As I’m swallowing the water and trying to douse the heat that’s building inside me over thoughts of Rebel, I hear the main garage door going up. It makes me curious about what he could be doing. It’s after midnight and way past the time for car repairs. Maybe he was serious about working, and if that’s true, he really needs to get a life.
I pad over the soft carpet to the front windows, watching with my mouth hanging open as he pushes my car into the garage. I can’t decide whether to be mad or grateful. At least inside the garage no one will be able to press his stupid stalker face up against my windows. But why would Rebel do anything with my car? I never told him about the Prius murderer guy.
I throw on my flip-flops and a sweatshirt to hide my braless look, and I leave the apartment. Tiptoeing down the stairs, I’m as quiet as I can be. I want to spy on him without him discovering me in my jammies and ratty hair-bun, even though he said he liked it that way. It’s completely ridiculous that I’m deliriously happy over that fact, but there’s no denying it. I’ll never put my hair down again.
Standing at the bottom of the stairwell, I have a perfect view of Rebel and the middle of the garage where my car is parked. He has the engine compartment open in the back and he’s standing behind the car staring at it. Then he walks to the driver’s side door and opens it up. When he sits inside and gazes over the dashboard, I can’t help but come out. I guess he’s going to have to see me looking my worst. It’s probably a good idea; seeing him cringe at how I look will make him way less sexier.
“What are you doing?” I ask, stopping in front of my car with my arms crossed over my chest. I took my bra off earlier and now I’m regretting that decision. The sweatshirt is not doing its job. Holy air-conditioner alert. Okay, maybe it isn’t the air-conditioner. I’m in such bad shape right now.
“Thought I’d take a look at what you have.”
Gulp. Oh, wait … he’s talking about the car. “Why?”
He shrugs and then gets out of the Beetle. “We could fix it up. If you want.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“You can work it off.”
I raise an eyebrow. Double gulp. “I thought you said you weren’t my pimp.”
He looks a tad shocked before falling back into his stony expression. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I grin, feeling like I’m back on solid ground now that I know any flirting is only going on in my imagination. “I’m just messin’ with ya. Geez, don’t go all action-figure face on me again.”
His expression relaxes. “It’s a classic you know.” He gestures to the car.
“Of course I know. Why do you think I bought it?”
“I thought you said classics are granny cars.”
“Only some of them.”
We stand there staring at each other. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I know what I am. I want to take him up on his car restoration offer for about ten different reasons, not the least of which is that it will keep me in his life. I cannot stand how pitiful that sounds to my own brain, but it is what it is.
I’m hooked and there’s no denying it. I’m a Rebel junkie. He’s like one of these cars - a classic. Old school and rough on the outside, but with all kinds of things going on underneath the hood. God, how I want to take a peek at his engine.
Gah! I clear my throat and look at the ground, battling to get ahold of myself. I’m turning into a total perv.
“Value of an all-original frame like this fully restored is about fifteen grand. Maybe more.”
My head moves up sharply. “Fifteen thousand? That’s almost as much as the Lexus.” I swallow with difficulty. My face feels a little hot over the idea of not being poor anymore.
“What Lexus?”
“Uhhh … the Lexus my dad tried to give me.” I don’t want to go down this road. The words just popped out of their own accord and now that stupid piece of my past is dangling between us.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks.
I’m too taken aback by his offer to chit chat to remain weirded out. “You want to talk? About my life?”
He shrugs, moving back to the rear of the car. “Why not?”
I follow him over and stand next to him, staring at an engine that looks like nothing but a maze of pipes and hoses to me. “Because it’s a sad and sordid tale that I’m sure will bore you to tears.”
“I doubt that.” He walks over to his bench and brings back some tools and a short step-stool. Putting the stool down near the rear bumper, he gestures to it with a wrench. “Sit.”
I settle onto my seat as he squats down and reaches inside the engine compartment and starts messing around. I take his silence as a signal to start talking.
“My dad always wanted me to drive new cars. I bought The Beast instead. I don’t know why. I guess I hated that he always just expected me to do what he wanted without question.”
Rebel doesn’t answer or even indicate that he’s listening, but I’m pretty sure he is, so I keep going.
“My mom died when I was a baby, and my dad didn’t get remarried until just a few years ago. The woman is not much older than me. When he died last week, he left everything to her except one trust account I can’t touch until I’m thirty. That’s why I’m dead broke.”
He grunts, but I’m not sure if it’s in response to me or to the work he’s doing trying to loosen a bolt.
“Not only did my dad essentially leave me homeless, he also kind of flipped me off in a way as his famous last words.”
Rebel looks at me over his shoulder. “Flipped you off?”
“Yeah. Figuratively. The last thing he said to me was to keep his stupid toy car safe, and that’s it. I really hate him right now and that makes me feel guilty and then I get mad for feeling guilty.”
Rebel leans back on his heels and looks at me. “You’re not making a lot of sense right now.”
I can’t help but smile. I know I sound like a scatter-brained fool, but that’s his fault, not mine. I’m in some sort of fluffy, cloudy place sitting this close to him.
