Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Cordelia
Two pairs of eyes drill into me the moment I park my bike at the outdoor garage. I pretend not to notice and take my helmet off with careful movements.
Slow and steady.
My head feels like a pack of monkeys got loose from the circus and turned my skull into their own playground.
Alcohol and I are never going to be friends.
Squinting against the sunlight, I lift a gloved hand and swing my legs off the bike.
“Morning,” I grunt and set my helmet on the table next to the cooler filled with pink lemonade. Rebel’s boyfriend keeps it stocked just for her.
“Good morning to you too,” April says, abandoning her diagnostic scanner on the edge of the car’s open hood.
Rebel, who was midway to the ramp lift on the rear end of our little “shop,” does a U-turn and scampers across the lawn.
My bosses crowd my space, giving me expectant looks.
I lean back. “Is…something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” April croons in a casual tone.
Rebel arches a brow.
They both let the silence ring.
“Is there something you want to discuss?” I ask pensively.
April smirks. “Is there anything you want to discuss?”
“Um…” I squint at the bright blue sky. “I mean, yeah.”
Rebel makes a “go ahead” gesture.
“I was thinking about the waveforms I got with the oscilloscope tool you let me borrow. The data showed that a tooth broke off from the crankshaft gear—”
“Delia, come on,” April says. “We’ve got questions.”
“You’re Cordelia Davenport,” Rebel whispers as if my last name is something reverent. “Davenport…from the Davenport family. I’ve seen your carpet-cleaning commercials since I was a kid.”
The two women start humming the commercial jingle, and I cringe.
I’ve run from my last name and all the assumptions that tag along with it for most of my life. But, as usual, the Davenport title runs faster than I ever could, and now, it’s finally caught up.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” April asks, folding her arms over her chest.
“You saw my last name when I applied for the job.”
“Yeah, but…” Rebel shakes her head. “Why do you live in an apartment that small when you’re a Davenport?”
“I like my apartment,” I argue.
“It’s so tiny!”
“It’s less space to clean.”
April laughs self-consciously and admits, “This entire time I thought you were struggling. I almost put together a food basket for you.”
“A food basket?”
“All you do is work late at the shop and go home. That time we went to the mall together, you didn’t splurge on yourself at all.”
“Well, that’s… I’m not into fashion. But if I were, the clothes at the mall are last season. They don’t sell the latest designer at chain stores.”
Rebel’s jaw drops.
April staggers back. “I think I’m going to faint.”
I scratch the side of my neck, self-conscious.
“Last week, I saw you eat tuna sandwiches for three days straight, so I thought…” April shakes her head.
“I don’t eat red meat, and this town loves their burgers and steaks,” I explain.
“Oh.” April blinks slowly. “Oh, I guess that makes sense.”
Rebel tilts her head. “Is that why you’ve been so standoffish with us? Did you think we’d judge you or treat you differently for being a Davenport?”
“I wasn’t intentionally trying to deceive you. I just…wanted a fresh start.”
The women’s eyes soften and then fill with pity.
Poor thing, their eyes say.
The knifing sensation under my ribs starts again, and it makes me want to run to my bike and ride far away.
April reaches for my shoulder. “Do you…” She stops when Rebel does a subtle shake of her head. My boss pulls back. “What were you saying about the crankshaft gear?”
“The teeth broke,” I answer, eager to shed the Davenport identity and return to being a rookie mechanic.
“Can you show me the waveforms?” April asks, flipping her hair into a bun with the tail end sticking up like a feather plume.
The ladies brainstorm with me, blowing me away with their knowledge of car repair. I take a ton of notes as Rebel and April bat around the different diagnostic tools they recommend to prove my theory.
“I’ll lend you that scanner,” April says after looking over my notes.
We separate to our own workstations, and I plug in my ear buds, turn up my rock playlist, and get to work.
In what feels like minutes later, my playlist is interrupted by a ringing sound.
I check my phone screen.
Mom.
To answer or not to answer, that is the question.
It’s useless to hide. She knows where I live and where I work.
I pick up the call. “Hi, Mom.”
“Cordelia, I’m at the airport and heading back now.”
The tension in my shoulders unwinds. Mom is leaving already? Without putting up a fuss or dragging me home? It’s unlike her, but I won’t question it.
“Travel safe,” I tell her with a little more excitement than is polite.
“Thank you, dear. Before I leave, I wanted to ask you a favor.”
I go tense again.
“You’ve chosen to be a mechanic, and I totally respect that. However, I can’t stand to think of you working for hours on end in the hot sun. You’re still my baby, and you’re still a Davenport, even if you are doing hard labor.”
I glance up at the tent covering our workstations. It’s not too bad now, but when mid-afternoon comes, it gets sweltering.
“So,” Mom continues, “I’d like to introduce you to a realtor who’ll take you to look at available garages. I’m aware of the legal drama around the building your bosses own, and who knows how long litigation will be?”
“I’m just the new mechanic. I don’t have much say in where they decide to operate, Mom.”
“It’s only a tour. You won’t sign any papers. And if you see something nice, you can forward it to April and Rebel.”
I turn it over in my mind. It’s not a bad idea.
But, then again, it’s an idea from Mom, and I don’t know her motivations.
Mom pushes. “I can tell that you have a lot of respect for those ladies. Wouldn’t it be nice to help them this way?”
It would be nice. April and Rebel have done a lot for me, and I haven’t done much to show my appreciation. Actually, I’ve done the complete opposite.
