Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Cordelia
Lunch is so amazing that I almost want to peel off my steel-toed work boots, tuck myself under a tree, and doze off.
Instead, I shift fixing Renthrow’s car higher on my priority list.
“Where are you going?” April asks.
I studiously avoid eye contact as I pack my tools. “A client.”
“By any chance, is this client…super buff with a beard and a small, adorable daughter who loves Hello Kitty?”
“Huh. I don’t think I know anyone like that.”
April wiggles her finger at me. “You scarfed down Renthrow’s food and then sat there with a dazed look on your face for about ten minutes. It’s so obvious who you’ve been thinking of.”
“Why didn’t you guys go out for lunch again?” I grumble, stuffing a battery meter into the box. “Weren’t you supposed to eat out with Gunner and Chance?”
“Max called them early. Something came up at the stadium,” April says.
“Something like what?” I bat my eyes.
“Ah-ah. You’re changing the topic.”
“He’s a paying client,” I inform April. “And he needs his car to take Gordie around.”
April smirks and tucks a lock of her silky brown hair behind her ear. “Okay.”
“This isn’t a personal decision,” I explain further. “And you said when I took this job that client work was up to my discretion.”
“You’re over-explaining, Delia.” April laughs.
“Makes her seem guilty, doesn’t it?” Rebel chimes in from across the bay.
I spin around to face my other boss. As usual, she’s dressed from head to toe in pink. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Take your time,” Rebel calls, her voice full of laughter. “And tell Renthrow we said hi.”
“I’m not going to see Renthrow. He’s not even there!” I yell back.
“But you want him to know that you were thinking about him. And that’s even cuter.”
“You guys are ridiculous,” I mumble.
After securing my tool box to the back of my bike, I lower Renthrow’s lunch bag in the storage space under my seat. I don’t plan on giving this back yet. I want to wash it first, and I’ve got to keep it safe until then.
Satisfied that it’s secure, I free the kickstand and roar down the road. The sun is warm on my face and I slow the bike down, so I can enjoy the view rather than watch the world blur by.
The bike rumbles beneath me, itching to go faster, but I keep her on a tight leash. It’s too beautiful of a day to push to the max.
When I near Renthrow’s cozy bungalow, I notice his mother’s van is in the parking lot.
A spark of excitement ignites although I tell myself that I don’t care. Earlier, I called Mrs. Renthrow to check that she’d be home, and she said that she would be. It’s possible that Renthrow left the garage and took the van back to his mother right after.
“He’s probably not here,” I mumble.
But I kind of hope he is.
I bound up the stairs with my tool box and knock on the door, fully expecting to see Mrs. Renthrow.
The door opens.
Renthrow’s hazel eyes widen in surprise. “Cordelia.”
“Hi.” The word sounds breathless to my ears. “Uh, I’m supposed to meet your mom?”
“She left about twenty minutes ago with a friend.”
“She did?” That’s strange because I’m very sure she said she’d be here to receive me. “Wait, what are you doing here? Don’t you have a Lucky Strikers meeting?”
“Mom called and said there was an emergency.”
“Was there?”
His eyes slide over me, and he sighs but not unhappily. “It depends on what you define as an ‘emergency.’”
I shake my head. “Another setup.”
Our mothers are relentless.
“I don’t mind this time.” Renthrow rakes his fingers through his hair. “The team is kind of a mess at the moment, and I was glad to get away.”
My gaze searches his face, finding exhaustion and worry stamped into his features. I’m not one to care, generally, when people seem upset around me.
After years of watching my sister fall for dozens of sob stories, I’ve hardened myself to it all. Being a Davenport taught me that schemers will happily and eagerly play on your sympathies to get their way.
But I don’t feel that Renthrow is manipulative at all. He seems genuinely troubled right now.
I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “You want to help me fix a car?”
He tilts his head in confusion.
“It worked on Gordie.”
“Are you mistaking me for my daughter, Miss Davenport?” Renthrow leans against the door and folds his arms over his chest, bringing my attention to his bulging biceps.
I observe his broad shoulders, chiseled jawline, and shaggy brown hair. “I doubt anyone would mistake you for a little girl, Renthrow.”
“Call me Ren.”
I swallow hard. Why does his voice sound so low and raspy? Why isn’t he breaking eye contact? Why can’t I?
“Ren?” I wonder aloud. “Short for Renthrow?”
He lifts one shoulder.
“But your first name is Viking.”
He groans. “Don’t call me Viking. Only my mother insists on it.”
I snap out of my daze and grin wide. “Now, I have to call you Viking.”
He shudders.
“Viking—”
“Cordelia…”
“If you’re not doing anything more important, like perhaps raiding a village or pillaging a ship on the open seas…”
“Don’t.”
“…Would you do me the honor…”
He shakes his head, a self-conscious grin on his face.
“…Of fixing a car. If it’s not too much trouble, Mr. Viking, sir.”
“Okay, okay.” Laughter rumbles from deep in his chest. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
I can’t help but laugh too.
He smiles down at me, his eyes going soft.
