Clutch (Custom Culture)

  Mom turned to me looking like a woman who’d been inhaling far too many cleaning chemicals. “What do you mean you were using him? For what?”

  “To keep all of you off my back.” I smiled to myself. “Although, Adam didn’t keep me off my ba—”

  Jason stood so abruptly his chair nearly flew back. “Taylor, we need to talk out in the kitchen.” I was waiting for fire to come squirting from his nostrils. “Now.”

  I walked casually behind him to the kitchen, but I could have bounced a dime off the tension in his shoulders. He shut the kitchen door behind us and flew around to face me. Still no flames but I was sure I saw a stream of smoke drifting out of his ears.

  “What the hell are you doing? You’re going to get shipped back to Florida. Is that what you want?”

  I stared at him and he seemed flustered by my silence.

  “This is all about running into Clutch today, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have asked for that hot dog.”

  I laughed and it made him even angrier. “Really, you’re blaming a hot dog for my behavior? That’s about as stupid as blaming Clutch for it. You people are truly nuts, do you know that? You and Mom and Dad and that sniveling little witch you live with—”

  He grabbed my wrist hard, and I met his glare with one of my own. “I hope they do send you back. You’re nothing but trouble. And give up on Jimmy. He’s told me a million times that you were nothing but a pain in the ass. He has no interest in a stupid kid like you.” He dropped my wrist and headed to the door. “Now come back to the table.” He slammed out of the kitchen.

  I stood in the middle of Mom’s immaculate kitchen and blinked back tears. His last words had hurt way more than I’d prepared myself for. There was no way I was sitting back down at that table. I stormed out the back door and ran down to the sidewalk and down the street away from the crazy house and the people inside who spent all of their waking hours making me miserable.

  Chapter 9

  Clutch

  Nix was looking over a late 1980’s Mercedes as I crossed the lot with Barrett in tow. He’d felt well enough to go and like a wild, untrained puppy, I was worried that he’d destroy the house if I left him alone too long.

  Nix pushed his sunglasses onto his head. “Hey, Barrett, you look a lot better.”

  “Rett!” Dray called from across the way. He jogged over and gave Barrett a quick bro hug. “Good to see you, Bud.”

  “Yeah, you too. Won any good fights lately?” Barrett asked.

  “You know it. Victory is always mine in the ring.”

  Nix looked over at Dray. “Unless you leave brain matter on the mat and end up in the hospital.”

  Dray waved Nix off. “Anyhow, you’ll have to come watch a match I’m in later this month. Should be a good one.”

  “Definitely.”

  Dray smacked Nix on the arm with the back of his hand. “Hey, Pal, can you spot me a twenty. Cassie has me on a budget so we can eventually buy a place, and I’ve decided to eat my way through the entire line of food trucks. The macaroni and cheese truck is my next target. I’m going for the lobster mac and cheese, and it’s expensive.”

  Nix went to pull out his wallet and then stopped. “Why don’t you just get the plain mac and cheese?”

  Dray held up his hands. “Because it’s lobster, Dude. Now, come on. Don’t be such a friggin’ tightwad.”

  “I’m glad this budget is working out for you,” Nix muttered as he dragged out his wallet and handed Dray money.

  Nix shook his head as Dray dashed off.

  “Hey, you’ve got your burden. . . ” I inclined my head toward Barrett. “. . . and I’ve got mine.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Barrett growled. “I’m going to catch up with Dray and leave you two old ladies to yourselves.”

  Nix looked at me. “Shit, is he right? Cause I’m starting to feel a little old ladyish.”

  “Nah, they just haven’t grown up yet. Hey, I’m glad you came. There’s some guy out here named Grant who has a sixty-five Shelby for sale. He’s supposed to be showing a seventy-nine Ferrari tonight.”

  “Yeah, I saw him over near the restrooms.” Nix started walking and I followed.

  “Where’s Scotlyn?”

  “I left her sitting on deck, huddled in a blanket with her computer and cat on her lap. Since she’s been helping Nana write her memoirs, she’s decided to write her own. I read some stuff she wrote. It’s pretty damn good. Tears my heart out to read it but she’s a good writer. Her doctor told her it was great therapy.”

