Chapter 3
PRESLEY
“What about Leo?” Genevieve asked.
My face soured. “Ew.”
“Emmett?”
I gagged. “Double ew. I just ate. Do you mind?”
Genevieve laughed. “Sorry. I had to ask. They’re both single and not hard on the eyes.”
“Yeah, they’re easy to look at, but the idea of kissing them . . .” I shuddered. “No. They’re like annoying older brothers and always have been.”
When I’d started working at the garage, there’d been no shortage of handsome men to gawk at and drool over.
There’d been a couple Tin Kings who’d caught my eye, but not Dash, Emmett or Leo.
Yes, they were handsome, equally so in their own way.
But I’d always seen them as friends—the closest thing I had to older brothers—and nothing more.
Besides, back then, I’d been too busy figuring out how to survive adult life to dare bring a man into the mix.
When I’d started at the garage, I’d been a na?ve eighteen-year-old girl working her first job and living on her own in a new town.
I’d grown up fast because there hadn’t been another option.
Despite the smile I’d worn to work every day, I think Draven had suspected I was frazzled and at my wits’ end.
He’d sheltered me from the men in the club those first few months, afraid I’d either break or quit. He’d hired me to take over the office duties because he’d decided to retire. Except retirement hadn’t really been Draven’s style, so he’d cut his hours some but showed up at the garage each day.
To this day, I wasn’t sure how he’d warned the club members away, but whenever one of the guys would see me in the office, he’d nod politely, then scurry in the opposite direction.
Draven had been my guardian while Dash had become my champion. Dash had slugged down cup after cup of my shitty coffee, never once complaining. When I’d finally gotten the hang of it, he’d just shrugged and said he’d known I’d figure it out eventually.
Emmett had worked at the garage then too.
He’d come into the office on his lunch breaks and ask me what I was having.
After two weeks in a row of watching me cook ramen noodles with a coffee mug in the microwave, he’d accidentally started cooking double the night before.
One morning I’d shown up at the garage to find two Tupperware containers sitting side by side in the fridge, both marked with sticky notes. One had my name, the other Emmett’s.
His hair had been shorter then, and he’d been going through a rough time.
Morning after morning I would take him coffee and wince at the dark circles beneath his eyes.
On particularly bad days, he’d reek of alcohol and smoke.
But no matter how thick the grief, no matter how dark the cloud that threatened to swallow him whole, Emmett had never failed to bring me lunch.
Until the day I’d figured out how not to burn Hamburger Helper and brought in plastic containers of my own.
Draven, Dash and Emmett. My protectors. Not that I’d needed them. The one and only time a member of the club had dared hit on me, I’d handled it fine on my own.
It had been Leo.
He’d been drunk by five o’clock, which at the time had been Leo’s norm. He hadn’t started working at the garage yet, and to this day, I didn’t know what he’d done for money. I suspected it had something to do with the club—I’d never know.
Leo had been loitering outside the office, hovering beside my car with an amber beer bottle dangling from his fingertips.
Presley, right?
I’d nodded.
You feel like—burp—goin’ for a ride?
I’d burst out laughing, doubling over and nearly peeing myself. When I’d recovered, I’d told him to stop by the office the next morning, promising to give him lessons on how to ask a sober woman out on a date.
Much to my surprise, Leo had stopped by the next day, though not in the morning.
Leo didn’t do mornings. He’d come by around noon with sandwiches for us both and another for Emmett.
Obnoxious as he was, there was a sweet streak to that man.
Someday, I hoped a woman would whip Leo into shape.
She’d have a fight on her hands, but it would be worth it.
A smile tugged at my mouth as I thought of the day we’d get to meet her.
“What?” Genevieve asked.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “I was just thinking about the old days.”
“You’ve worked here for, what, ten years?”
I nodded. “Ten years in August. A lot has changed since then.”
“I bet. You were here when the club was still going, weren’t you? What was it like?”
“Wild. Even from the outside, you could feel the energy and excitement. It scared me a little, though I’d never admit it to Dash or Emmett or Leo.
Draven kept me pretty far removed from it all, but I sit here.
I can see.” I gestured to the window. “I’d catch glimpses of the guys as they rode into the parking lot.
They’d breeze by on their way to the clubhouse, wearing their cuts.
There were so many of them. Eventually, I stopped trying to figure out who was who.
The only ones I really knew were the guys working in the shop or some of the older ones who’d come in to bullshit. ”
“Were all the mechanics a part of the club?”
