3. Jeremy
Chapter three
Jeremy
I slam my brakes hard to avoid the cat dashing across the street and grab at my hat on the dash to stop it flying out the window. The black feline disappears under the wheels of my truck as I screech to a halt.
Shit!
Bracing my hand on the headrest of the passenger seat, I pull up on the curb at an angle and crane over my shoulder. One crazy, suicidal cat darts up the embankment and vanishes between the shrubs in a nearby front yard. My pulse runs at the same speed the animal disappeared at.
A car honks, telling me to get my vehicle’s big ass off the road properly.
“Chill out,” I mutter, driving all the way off to let him pass. “Don’t die for a deadline.”
Once a break in the traffic forms, I pull back onto the road. Can’t be late for work, not with my boss having a stick up his ass about being on time.
At least the cat survived. All that stuff about black cats crossing your path is just a myth, right? And technically, it went under my car, not in front. I should be fine.
To soothe my tension, I turn on the radio and hum along with the latest hit song, Heat Fall. With one hand on the steering wheel of my big pickup and the other marking the beat on the center console, I skim along the freeway to Kalone Tire Center.
This is how a man should be, driving a fuel-guzzling truck toward a job that pays shit money, with a warm wind blowing in through the window and a ten-gallon hat sitting on the dash.
Bigger than life and pretending that existential crisis doesn’t lurk around every corner.
Minimal responsibilities, no cares in the world. All is good.
I reach over and dial up the volume as the song hits the chorus, belting out the lyrics at the top of my voice:
I hear your call
Gonna bring my all.
Letting loose my soul
In your heat we fall.
In your heat, again and again, we fall.
My drive takes me past the Heat Wave clinic, a giant glass and steel building four stories tall, claiming to be able to help any omega through her heat. If only they could help me with my issues.
Imagining what goes on behind all that mirrored glass coupled with the erotic visuals in the song’s verses gives me a mild stiffy and I adjust my pants.
“Not now,” I grumble, checking the clock.
Only ten minutes until I’m due at work, and that’s not enough time for anything, especially not stopping for a breakfast bite. I should’ve left earlier, considering how stiff-necked my boss is.
A mile on I come across a car with flashing indicators not quite fully pulled off the road. The driver stands beside her trunk, a car jack by her feet as she uses her whole body to wrestle a tire out. Her wheel arch is nearly bigger than she is. A glint of light catches on her cheeks.
“Whoa,” I murmur to myself, stepping on the brakes once more and pulling over to the verge, putting my own lights on and parking behind her.
By the time I grab my hat and tumble out, she’s wedged the jack underneath and started cranking the handle.
“Just a moment, ma’am!” I call out, speeding up to a jog.
The beta looks up at me, eyes red-rimmed.
“Can I help you?” I ask, keeping my distance until invited.
She flaps one hand at her sunken tire. “I just . . . never learned. And today, of all days?”
A sob catches in her throat, and she wipes her face on her sleeve with jerky motions.
Her distress tugs at my heart. We’ve all had those days.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll get you back on the road in a jiffy, yeah?” I crouch down and unwind the jack. “Look here. You need to brace this part on the car’s frame.” I slap the tough underside. “Where you had it is just aluminum and will probably buckle.”
I explain each step and patiently answer her questions as I fix the problem, offering her the tools when she shows interest. She rocks onto her knees and undoes the last wheel nut, beaming with pride over her small step forward.
I wrestle the flat off the hub and roll in the new wheel, throwing the flat one-handed into the trunk.
“Okay, now we just reverse the process,” I tell her. “Wheel nuts on, hub on, jack down.”
She nods and starts threading the nuts. In another minute we have her all fixed up.
“Thank you,” she says, inspecting traces of black rubber on her hands.
“My pleasure. If you need anything else looked at, try Kalone Tire Center over on Thirty-third Street.”
“Okay, thanks. I think the back tires are wearing a bit.”
I check the rear rubber. “Yes, ma’am. This one’s balder than my boss.”
“All right.” She sniffles and offers a weak grin. “Next paycheck then.”
I doff my hat. “Drive safe, and have a good day.”
I walk back to my car, humming a merry tune, but it dies as I glimpse the dash clock. 8:10.
“Shit!”
I throw the car into gear and roar out into the road, risking narrow gaps in the traffic to get back on course. My pain-in-the-ass boss is gonna have plenty to say about me being late again. I screech into the parking lot, spraying gravel as I brake hard.