“I’ll show you.” Getting to my feet, I head around to the side of the car and open up the door so I can get into the back seat. I remember throwing the toy car back there, but don’t see it on the seat where I thought it was. It’s only after I’m practically doing a handstand that I find it under the passenger seat. I get out of the Beetle and hold it up. “See? Famous last words.”
Rebel gets up and comes over to stand next to me, lifting the toy car from my hand with greasy fingers. I can smell a combination of motor oil and cologne on him, and I hate to admit it, but it’s intoxicating. On anyone else it would be stinky and gross, but on Rebel, it’s all-man. I really wish he’d unzip that damn suit he’s wearing again. Maybe I can figure out how to turn the heat on in this place.
“GTO. Nice.”
I huff out my annoyance. “The last thing he ever said to me was here’s this stupid car, take care of it for me. What the hell does that even mean? It makes zero sense! The guy had a gajillion bucks and this is the best he could do for his only child? What … am I supposed to trade that in for some Top Ramen soup?”
Rebel frowns as he turns the car over in his fingers. His other hand comes up and he grips the car on both ends.
“What?” I ask, looking as he squints his eyes and concentrates on something.
He pulls his hands apart and breaks the car in two.
My eyes bug out of my head. “What the hell, Rebel! He told me to take care of it!” I know it pissed me off that my father sent it to me in the first place, but it’s the only thing I have left of him; and now the damn thing is broken.
Rebel pushes the pieces back together and hands the toy over to me. “It’s a thumb drive.”
“What?” I say absently as I try to do what he did.
He watches me struggle for a little while and then takes it back from me, showing me the tiny catch in the side of the car. Opening the tiny driver’s side door releases the two parts.
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I grab it back and follow Rebel’s demonstration to pull the car in two again. The back end of the car is a cavity. The front end has a USB drive sticking out.
“Whaaaat thhhheeee fuuuuuuuccckkk …” I half-whisper.
Rebel shrugs and goes back to the engine. “Better take a look.”
“At what?” I ask, staring at the car and then glancing over at him.
He doesn’t answer me, but he doesn’t have to. I know what he means, and I don’t hesitate to run into the office and find the laptop I put in the cabinet earlier today.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE THUMB DRIVE HAS GOBS of spreadsheets on it. Page after page after page of financials. There are scanned memos from him and other people in his company talking about some investment bank and an initial public offering.
I’m not really sure exactly what all of that is, but I know it has something to do with the stock market. Not a whole lot of it makes sense to me, but there’s one memo that give me shivers. Some of it is just blah, blah, blah, stuff I don’t understand, but there’s one sentence that I have to stop and read like five times.
“…These numbers are questionable at best, and if you can’t justify the failure to include the Bendeck subsidiaries in the final accounting to me within two days, you’re going to force my hand into putting a stop to the entire IPO business. I want a full report on my desk no later than Friday…”
The memo is dated three days before my father died.
“What’s wrong?” Rebel is standing in the doorway looking at me with concern in his eyes.
“I’m not sure.” The words come out sounding strangled. “I … maybe nothing. Maybe something. I can’t tell.” Cold sweats. I have cold sweats. I never knew what that meant before when I heard it, but now I do. I’m shivering and sweating at the same time.
Rebel comes over and stands behind me, looking over my shoulder at the computer screen. “What’s on the drive?”
“Financials. And memos. This one is freaking me out.” I rub my upper arms, trying to warm myself as I give him time to read it. My teeth are actually chattering. I look back at him after a few seconds to gauge his expression. His hard look is giving nothing away.
“When did your dad die?”
I don’t know why, but his question fills me with relief. “Three days after this memo was written.” Maybe he sees the same thing I do. Maybe I’m not crazy.
“You think it has something to do with his death?”
“No, of course not.” The answer comes bursting out of my mouth like a herd of racehorses. “No way. That’s nuts, right?” I hold my breath as I wait for him to answer.
“Probably.”
I let out a big huff of air. His answer is a complete let-down for some reason I cannot even figure out right now. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.” I click the mouse and close down the windows on the computer.
Suddenly exhausted, I just want to get out of here and go to sleep. I pull the USB drive out of the laptop and slide it into the front pocket of my sweatshirt. “Time for bed.” I stand and Rebel moves out of my way.
When I’m almost to the door, I turn around and face him. He hasn’t moved from his spot behind the desk. “You coming up?” I ask. I hate the idea of being alone up there.
“You want me to?”
My heart freezes in my chest. Should I be honest or lie? I grit my teeth hard, forcing myself to get over my ridiculous needy feelings and do the right and smart thing. Yes, I want him there. But I shouldn’t.
“No. Whatever. Do whatever you want.” I’m too weak to make a decision or do the right thing. Let him be the one to decide what I should be doing. I miss my dad. I miss someone telling me what to do all the time. Before, I thought that I wanted freedom from all that, but now I realize it was like a safety net that let me know someone out there cared at least a little for my welfare. My sense of security is gone and why it’s gone was never something I questioned about my father’s death until now. Now I have a lot more on my mind than just his poor health and my sudden poverty. What if something weird happened to him? What if someone did something to him?