  “That’s awesome. Hey, so that stray cat stuck around?”

  “Yeah. He’s a cool cat, but he did deliver a dead rat into our bed the other morning.” Nix laughed. “Boy, can Scotlyn scream when she puts her mind to it.”

  “Shit, if I woke up staring at a dead rat I’d scream too.” I spotted the yellow Ferrari. “Nothing like restoring a fucking Ferrari and then painting it the color of piss,” I said out of the corner of my mouth as we approached the guy. He was an old dude with a gray ponytail and a straw fedora, and I briefly wondered if that was the way I would look in thirty years.

  I stuck out my hand. “Are you Grant?”

  We shook hands. “Yep, and my friend, Felix, did not exaggerate in his description. He told me to look for a man the size of a grizzly bear with blond hair.”

  I’d been a giant all my life and I’d grown used to having people mention my size, but, I had to admit, the grizzly bear analogy always felt like an insult. But I was here to relieve this guy of his Shelby so I grinned in response to his comment.

  “I’m Jimmy, but most people call me Clutch. I understand you have a sixty-five Shelby you need to sell.”

  The guy walked over and blew an invisible speck of dust off his Ferrari. “Well, I don’t need to sell it, but if I got the right price I might be willing to part with it.”

  From what Jason had told me, the guy was having some financial troubles, and he definitely needed to unload stock. But he was a pro and the number one rule was never let your customer know you’re desperate.

  “Do you have any pictures?”

  “It just so happens that I do.” He ducked inside his car.

  I glanced around the lot but there was no sign of Barrett. I looked at Nix. “Do you think the kids are all right on their own?”

  Nix laughed and shook his head. “I doubt it. For Dray, having your brother back in town is like a stick of dynamite finding his long lost fuse.”

  Grant returned with the photos. He shuffled through them, obviously looking for the most flattering. “Here she is. My pride and joy.”

  Fortunately, I was a pro too, and I knew how to look disgusted and disappointed on the outside even if my insides were doing a ‘got to have this car’ dance. The car looked as if it had been sitting in a swamp for ten years followed by another decade in the desert sun. And she was fucking awesome. “I’ll give you forty thousand.”

  The guy laughed. “Don’t insult me.”

  “Look, I’m going to need a hundred grand just to get her moving again.” Which was completely true, but, man, would it be worth that hundred grand.

  The guy twisted his mouth and looked back at the pictures as if he’d forgotten what the car looked like. “Nope, can’t do it.”

  If I’d had to choose to leave without the Shelby deal or my left arm, I’d be sawing through bone at this moment. I kept my I can’t even believe I’m bothering to make an offer face. “Forty-five or I’m walking.”

  The guy sighed as if he was no longer interested in talking to me, and I was quickly calculating just how high I could go before losing my ass completely. Then he stared up at me from beneath the brim of his hat. “Let me call my partner and see.” I’d been around long enough to know that when an old guy said he had to check with his partner, it meant he had to clear it with the wife. br />
  “All right, call your partner. My friend and I will be right over there.”

  Nix followed me over to a tree that was out of earshot of the guy. “I’ve got to have that car,” I said quietly.

  “Yeah, I gathered that.”

  I looked over at him. “How could you tell? I was putting on my best poker face.” Now I worried that my desperation had leaked through my stiff expression.

  “It’s not how you look. It’s how you sound.” He smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, when you’re dealing and you want something badly, your voice goes up a couple of octaves.”

  “What are you saying, that I sound like a girl when I’m making a deal?”

  “Only when it’s something you really want. And it would take more than a few octaves for you to sound like a girl, but you do kind of remind me of Mrs. Hatter, the geometry teacher, who used to get all excited when she was teaching something complicated, which, in geometry, was every day.” He smiled. “It’s all right to get in touch with your feminine side every once in awhile. Even if you’re a grizzly.”

  The guy was still on the phone, which could have been good or bad. “Feminine side, bullshit. Besides, you’re the one everyone calls pretty.”

