Dirty Thoughts(10)

Cal inhaled sharply. The cigarette helped to calm his nerves a little over the situation with his dad.

He’d finished his work for the day and gotten a call from a friend of a friend who was inquiring about motorcycle repair. Again, Cal was reminded that he wasn’t doing what he most wanted to do, which was repair bikes. Not that he didn’t like working on cars. He enjoyed that. But bikes were where his main interests lay. His dad couldn’t be persuaded to list the shop as a Harley-Davidson certified repair site.

They’d been having this argument for the last couple of years. It was déjà vu. And it had only gotten worse since Cal went out and got the certifications himself.

After he finished his cigarette, Cal spent the next hour completing paperwork in the office. He hated it and usually left it up to Brent, but he didn’t want to be in the garage with his dad, so he’d volunteered to do it. Childish, but whatever.

And he didn’t want them to know that he was nervous. He’d been anxious all day about whether he’d see Jenna. He’d had Brent call her to tell her the repairs and the price, to which she’d given the go-ahead.

If Dylan came to pick up his car, Cal would say as few words as possible to him and then ignore him as Dylan looked down his nose at Cal.

But if Jenna showed up—which was what Cal thought was going to happen—that was another story.

He’d thought about her all night, despite telling himself he wouldn’t. And in that odd conscious state between sleep and wakefulness, that was all his brain wanted to dwell on. Jenna. She’s been his first girlfriend. His first everything. He hadn’t thought about her in a long time, preferring to relegate all the MacMillans to a far recess of his brain.

They’d stayed there, right where he put them. Out of sight, out of mind. So much that he’d forgotten about them, and he’d taken it for granted. Because now Jenna was back and refusing to be locked back into that box. He’d have to work extra hard to get her there again when she left.

By closing time, she still hadn’t showed up at the garage. Jack left, and Brent asked Cal if he wanted him to stay. Cal waved him on home. He’d wait another half hour or so, and then he’d call Jenna.

He didn’t have to wait much longer. A MINI Cooper screeched into the parking lot, loud music blaring. Only one person in Tory drove a MINI Cooper, and that was Delilah Jenkins, so he figured Jenna had arrived.

She had. He saw her heel first as she stepped out of the car, a light beige color that made her legs look even more tan. She shut the car door, and the short skirt of her green and white dress in some sort of striped pattern swirled around her long legs. She was dressed up, and her hair was done in waves around her shoulders. She gestured toward Cal, so she must have spotted him through the glass walls of the office. She patted the roof of the MINI Cooper, and then Delilah backed up, peeling out of the lot.

Cal didn’t even bother pretending to look away. He didn’t pretend much of anything, and she’d know he’d been waiting for her.

Her heels clicked on the tile floor as she stepped into the shop.

The sight of her constricted his chest. She had more makeup on today, and it made her eyes look bigger, her red lips fuller.

She looked ready to go to some fancy high-class wedding or something. When he was a teenager, he’d been self-conscious sometimes about how he looked—all rough around the edges, where she was soft, smooth curves. His wrong-side-of-the-tracks to her right-side. But she’d seemed to like that about him, so he hadn’t fought it. He hadn’t tried to be something he wasn’t. He knew back then, though, if she’d asked him to, he would have changed for her. He would have done anything for her.

And now, as she stood all clean and beautiful and soft in his dirty shop, he wondered if she’d grown out of that bad-boy phase. Because he was too old to change now.

She was staring at him, lips slightly parted, eyes wide, and a definite flush down her neck, which disappeared beneath the low neckline of her dress. He’d seen that look before, but it’d been a long time ago. He shook his head, telling himself he wasn’t up for memories.

He stood up and walked out from behind the counter. His jeans were a little grubby today, and his gray T-shirt showed the typical smudges of dirt and grease. He jingled the keys to the car. “Wonderin’ if you were gonna come.”

Her hands lifted hesitantly to her hair. “I know. I’m so sorry. I was busy . . . ” Her fingers fluttered. “I lost track of time.”

“It happens.”

She took a step forward. “You stayed late for me?”

He shrugged. He didn’t make it a habit, but she didn’t need to know that. He gestured toward her dress. “You’re going out with friends since you’re visiting?”