Rebel nods once and then moves towards the garage.
I leave the office, tears burning my eyes. I hate that I told Rebel to go away, and I despise the fact that I don’t have the adventurous spirit that would have told him to come up to the apartment with me and do a mutual strip tease. I never wanted what I could have and now I do want what I can’t. My life is such a mess.
I get back to his place and lie down on the couch with my back facing the television, letting the tears come. I cry for the loss of my father, I cry for my messed-up life, and I cry for the fact that I finally found I guy I feel like I can’t live without and he’s totally and completely not interested in me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
IN THE BACK OF MY mind I hear the door opening and closing, but it’s not until I feel pressure on my shoulder that it computes that I’m not alone anymore.
I roll over partway and see the dark shadow of Rebel hovering above me and next to the couch. I hold my breath to wait and see what he’ll do, praying the hiccups have finally gone.
“You’re crying,” he says.
“No, I’m not.” My voice is wrecked. I may not be actively crying right now, but thirty minutes or so of bawling my eyes out makes it kind of hard to hide the fact that I’m miserable.
He steps to the left and lifts up my legs. I don’t have time to protest before he’s sitting on the end of the couch with my feet in his lap. I’m too shocked to speak when he starts rubbing my toes. The warmth of his touch zips up my legs and fills my whole body. A tiny spark of happiness lights up the darkness that is my life.
“Emily died last year.”
“What?” I roll onto my back and try to see his face in the black-filled room. I can barely make out his profile.
“My foster mom. She died last year. Cancer.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Colin took it the worst.”
“Is that why they call him Trouble? Did he go nuts over it?” I want to know, because I’m strongly considering trying that myself. Why not? What have I got to lose? I’m sad that the best answer I can come up with is The Beast. It’s the only thing of value I have in my life and it’s older than I am and not that far from the junkyard.
“He’s always been trouble, but that kind of pushed him over the edge, I guess. She was the only mom any of us ever really had, but for him she was something else. A guardian angel, maybe. I think he felt abandoned all over again when she was gone.”
I’m struck not only by how many things he’s saying to me but also at how personal they are. I want to capture this moment and put it in a bottle so it will never go stale, never disappear. Knowing him, we’ll be back to single syllables tomorrow morning.
“I guess I kind of feel that way too,” I say. “Abandoned. Left behind.” Admitting it makes me sadder than I was before. I try to twist away onto my side, but his hands on my feet make it nearly impossible. I only get partway there before I’m crying again.
I want to hide my breakdown, but I can’t. The best I can do is throw my forearm over my face. “Sorry,” I say through the tears, “I’m just a mess right now. I’ll go …” I sit up and pull my legs from his lap.
He says nothing as I stand.
I’m almost past him when I feel his grip on my wrist. It’s not painful, but it’s also not weak. He means something with this touch.
I can’t take the emotion I sense waiting for me there. I’m barely holding back from bawling out loud like a giant baby. Stepping once more away, I pull on my hand to release it from his grip.
The next thing I know, I’ve lost my balance. I was expecting him to let me go, but instead he pulls me back firmly. The floor and ceiling trade places as I fall onto him and the couch.
“What are you doing?” I squeak out as I land sprawled out over his lap, my legs flying up into the air.
He shifts my weight so that I’m sitting fully on his lap.
“Don’t go,” he says.
I struggle to remain cool and unaffected. “What are you, Santa Claus? Let me go.”
“No. I can’t let you go.”
A lump gets stuck in my throat. I know he doesn’t mean the words like I want him to and it makes me desperately sad. I should be happy about his efforts, but all they do is make me feel worse. Today is opposite day, I guess.
“Don’t cry,” he says. His finger comes up and wipes a tear off my cheek.
I slap his hand away. “Stop being so nice to me.” I struggle to get up.
He wraps his arms around me, trapping my arms at my sides.
“What are you doing? Let go!” I yank my body left and then right, trying to get free. I’m not trying as hard as I could, though. I know it and so does he. I want someone to fight for me other than me, and I want that someone to be him.
“You really want me to do that?”
“Yes.” I say, my voice revealing my pout.
He leans in closer to my neck as he adjusts his position. “You sure about that?” His whisper slides across my neck like a warm, silk ribbon. It makes me shiver from head to toe.
I can’t answer. My mouth opens, but no sound will come out. There’s a lie on the tip of my tongue, ready to tell him that I don’t want him to ever touch me or ever care about me or ever give me a place to stay again. But rather than lie, I choose to say nothing instead. I feel almost brave over that silence. I can almost appreciate Rebel’s style of saying as little as necessary.
He takes my non-answer as the answer it really is. Lifting one hand from the cage he’s put me in, he places it against the side of my face, pushing me into his body. “Put your head on my shoulder. Just let me hold you for a little while.”