  Nix rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I don’t know which is worse, grizzly or pretty. But now that Barrett is back, maybe I can hand the pretty title over. He sort of stepped into my shoes once you and I left high school.”

  “Nothing pisses him off more than to be called pretty.” The old guy was off the phone and glancing around for us. He must have been nearsighted because I was hard to miss.

  “Well, it looks like we have a deal at forty-five.”

  I kept up my stiff, non-committal exterior and held back the Tarzan yell that was lodged in my throat. We shook on it and made arrangements to meet at the bank in the morning. I’d needed this to go well. Rotten shit had been happening all week, and this had definitely brought me out of my funk.

  Nix peered sideways at me as we walked away and laughed. “It’s all right if you want to do a victory dance. I don’t think the guy could see too well.”

  I punched the air. “I’m so fucking jazzed right now, I don’t even mind talking to Jason.” I pulled out my phone. “And since the money is half his. . . ”

  Nix stopped. “I’m going over to the pastrami truck. Do you want me to order you a sandwich?”

  “Yeah, but get me two.” I dialed Jason. “I’ll be over there in a second.” The great weather had brought a big crowd, and between the music blaring from car radios and the conversations drifting around me, I couldn’t hear a thing. I walked through the maze of people to the gray brick building that housed the bathrooms. Jason didn’t answer so I left a message. “Hey, I got it at forty-five—”

  She came around the corner, unexpectedly and like a hurricane of stars. My mind went completely blank. I hung up and stuck the phone in my pocket.

  Taylor’s long lashes curtained her smooth cheeks as she dropped her gaze.

  The adrenaline rush left behind from getting my hands on a Shelby morphed into an explosion of every emotion I’d ever felt. I lunged forward and grabbed her hand. She gasped as I dragged her around the back of the building. I pressed her up against the bricks and stared down at her.

  Her chin jutted forward as she lifted her face to me and then without warning her hand came up and she slapped me hard. I didn’t move but my face stung plenty.

  “You could have cared less when my parents shipped me off.” Her eyes glistened with tears.

  I shook my head. “Not true, Taylor. It was just easier—”

  She slapped me again. “It was easier for me to be gone.” She was not a girl that cried easily, but now the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  This time I stretched open my mouth to get the sting out. “Shit, Taylor, would you let me talk.” I grabbed hold of her arms. “It was easier for me not to say good-bye.” And then every suppressed urge I’d ever had to kiss her, and there had been many, erupted. My fingers squeezed her thin arms as I lifted her toward me. My mouth devoured hers and any ounce of self-control was gone. I pulled her so hard against me, she groaned softly against my mouth. As my mind warned me against it, my hands smoothed over the slim curve of her hips and bottom, the sweet little bottom that I’d dreamt about countless times. She leaned harder against me, assuring me that I could have her completely. And there was nothing I wanted more. But it was far more complicated than that. Breathless, I reluctantly pulled my mouth from hers and wrapped my arms around her.

  “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to do that,” she said softly against my neck.

  “I doubt as long as I’ve wanted to do it.” I rested my chin on the top of her head, but she pulled away to stare up at me.

  Her perfect, plump lips looked swollen from the kiss. “Why didn’t you ever kiss me then?”

  “You’re Jason’s kid sister, Taylor. You were young. The whole thing was kind of warped.”

  She lifted her arm but I grabbed her wrist before her hand made contact with my face. “You’re a damn coward,” she said. “I would have risked anything, even being thrown out of the house, if it meant being with you.”

  I combed my hair back out of my face and my shoulders relaxed with a sigh. “I wasn’t a coward, Taylor.” I should have opted for the slap. It would have been far less painful than having her call me a coward. I tried to choose my words carefully, but it never seemed to matter. With Taylor, I always managed to find the exact wrong thing to say. “It was about doing what was right.” And her expression assured me that I’d nailed it again.

  “So being with me would have been wrong?”

  I stepped back. “Shit, you’re twisting my words. Maybe you’re just too young to understand.” My first words were wrong, but my last ones were the death knell.

