Chapter Five
WORK FELT DIFFERENT TODAY, and I wasn’t sure if it was the impending official VP status being announced tonight, or whether it was the fact that I felt like that wasn’t all that changed yesterday.
Caroline seemed interested in me yesterday, and I hadn’t realised just how attracted I was, until I realised it might be reciprocated.
Trust me, I’ve done things wrong in the past, but something about her made me wonder if I could get it right this time.
“How about if I turn your shelving this way, and build the booth here in this pocket of space?” Rocket was still working out how to set up his space, and I was finding it irritatingly disruptive, because I liked to have things in order, and he was slowly decimating every inch of the place.
There were piles of boxes containing equipment, paints, and various parts he was working on for his own projects, since he had no clients at the moment.
He was messing with my organised non-chaos, and even though I should have seen it coming, it was screwing with my head.
“We’ve already moved that shelving once,” I argued, stepping over some of his crap, and catching my toe, narrowly avoiding falling flat on my face.
“Maybe should have kept this stuff out until you decided on the layout,” I grumbled, smoothing my jeans as I straightened up again.
Rocket grinned at me. “Dude, I already had it all planned, and then you said, what if… and it kinda threw my planning out the window. It’s on you really.”
Prick. I gestured to the booth he was trying to set up.
“Backing the shelves up to this, you mean, like adding it as a wall?”
He nodded, moving over to rest his hands on the counter he’d already set in place.
“It’d help close off the spray area, so nobody thinks they can wander in there.” Well, safety first, right?
“Yeah, sounds good. Do we need some brothers to come help out with the setup?”
Rocket pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked it. “Has-Been’s on his way. Since he’s a spray specialist too, he’ll be able to help set it up right.” Good. That meant he wouldn’t need me too. I had a job coming in later today, and I was waiting on another collection.
“Cool. I’ll be over there then. Don’t leave so much shit here like a trip hazard though, man. We’re not all like fucking gazelles.” Yeah, I’d fallen over it twice already, so if I could, then so could anyone else.
“That chick who was here yesterday,” Rocket said quietly, immediately setting my hackles up on the back of my neck, because he shouldn’t be even thinking about her.
“Yeah.”
“She yours?”
“She’s not fucking yours, that’s for sure.”
Rocket chuckled, lifting one of his boxes into the designated spray area.
“That’s what I thought. She’s a bit… nervy… she gonna freak out with me here?”
Damn good question. I didn’t want anything, or anyone, keeping her away from me.
Has-Been would intimidate her less than Rocket, but two of them in here?
Who knew. At least she wasn’t due here today.
At least as far as I knew. I rested my hand over my phone in my pocket.
Why was I suddenly considering messaging her to make sure her ride was behaving?
“Has is just parking up,” Rocket said, making me jump, since the fucker was now trying to hover over my shoulder, probably because I’d ignored his last question. I just didn’t have an answer to that one yet.
“And you’re making out with me why?”
He barked another laugh as he backed off with his hands lifted. I headed for my counter, and that’s when he dropped his next fucking demand.
“You’ve got good security here, right? My kit’s fucking valuable.” Yeah like mine wasn’t. Like my customer’s treasured possessions weren’t. Still… a smirk suddenly crossed my face, and I answered in the only way I could think of that’d piss him off.
“Why don’t I get Grease and his old lady in, to look at improving my setup?” I’d been planning on it anyway, but since I knew Grease and Rocket had some kind of ongoing beef, it was a twofer.
“Fuck.”
I dragged my phone out and leaned on the counter, scrolling through for Grease’s number, and that’s when a message pinged in.
Caroline: Thank you for helping me yesterday. When would you like me to repay you with boring coffee?
Well, damn. Suddenly I barely even remembered Rocket existed, because she’d messaged me. I knew how anxious she could be, so I recognised that it took balls for her to do this. I checked my watch, and checked the schedule, even though I knew that shit by heart.
Me: I’m free after three today. You want me to meet you somewhere?
Has-Been strode into my shop then, his eyes taking in my sweet little setup in a calculated gaze, and he whistled softly.
