Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
APRIL
“When are you guys planning to have your first date?” May asks, taking out her phone and tapping down some notes.
Chance’s deep blue eyes find mine. “I have a meeting with Max to prepare for the press conference on Friday but apart from that I’m free today…”
“How about you go out now?” Rebel suggests.
I panic. “Now?”
“Yeah.” My sister checks her watch. “It’s lunch time.”
“I can’t. I haven’t finished inspecting the oxygen sensors.” I hook a finger at the car behind me.
“I can do it.” Rebel offers.
Before I can come up with an excuse, Chance shakes his head. “It’s okay. We don’t have to go on a date right this second.”
My shoulders cave in from relief.
May finishes tapping on her phone and chirps, “I’ll head home to type out the contract and forward it to you both to sign. Oh, I can’t wait to get started.” She rubs her hands together gleefully. “I say we aim for one hundred thousand new subscribers for the garage.”
“One hundred thousand?” My eyebrows fly up.
“Go big or go home, baby.”
I steer her toward the door. “How about you just go home?”
“You see how she treats me, Chance? I know my dear brother-in-law wouldn’t be so rude.”
“He’s not your brother-in-law,” I grumble.
But Chance disagrees because he stops May before she leaves and slips her a bill.
“Keep calling me brother-in-law and I’ll keep these coming,” he whispers loudly.
May kisses the ten-dollar bill and grins from ear to ear, “Chance, welcome to the family.”
“You see that… utter bribery?” I stammer, pointing at where Chance and May are walking out together.
“He’s funny.”
“He’s arrogant.”
“He seems sweet.”
“All men are sweet when they’re trying to get what they want.”
Rebel stares at me frankly. “He’s not Evan.”
“I know. I wasn’t fake-dating Evan.” Although, now that I look back at it, Evan was fake-dating me. Or fake-dating that hairdresser.
One of us was being fooled.
Rebel stares at me and a smirk tugs at her lips.
I hate when she does that. It makes me feel like she can see right through me.
“I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong,” I mumble.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“And please continue to do so.”
She laughs in that boisterous, carefree way. “I think this will be good for you, April. Evan hurt you so badly, but he was awful to you before he cheated. I hate to think that he succeeded in turning you against dating for good.”
“All Evan did was open my eyes to the truth.”
“I’m afraid to ask what ‘the truth’ is.” Rebel cringes.
“You know why I agreed to this so quickly? It’s because love is a lie anyway. At least this time, I know that going in. Whatever happens between me and Chance won’t be anything but a business arrangement. And that’s fine with me.”
I scoop up the creeper and lean it against the wall so no one accidentally slips on it. As I move, I feel Rebel’s pitying gaze.
She wouldn’t understand. Rebel’s so beautiful that men fight each other to be with her. Her partners are so enamored with her, they do everything in their power to keep her happy.
While I, on the other hand, well… it’s not like suitors were knocking my door down before Evan expressed interest.
Chance walks back into the shop.
“Did you forget something?” I ask.
“Yeah, your lunch order. I already got May’s. She said it’s Taco Tuesday. You ladies want the same?”
I blink slowly.
“I have a spa appointment,” Rebel says, reaching for her hot pink purse. “But April will have five carne asadas and an horchata .”
My eyes fling the word ‘betrayal’ at Rebel.
She smirks.
I glare back. “I think you over-rolled your ‘r’s, Bellie.”
“That’s the only thing I got out of fourrrrrr years of Spanish class.”
I cringe.
Chance laughs.
Rebel blows me a kiss. “Remember not to close the hood of that truck, April. The latch mechanism broke and it won’t be easy to open.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“See you later.” Rebel sashays out.
It’s just me and Chance in the garage.
I find myself at a loss for words. After how unpleasant—okay, downright rude—I was to him at the hotel, it’s a little embarrassing to find myself dating him less than eighteen hours later.
Fake-dating him, I mean.
Putting my jittery hands to work, I open the car hood, secure the jack so the vehicle is lifted off the ground and grab the creeper to return to my inspection.
I feel Chance’s gaze hot on me and whirl around. He’s leaning against the wall, surveying me with eyes half-hooded.
“You’re still here? I thought you went to buy tacos?”
“May gave me the taco truck’s phone number. I texted in my order and they said it’ll be ready in thirty minutes.”
“So you’re just gonna stand there and… stare creepily for thirty minutes?”
“Define ‘creepily’.”
I press my lips together. “I’m sure you have better things to do than watch a woman in a jumpsuit fix an oxygen sensor.”
“You underestimate how pretty you are in a jumpsuit.”