“Yeah. I was the first non-club member to work here. Draven told me that once. Isaiah was the second.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
I nodded. “Draven ran everything in the office. He didn’t do much work in the shop by that point. That was Dash and Emmett’s domain, especially after Emmett’s dad, Stone, was killed.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “I didn’t . . . I don’t know much about Emmett’s family. I’ve only ever heard him talk about his mom.”
“She’s lovely, and he adores her.”
“Tell me again why you’d never be interested in dating Emmett?”
I giggled. “Never gonna happen.”
“Worth a try.” She took a bite of her sandwich, then lowered her voice. “Emmett’s dad was killed? Was it because of the club?”
“I think so. No one ever told me the details. I only know that he died shortly before I moved here and Emmett was devastated.”
The drinking had been obvious. I’d worried there’d been drugs. On more than one occasion, he’d come to work with cuts and bruises on his hands and face that I’d known had come from fighting.
“He worked it out eventually,” I said. “Leo told me once that Emmett smiled a lot more back then. He was kind of like Dash—he loved working alongside his dad.”
“I had no idea.” Genevieve’s eyes turned sad.
“A lot has changed.”
Genevieve had only spent a year around the garage before she’d gone to law school. When she’d lived here, the Tin Kings had been just a memory.
But I’d seen it all. I’d seen them in their glory. I’d watched on as they’d lost members and hadn’t replaced them. I’d been here the day the bikes had stopped roaring into the parking lot.
There were still days when I missed the noise.
I yawned, quickly covering it up and slugging down another gulp of Dr Pepper.
“Tired?” Genevieve asked.
“Leo,” I muttered. “The jerk called me at one thirty in the morning last night to pick his drunk ass up from The Betsy.”
“And you went?”
I lifted a shoulder. “He’s Leo.”
“But it’s a no on dating him.” She smirked.
I giggled. “A firm no. The man’s a child.”
Genevieve had come into the garage for lunch today.
She’d picked up sandwiches for the entire crew to celebrate the end of the week.
Since they’d moved back, she’d been working full-time for Jim Thorne, the best lawyer in town.
Jim had closed the firm down early, so Genevieve had surprised us with food.
Except the guys were too busy watching Leo freehand airbrush a hood panel in the paint booth to be disturbed. There was no way I was waiting for those slow asses to show so I could eat my food, so Genevieve and I had started—and finished—without them.
She’d asked me if I was ready to start dating. I’d surprised us both with my yes.
I hadn’t dated. Ever. Not once had a man taken me out on a first date to dinner and a movie. Jeremiah and I hadn’t dated, we’d just been . . . together.
I was almost twenty-eight years old and wanted to be desired. For once in my life, I wanted to be pursued.
The only problem was no man in Clifton Forge had piqued my interest. Granted, I’d been with Jeremiah, but Clifton Forge wasn’t known for its singles scene. I knew most of the single guys around, had met them when they’d come to the garage with their vehicles, and they were single for a reason.
The newest single man in town—at least, I assumed he was single—was a movie star, and there was no way I’d ever be sitting across from Shaw Valance in a restaurant.
Gorgeous as he was, I’d let millions of other women lust after him. It was fitting that he’d played a Greek god not long ago. He had the body for it. With his dark blond hair styled to perfection and those straight white teeth, Shaw had probably melted all the female togas on set.
I was not interested in melting.
And the last thing I needed was Hollywood glamour.
I needed real. Honest. I needed a man with a kind smile, a steady job and humble roots.
Jeremiah had been that guy, minus the job and the humility. If only the idea of kissing Leo or Emmett didn’t sour my stomach.
“So . . .” Genevieve glanced over her shoulder toward the shop, making sure we were alone. There was still no sign of Emmett, Leo or Isaiah. Our other two mechanics, Sawyer and Tyler, usually ate their lunch out back at the picnic table, and Dash didn’t work on Fridays. “Has Jeremiah reached out?”
“Not. A. Word.” I poked the last bite of my turkey sandwich, discarded on its paper wrapper.
“Asshole.”
“You said it.”
I pretended it didn’t hurt that in the six weeks since the wedding, Jeremiah hadn’t reached out once. I pretended that things were better this way. They weren’t, but I was good at pretending.
I’d been pretending life was peachy since birth.
“Did you get the landlord thing squared away?” Genevieve asked.
“For the most part.” I sighed. “I’m trying not to think about how much money I lost.”