts on hand. It’s not like very many of my customers have vehicles to match those parts. They’ll just be wasted.”
It’s a complete and total lie. The car would have been fixed by now if I had already had the parts on hand. I’m still waiting on two parts to come in, because I just ordered them yesterday. Wrench keeps finding more shit wrong every time he digs a little deeper. But she can’t know that.
“I’m paying. Now let me go see it,” she demands.
“Not happening.”
“Why?” She acts as though I haven’t already gone over this ten times with her.
I walk over to her, lean down so that I’m in her face, and meet her mean little scowl that I happen to find pretty damn cute.
“Because I’m not letting you anywhere near power tools. Insurance thing.”
She crosses her arms as I lean back up, and she tries harder to intimidate me with her glower. Not effective.
“Well, I need my briefcase out of the back. It has a file that I need to get back tomorrow.”
She’s relentless. But I’m not caving. She’d end up killing someone on accident if she got down there. Or she’d hurt herself, and I’d end up spending the rest of the day in the hospital waiting room.
“Fine. I’ll go get your briefcase. You stay put. If you try to come down there, I swear I’ll haul your ass out of here over my shoulder.”
She glares at me but finally looks away, silently admitting her defeat. I walk out and head down the steel staircase to the lower level where we keep the cars. It’s an open warehouse space, and the cars are driven in from the lower deck. There’s a higher elevation parking deck where the workers park and come in through the office area—my space.
“You coming to inspect my work again?” Wrench asks, an amused eyebrow cocked as I open the backdoor to her car.
Where’s the briefcase?
“Nah, I’m looking for a briefcase. Have you seen one?”
He wipes his hands on a towel while shaking his head. “The only thing I’ve seen are a couple of receipts. I didn’t read them, but I put them in the glove compartment so that we didn’t knock them out by mistake.”
“We?” I ask, my eyes narrowing. “Who else has worked on this car besides you?”
He laughs while leaning back under the hood.
“No one. It’s a habit to say we because I’ve usually got a few other guys doing the grunt work. My bad. Any reason why this damn Camry is so important?”
“It’s not the car I’m worried about; it’s the driver. The rest of the parts should get here early tomorrow morning.”
He rises up and tilts his head. “Damn. You must have spent a fortune on shipping to get everything here this fast.”
I refuse to talk about this. I could have bought her a new car for all the shit I’ve had to replace and have shipped overnight. Not to mention the tires. I got her some of the best. And I replaced her hubcaps with actual wheels.
She wouldn’t have let me buy her a new car, and she’d flip the hell out if she knew what I’ve spent. Most people would probably get the wrong idea, since I barely know her. But I have the extra cash, and she needs to be driving around in something safe.
“Come get me if you find anything else wrong with it. I need to get back upstairs.”
Wrench nods as I head up to tell the fiery little girl her briefcase must be somewhere else. When I walk into my office, she’s sitting on top of my desk with her legs crossed, and an unbidden fantasy rocks through my mind.
I really shouldn’t be picturing her leaned back as I pound into her. But all I can think about is her clawing at my back while I make her scream my name.
I blame her. It’s all because of her straddling me last night. My mind hasn’t been right since then. I keep picturing her under me, over me, against the wall... It’s a long damn list.
It’s probably because she made me have fun with very little beer, too much food, and a movie. In fact, it was one of the best times I’ve had in so damn long, and that makes me sound pathetic. But my mind never wandered off to things I want to forget, just like it never does when I’m with her.
I’ve gone to resorts for weekend getaways with girls that most men would cut off their left nut just to touch—girls who wear the sexiest, most expensive lingerie and look better than the models who strut on the runway. And yet I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than get her back in her pink boxers and smurf shirt while we lounge on her uncomfortable couch.