I realize how close we are in the doorway, and my throat works through a swallow. “I was just kidding.”
“I have a bit of time before I pick up Gordie from chess club.” He checks his watch. “I admit, I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”
“Do you know what a wrench is?”
He rolls his eyes. “I have a vague idea.”
“Then you’ll be fine.”
I send Renthrow to get me the keys to his truck, and he returns with the item I requested and a bunch of wires.
“This was magically left on my hood when I got home today,” he explains.
“Magical indeed.” I accept the wires and inspect them. They’re exactly what was torn out of his vehicle. “This’ll make my job easy.”
Renthrow follows me to his car and pops the hood like I instruct him to. I lay out the wires on the front bumper to get a clearer understanding of what I need to reattach.
His footsteps get closer, and I’m suddenly thrown into shade.
“What exactly are we looking at?” His voice sounds right next to my ear.
I twist my neck and find the tall hockey player gripping the popped hood of his vehicle and leaning slightly forward. He’s so close to me, his chest is flush with my shoulder.
There’s more than enough room for me to inch away, but I don’t. “This wire here”—I point to a thin red one—“is normally attached to the left battery pole. Without it, even if I got all the other wires set back up, you couldn’t even start your car.”
He wears a serious expression as I explain all the wires and their functions.
“The oscilloscope is a high-tech scanner that allows you to see electrical signals over time. We use the data displayed to…” I twist around and see the glazed look in Renthrow’s eyes.
My eyebrows pinch together. “Aaaand…I just realized that I’ve been talking for way too long.
Please say something before I kill you with boredom. ”
“It wasn’t boring…exactly.”
I snort. “That was a very natural performance. Almost like you’ve practiced acting interested in things you care nothing about.”
“Not to brag, but I do have a six-year-old who loves space.”
“Is it your turn to compare me to a six-year-old?”
He grins. “How’d you get into auto repair?”
“First, it was so I could fix my own bike. A lot of the mechanics who worked on it were over-charging because they knew my last name, but I still had the same problems when it left the shop. The mechanics who did good work were all booked for months. So I started tinkering on my own.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s really not.” I shrug. “Fixing a bike is one thing. Fixing a car is another. I enrolled in an auto-repair certificate program when I got started, but there’s so much that I’m picking up from April and Rebel. I’m not even half as knowledgeable as those two.”
“You’ll get there,” he says confidently. “You love what you do. It’s in your eyes.”
“You can read my eyes now?”
“I can read obsession. I was that way about hockey.”
“And now you’re that way about Gordie.” I twist two wires together and wipe the sweat off my face with the back of my hand.
“With Gordie, it’s different.” His smile turns proud. “I was obsessed with what hockey gave me. But now, I obsess over the life I can give my daughter.”
My heart skips a beat as his eyes catch mine. I can’t deny that his single-minded devotion for Gordie is very attractive.
Yeah, but no one else can compete with it. He’ll choose his daughter over any other woman in his life.
I break eye contact and glance down at the wires.
“It looks like you’re almost done,” Renthrow says tentatively.
“Yeah. I just need to test these to make sure that my repair job will hold. Then I’ll wire them properly with electric tape.”
“Mm. Tape. Wires. I understood all of that,” Renthrow says.
I laugh.
“I’ll bring us some lemonade. After all that talking, your throat must be parched.”
Aghast, I make a grab for the wires. “Should I yank these out again and let you put it back together?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Thought so.”
“I’ll be right back with your drink,” Renthrow says, throwing a handsome smile over his shoulder.
While he’s gone, I focus on my task and feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. On instinct, I reach for it and then realize that my hands are incredibly dirty.
At that moment, Renthrow returns with tall lemonade glasses. He offers one to me, but I lift my hands to show him the dirt coating my palms.
He arches a brow. “You want me to bring you a straw?”
“No.” I smirk. “Can you get a clean rag from the toolbox? I usually keep them in the front compartment.”
My phone stops ringing.
Renthrow walks back to me with the rag, and I extend my hand to take it from him, but to my surprise, he wipes it across my forehead.
I freeze in shock.
He’s focused on his task, and after cleaning my forehead, he turns my left hand over and gently wipes my skin.
“This reminds me of when Gordie got her hands on a can of paint. She got it all over her face and fingers, and I had to scrub her for days…” Renthrow suddenly realizes what he’s doing and flings my hand down. The dirty rag flutters to the ground. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I, uh—”
My phone starts ringing again.
Renthrow takes a deep, centering breath and points to my pocket. “Go ahead. I’ll grab you some hand sanitizer.”
I watch him scurry inside like he’s running from the zombie apocalypse and take out my phone distractedly.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dee.”
My chest tightens at the familiar voice. With that one nickname, I’m pulled back to the most humiliating day of my life.
“Brennon?” I hiss.
“H-how have you been?”
Heat burns my cheeks, and I snarl, “Why are you calling me?”
“Your mom sent me to Lucky Falls to work with the management of the stadium.” The boy I once loved with all my heart pauses and then says, “Can we meet up?”