Now that the secret’s out and they know who I really am, I don’t mind using the Davenport name and influence for good.
“Where’s the realtor’s office?”
“He’s not local, so he’ll meet you at a public place. Bob’s Burgers? Twelve o’clock?”
Bob’s Burgers. My intuition pings a warning. It’s a strange place to have a realtor meeting.
I agree hesitantly. “That works…I guess.”
“Great! Let’s have a nice, mother-daughter chat the next time I’m in town. Ta-ta!”
I hang up, feeling like I stepped into a whirlwind and not sure why.
The “why” becomes abundantly clear exactly three seconds after I walk into Bob’s Burgers.
I scan the tables, looking for a sharply dressed professional who may or may not have a standing appointment with a celebrity plastic surgeon.
Instead, my eyes collide with a tall, ruggedly handsome man wearing a Lucky Strikers jersey. My heart screams down to my toes, freezing me in place.
It’s him.
Viking Renthrow is sitting with his back to the wall and his gaze observing everyone in the burger joint. His messy black hair is corralled under a baseball cap, leaving most of his face exposed so I can see exactly when he recognizes me.
His entire body stiffens, and his lips turn down in a frown so sharp, I could attach it to the bottom of my sneakers and go skating on a frozen pond with it.
I pointedly look past him, hoping to find the mysterious realtor I was promised. At this point, I’ll be fine if Mom set me up with the realtor instead.
“Cordelia, right?” A teenager wearing an apron and a hair net rounds the counter and approaches me. Her eyes slide past me to the bike parked outside as she pops her gum. “That’s your bike, right?”
“Yeah.”
She grins. “This way.”
My throat goes dry as she leads me right up to Viking Renthrow’s table.
He folds his arms over his chest, drawing my attention to the bulging muscles half-hidden under his sleeves.
Where I come from, men go to the gym for the aesthetics. But something tells me, Renthrow’s muscles came from pure, hard discipline.
Why am I staring at his muscles?
“I don’t suppose you’re the new nanny I was to interview today,” Renthrow accuses in a dark voice.
“I don’t suppose you’re the realtor I’m here to meet,” I fire back.
He takes his cap off, scrapes his big hands through his thick, dark hair, and then slaps the cap back on, somehow relaying his frustration to me without ever explicitly voicing it.
“I’d say it’s a pleasure,” I spit out, “but that would be a lie.”
“Well then…it’s a good thing lies are your speciality,” he drawls in that small-town cadence. His eyes slide over me like I’m poison.
My cheeks heat up. “Yesterday, I had a…situation.”
“A fake-boyfriend situation.”
“I picked the wrong guy to play the part. Obviously.”
His jaw tics as if he’s grinding his molars together. “At least you tried again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Last night. You and Max?”
My eyebrows cinch together.
“Max was the right guy?” he asks, an edge to his voice.
Before I can figure out why he’s dragging Max into this, a toddler races out of the bathroom, buck naked.
“Anthony!” A frazzled mother shrieks, scrambling to collect her child.
I windmill backward to get out of the toddler’s way and lose my balance. It’s too late to correct course, and I end up sprawling into Viking Renthrow’s lap. The arms I’d been eyeing come around me, pulling me against his chest and steadying my balance.
“Sorry. Sorry,” the flustered mother says. She scoops her baby into her arms and takes the shrieking, miniature hurricane back into the family bathroom.
Renthrow looks me up and down. “Back for take two?”
Take two?
My glare hardens, and I wonder if it’s possible to despise someone this much. “Get your hands off me, and I’ll gladly get up.”
Renthrow abruptly lifts both arms.
I didn’t account for the fact that his hands were keeping me upright, and I flop backward like a turtle turned over on its shell.
While I’m teetering against gravity and trying to wiggle my way back to a sitting position again Renthrow peers over me.
His lips twitch. “Need some help there?”
“I do not.” I try to plant my feet on the ground, but he’s so tall, even while sitting, that my legs are dangling two inches off the floor, and I can’t steady myself that way.
Changing tactics, I grip the table and heft myself up. Unfortunately, my arms are not wrapped in muscles like his are, and I have negative-five-percent core strength. The simple act of pulling myself up will require a mathematical equation that I need time to think through.
But Renthrow gets enough.
His hand curves over my waist, and he draws me up to a sitting position again with the ease of the mother who scooped up her baby.
My glare darkens. “I had it.”
“You’d have been there all day.” He stares at my arms. “Why are you so frail? Don’t you eat?”
“I’ll have you know that I do eat, and that is considered skinny shaming.”
His lips twitch again.
I’d scold him for laughing at me, but I suddenly can’t focus because his eyes are shifting in color like pure magic.
I thought his eyes were brown—a light brown, sure, but definitely on that spectrum of the color wheel. But I see I was wrong. His eyes are hazel, and right now, with the sun pooling through the window, they’re leaning more toward green than brown.
Whoa.
Against my better judgment, I get curious. I wonder what color his eyes are when he laughs? Or when he’s wearing green. Or when he kisses?
Kisses?
Renthrow’s staring right back at me, and I catch the moment his gaze drifts down to my lips.
My heart thuds faster.
What…what on earth is going on right now?
“Grandma! It’s the cool lady!” a tiny voice squeaks. “The cool lady is sitting on Daddy’s lap!”
The strange pull between me and the grumpy single dad shatters.
My face turns tomato red as I whip around to find Renthrow’s daughter looking at me.
Along with every.
Single.
Patron.
In Bob’s Burgers.