I blink in shock, but Chance rolls right on.
“I find what you’re doing very interesting, so don’t mind me.” He folds his arms over his chest, silently communicating that he’s staying put.
All of a sudden, the air gets hot and sticky.
Flummoxed, I turn back to the car and reach for my jumper to unzip the top when I realize it’s already unzipped.
Goodness, why is it so steamy in here?
Even when I wiggle under the car, it takes me a full five minutes to get back into work mode. Thankfully, the problem is a tough one to solve and as I go back and forth with my tools, Chance remains quiet and doesn’t interrupt.
I get so engrossed in my research that when I hear his voice behind me, I startle.
“Our food should be ready. I’ll pick up your orders and be right back. Do you want anything else to drink? May texted that she wanted me to stop by The Tipsy Tuna for a smoothie?—”
I launch forward and touch his arm. His bicep muscle is firm beneath my fingertips and I yank my hand back. “You don’t have to go out of your way.”
“It’s just a smoothie.” He smiles and my heart skips a beat. “I already gave my word to May. I can’t take it back.”
“Fine. Do what you want.” Turning away, I mumble, “Why do you need all those giant muscles if you’re going to let someone half your size push you around?”
“You think I have giant muscles?” Chance teases, edging around me to see my face which is probably a few shades brighter than the neon red, emergency triangle.
I turn in the other direction, avoiding his stare, but I can’t avoid the creeper that’s jutting from beneath the car. The wheels roll when I step on the lip of the tool and I lose my footing. On instinct, I reach for something to grab hold of. My fingers skim the car’s hood and it goes slamming down.
“Watch out!” Chance yells, snatching my hand away from the truck’s hungry mouth.
The good news is that I’ve spared my fingers from being chopped off.
The bad news is that my jumper sleeve wasn’t so lucky.
“You okay?” Chance asks, looking down at me in concern.
I notice that one of my sleeves is being gobbled by the Chevy and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“What’s wrong?” Chance’s hands are all over me. “Are you injured?”
“I’m stuck,” I moan.
“Huh?”
“Rebel warned me not to lock this hood. I should have been more careful.”
“It really can’t open?” Chance grunts as he shimmies the hood. It won’t budge. “Isn’t there usually a switch to open this from the inside?”
“It won’t work,” I warn him.
He climbs inside the car to pull the lever anyway. In the meantime, I tug at my jumper sleeve, hoping and praying that I can wiggle it out.
No dice.
“It didn’t open?” Chance yells at me from the front seat.
I meet his eyes through the windshield and shake my head despondently.
He rejoins me and digs his teeth into his bottom lip, staring at my trapped sleeve like it’s a car with a complex heating system and a busted radiator.
“Just go,” I say with a slight tremble in my voice. “The tacos will get soggy and you said you have a meeting with Max.”
“Both of those things can wait. I can’t just leave you here.” He scrubs his chin. “What if I get something flat to wedge the hood open?”
“It might damage the vehicle.”
A crease appears between his eyebrows.
“I’ll wait until Rebel gets back,” I tell him. “We’ll call the owner and get him to open the hood. I’d rather he do it himself than I do it and wreck his paint job.”
Chance frowns. “You can’t just stand here until the owner or Rebel comes.”
“It’s okay… I’ll…”
The words get choked in my throat when the giant hockey player suddenly rips his hoodie off.
I shriek and turn away, but not before getting a peek at six glorious rows of abs that glisten and ripple down his torso.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“Put this on,” Chance says. With steady hands, he pulls the hoodie over my head.
His scent is just as sexy as his abs. It’s a woodsy, clean cologne that I instinctively want to burrow into.
Feeling myself getting hypnotized, I sputter, “Chance, put your hoodie back on.”
“I have a plan. Bear with me,” he says.
I glare in his general direction, but since the hoodie is covering my eyes, I doubt it’s effective.
“Put your hands through here.” He guides me gently with his voice and his hands. “Yeah, like that. Good girl.”
My glare turns laser-harsh.
Chance pulls the hoodie down fully and I’m finally free to glower in peace.
He chuckles when he sees my scowl and tugs the hoodie down so it’s covering me to mid-thigh. “Huh. You’re smaller than I thought.”
“You’re bigger than I thought. What size are you?” I wonder, lifting my hands and noticing how the sleeves swallow them completely.
Chance smiles secretly and says instead, “Take off your jumper.”
My heart slams against my ribs and I whip my head up to look at him. “I beg your pardon? ”
A wicked ghost of a grin on his lips, Chance looks down at me. “April, take your clothes off.”