  “Go to hell, Clutch.” She stormed away in the pissed off style that she’d perfected.

  I momentarily stared at the brick wall in front of me but then decided it would hurt a lot more than plaster. What the hell was with my luck lately?

  My phone rang as I rounded the building and plowed back into the melee of people and shiny chrome. I ignored it. Taylor had managed to disappear completely.

  Nix spotted me and headed over with the food. He stopped in front of me and lifted a brow as he noticed my face. “I heard handprint was the new thing in skin art.” He leaned his head to get a better look. “And from the looks of it, I’d say you took a double hit. What did you do in your excitement? Grab the first girl you saw?” I didn’t answer and his cocky smile disappeared. He glanced around and then looked back up at me. “She’s here?”

  “Yep, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He held up the sandwich. “Still interested in the pastrami?”

  I grabbed it from him. “Yes. At the moment, food is my only source of joy.” I ripped open the paper and spotted Dray wandering through the crowd alone as I shoved the sandwich in my mouth. Even in a thick crowd of people, my head stuck out like a beacon on a lighthouse. He saw me and headed over.

  “Where the hell is Barrett?” I was not in the mood to deal with any of my brother’s antics. “If he has climbed into the backseat of some girl’s car then he’s going to have to find his own way home tonight.”

  “Nah, he was behind me, but he stopped to answer his phone.” Dray stared longingly at my sandwich. “I didn’t see the pastrami truck. Where was it hiding?”

  Nix pointed behind his shoulder. “Right back there in the middle of the lot with the big plastic pastrami sandwich on top. You’re really thinking of following up lobster with pastrami?”

  Dray scrunched his face and pressed his hand against his stomach. “Yeah, maybe it’s too much.” Then he glanced up at me and leaned his head to one side just like Nix had done. “It looks like you ran into a hand.”

&n
bsp; “Sort of.” I stared down at my half eaten sandwich and realized that even food wasn’t bringing any relief from my misery. This thing with Taylor made no sense and was completely out of whack and I had no idea how to fix it. All I knew was that all this time I’d been denying myself the one thing I wanted more than anything, more than any car, more than any racing win, more than any damn pastrami sandwich. I wanted Taylor Flinn, and I was never going to be completely happy without her. I shoved the sandwich into Dray’s hand. “Here you go. Enjoy. I’m going to round up my kid and head home.”

  Chapter 10

  Taylor

  I’d bummed a ride off of friends to get to the car meet, but I had no way to get home. I’d run out of the house without my phone. Cell phones were forbidden at the dinner table, so I’d left it behind on my nightstand. Not that I wanted to go back home. I was going to be in for a major scene with both parents, and I had no doubt that they’d try to send me back to Florida.

  Fortunately, I’d defied my mom’s orders to change out of my trashy shorts. Jason had given me a twenty for the hot dog and told me to keep it for my troubles. This seemed like definite trouble. I had no place to go at the moment, and with the fragile state my last encounter with Clutch had left me in, the last thing I needed was a parent lecture.

  I headed down the street to the bus stop. I didn’t even care where the bus was headed. I just needed to get on and ride. The entire scene came back to me. It seemed like I’d been waiting my entire life for that kiss, and every second of it had been as mind-blowing as I’d imagined. But it had ended in the same way all my incidences with Clutch had ended, with a dull, heavy ache in my chest. Only now it felt as if all the hurt I’d endured these past two years had swelled up into one giant heartbreak. The word coward had shot out before I could stop myself. But to hear that after all this time he’d wanted to kiss me but hadn’t, in fact, he’d gone out of his way to prove to me that he wanted nothing to do with me, it had been too much. I’d lashed out at him, but, truthfully, I wasn’t sorry I’d done it. Maybe Clutch needed to see what it felt like to ache for someone so badly you were nearly sick from it. That was how it had been for me these past two years. If he’d wanted me, he should have been true to himself, instead of trying to ‘do the right thing’. I knew him well enough to know that he’d never been an angel. He’d gotten into plenty of trouble growing up, but when it came to me, he was like a damn saint.