“Fuck me. This place is too nice to have Rocket in it, man. He’ll cheapen it.”
“Eat me.”
I grinned, feeling lighter and more in control of my shit, even while I waited for her response.
“I know, but he begged so prettily. I’m going to be out in the bay waiting for a collection, so shout if anyone comes in.”
Has offered me a mini salute, and headed straight for the coffee machine. Coffee. Suddenly I really fucking wanted some too. But only with her.
Caroline
ISTARED AT HIS message, my fingers trembling around my phone.
Harley: I’m free after three today. You want me to meet you somewhere?
I should have been replying, but suddenly I was unsure of myself, and wondering if I’d even be able to hold a conversation with him.
Why was I like this? Why couldn’t I just navigate the normal human reactions that most people did so effortlessly.
Like Harley himself did so easily. Suddenly there was a time limit on it, and that was freaking me out.
I thought he’d say something like ‘anytime’ or even the less, and more, preferable ‘it was just an expression’.
I wanted to see him again, and I was freaking out just at the prospect of it. What if I reverted into myself and sat silently, while he wished he’d never met me?
Oh god. I had to do something. I checked the time on my phone and somehow nearly twenty minutes had passed since his message. Twenty minutes of me agonising over how to reply to a simple message. Ugh.
I swallowed hard, and opened up the message again, which had timed out, and given me a black screen during my inactivity. Not that my mind was inactive. God, if only.
Me: Like a coffee shop?
As soon as I sent it, I growled at myself, tossing the phone on the sofa and getting up, pacing back and forth, mentally berating myself for being so dumb. Yeah, a coffee shop. That place where people get coffee!
I pictured him staring at his phone in disbelief, wondering who the psycho was who’d just sent that message, but my phone buzzed again.
Harley: There’s one down the road from my workshop, meet at half three?
Wow. He just skated right over my dumbassery, and moved us forward. How was he not rolling his eyes and calling me a moron? Of course, he may well have done that before he replied, but I honestly couldn’t see him doing it.
So, at three fifteen, I somehow had the balls to park up outside the coffee shop he mentioned, taking a few precious minutes to stare at the place, and wonder if I could even go in.
It wasn’t Harley I feared, but everyone else.
People had no boundaries. People got too close, and when people were together in groups, they had fewer boundaries and inhibitions than any other time.
“Brakes doing okay?” I jumped out of my skin, turning to see Harley behind me, and thank god his reflexes were good, because my helmet slipped from my hands, but he caught it just before it hit the ground, and was ruined.
“Shit!”
“It’s all good. Never touched down, so there’s no damage, it’s okay.”
He seemed good at comforting me through my awkwardness, but I always wished he didn’t have to.
“You’re early,” I said, taking it back from him with an awkward smile of thanks.
“So are you,” he replied, casual and relaxed as always. He gestured to me to walk ahead of him, and I really wished he hadn’t because I wanted him as a buffer between me and people, but it would have been rude to refuse, right?
Harley watched me for a moment, then lightly touched my back, nudging me to walk beside him, and it didn’t feel weird. It didn’t freak me out. He was touching me, not for the first time, and why did I never panic when he did that? Another person touching me would have had me in full panic mode.
“So the brakes are good? No issues?”
I forced myself to answer him, amid the whirling of my thoughts.
“No problems. Uh… you did… whatever you did worked.”
He grinned, and stepped ahead of me to pull the door open, and I had no choice but to step inside the warm noisy coffee shop ahead of him. Why were coffee shops always so loud? Why did people have to practically yell to each other, even though they sat at the same table?
The coffee machine roared in the corner, making me flinch, and my fists clenched at my sides, one still gripping my helmet strap.
Harley glanced behind us, and stepped in front of me, getting into the queue.
“It’s ridiculously busy in here. Do you want to go hold a table outside, and I’ll bring our stuff out?”
It was like he knew it was overwhelming me in the crazy loud place. It was like he could see the tension in my body, and the way my ears were ringing with the deafening sounds.
I swallowed hard, shoving my phone at him, but he shook his head at me.
“Uh… I don’t need that.”