Sure enough, he’s waiting just inside the workshop, body rigid.
“Jeremy,” he begins, voice tight as a bow string as he slaps the bookings' clipboard.
This is not a good way to start the day. Not when it took me so long to get this job in the first place.
I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, Mr Kalone, but you see, there was a cat, and a lady with a flat tire and she was blocking traffic—”
“I don’t care what your excuse is!” he says, voice rising to a roar as he finishes.
He folds his arms over his chest and his cheeks redden, making the blue veins right under his skin stand out more.
“You are contracted to be here at the right fucking time, to put tires on our clients’ cars.
I keep a tight schedule so we can all make a living in this damn economy, and now you’ve put us twenty minutes behind! ”
He radiates fury like heat waves on a scorching day.
I sigh. “I am sorry, sir. But the lady said she’s coming—”
“I don’t fucking care if she’s an omega in heat! When I hire, I expect my employees to show up! And you, Jeremy, are not showing up.”
Icy fingers clutch my spine as I stare over his head at the workshop. The other lads keep their eyes on their cars, but of course they can hear us, or at least see what’s going on. How many times am I going to get chewed out like this?
Why can’t you follow through? If you make a commitment, keep it.
Maybe the woman would have managed on her own if I didn’t stop. But she needed help. It’s my fault for not leaving earlier. The job’s decent and I really want to do my best; I just keep losing track of time.
I clench my teeth together. All I wanted to do was help.
“Well? Can’t even apologize?” my boss hisses.
“I did, sir. I’m very sorry.” I lock my hands behind my back, unable to meet his eye. “Can I get on with the job now, so we don’t fall further behind?”
He shoves the clipboard into my chest and stalks away muttering. Can’t be sure, but I catch snippets of “Now he wants to work?” and “Kids these days.”
I check the first car on the list and grab keys off the big board near the office door to move it onto the ramps.
I’d argue that I’m way past being a kid, but how many times has my family told me to grow up?
I am grown up. My boots are the largest size available, my hat fits an adult head.
But, like Peter Pan, I apparently lack some vital ingredient known as “growing up” that everyone else is guzzling faster than my truck sucks gas.
Is it so terrible to think people matter more than a job?
Mr Kalone disappears into his office to obsess over money, and I spend the day changing tires and doing wheel alignments.
The garage also offers vehicle servicing, but I don’t have the training for that.
Would be nice to perform the variety of tasks the other guys do, but at least I don’t need any gyms to keep my arms in shape.
Was planning to ask the boss this week if he’d consider transitioning me into an apprenticeship as a mechanic, but now I better wait awhile until he’s forgotten his anger. Which means I need to be on time for the rest of the month.
A mechanic is a respectable trade, and a trade’s a good job to have. Steady, reliable. Something people need. That was my brother Joel’s theory for going into the electrical field, and it worked well for him. Now he’s got his own company, and a fiancé. I’ll probably be hearing about kids any day.
In a word: successful. Synonym for “adulting.”
Joel’s the golden boy. We shared a womb, but the family has a sneaking suspicion he leached all the intelligence.
Twins or not, he’s the child who always got it right.
Maybe if I show I can settle down, hold a job for more than a year, then I’ll stop getting all those sidelong looks at Thanksgiving dinner.
Maybe Joel and his new fiancé will want to spend time with me again.
And start my own family? Well, that doesn’t seem to be on my cards anytime soon. People swarm around me every day but none seem to see me.
I pause to wipe sweat off my face and straighten my back.
A quick check of my phone reveals a few text messages, all from women I hooked up with to relieve some tension who want round two.
But none of those simple lines of text ask about me.
Just my availability. Might as well give my alpha cock its own hotline and bypass the man altogether.
“Jeremy?” My boss’s shrill voice rips through my momentary break. “Are you fucking slacking again?”
“Just wiping my sweat, Mr Kalone.” I slip my phone in my overalls and spin, making a show of wiping my face with the rag in my hand. “Wouldn’t want to drip all over the cars.”
I pat the Jeep like it’s an animal while smiling.
Do university degrees come with a class on catching your employees every time they take a breather? For fuck’s sake! I don’t even take smoke breaks like half the guys here!
His eyes narrow, but he stalks back inside without another word. Good grief. His home life must be awful.