“I’m buying you coffee, remember?”
Harley pushed my phone back at me, smiling gently, despite my awkwardness.
“You can get the next ones. It’s fine. Do you want a cake or anything?” I shook my head, and he nudged me toward the door.
“I’ll be out as soon as I can.”
Huh. I eyed him for a few more seconds, and he lifted his chin, showing me a stubbornness I hadn’t seen before in him, but I found oddly appealing. Stubborn worked with me, because I always backed down first. That probably wasn’t a good trait to have, but it worked for right now.
Next ones, he said next ones, as in, maybe we’d do this again? I had to force myself to put that thought aside and get out of this place, before it crushed me under the weight of all the people.
I headed back outside, my ears still ringing from the sounds, and now from the blessed low noise levels, from passing cars, and very little else.
The wind was blowing through the trees across from the coffee shop, but that wasn’t an unpleasant sound.
It helped to centre me, as I settled at the furthest table from the door, and sat down.
I obviously brushed crumbs from the seat first, and wondered for the millionth time how people dropped so many eating a simple snack, especially with the table there to do that very thing. Catch crumbs.
Five minutes later, Harley set a large ceramic mug in front of me, and the scent of my favourite coffee reached me. Mocha, with chocolate sprinkled on the foam in the shape of a maple leaf.
“Thank you,” I said softly, lifting my eyes to meet his as he sat opposite me, cupping his mug of black coffee.
“How do you drink it like that?” I gasped, watching steam rising from it, and marvelling at how he wasn’t pulling his hands away.
“I like it. Dark and bitter, like my soul.”
I gasped. “No way! You’re like the sweetest person I know! You’re so kind!”
Harley chuckled. “It was a joke, but thank you. I think this is the first time we’ve seen each other outside of the shop, huh?
” He knew it was a fact, just like I did.
This was how normal people started conversations.
My cheeks were still a little pink with embarrassment at missing his joke, but he didn’t seem to mock me for it.
“I’m glad we did this,” he said next, running his finger around the rim of his coffee mug, my eyes following the movement.
“I’m not very good at… at normal people stuff,” I said, keeping my eyes on his finger, because I didn’t want to see the pity or mocking I’d usually see. Not from him. Never from him.
Harley sat back in his seat, his finger leaving the mug’s rim.
“I’m not good at tons of things. Trust me. Never ask me to choose a meal in a restaurant. I get a load of choices in front of me, and I can take all night with it.”
Wow. I’d had the same problem myself before. I finally braved looking at him, and saw a passive look on his face. He wasn’t mocking me, nor was he embarrassed. Was he saying it just to make me feel better?
“I… I’m not a people person. Too many people. Too much noise. I get… they overstep boundaries, and I panic.”
Harley’s brow creased and he leaned forward a little, resting his arms back on the table.
“People overstep your boundaries? Do they touch you?”
I swallowed hard, looking over to check on my motorbike, which was happily resting on its stand, glowing in the autumn sunlight.
“I mean… most people are okay with being touched, right?”
He reached for my hand, then stopped and literally rolled his eyes when I looked at him.
“And this bellend goes to touch you right after you say that. What a dick.” I opened my mouth to argue, because for some reason, his touch didn’t bother me, but he shook his head.
“Nobody should ever touch you without your consent, Caroline, and I’m sorry for every time that’s happened. With others, but also with me. Especially with me. I shouldn’t do that.”
“It’s okay!” I blurted, because the thought of him never touching me again actually felt worse than the idea of another person touching me. How that was possible, I had no idea.
“It’s not.”
“I… I like it when it’s you,” I whispered, biting my lip to try and stop more words from slipping out. I only like it when it’s you. I love it when it’s you. You’re the only one who doesn’t make me feel coated with wrongness afterward.
“What if I liked touching you, Caroline? What if I liked it so much, I wanted to do it again?”
I took a breath, because I knew the answer to this one.
“I’ve never had sex!” What? That wasn’t it! That wasn’t the answer to his question! I gasped and covered my face with both hands, but I saw it before I hid, I saw the look on his face. Shock. Confusion. Then the worst one. Pity.