Chapter 5
Five
FELIX
I t's been a hell of a week.
Holden's new hire fuckup left a shitload of problems in his wake. Holden fired him and blacklisted him with everyone he knows in the industry, which is just about everyone in a thousand-mile radius. But the asshole was so clueless and incompetent that we have to carefully test everything he went near in the three weeks he was on the job. We caught a dozen issues that would have meant a dozen catastrophes like the Aspenview house. Holden's insurance covers the cost of the repairs, but that doesn't put my guys back on schedule. It's gonna take a full crew damn near a month to properly repair the basement, which means my whole fucking schedule is now off by a month.
I barely have time to breathe, let alone do anything else—I'm in that soggy basement with the crew, ripping out flooring and drywall, going over plumbing and electrical, setting up fans and dehumidifiers to get everything dry, and putting everything back in fresh. And when I'm not there, I'm at all my other builds watching every nail and screw go in, every plumbing junction, every foot of wiring, every floorboard, every sheet of drywall. Or at least, that's the intent, impossible though it is.
Despite the sixteen- and twenty-hour days, I collapse in bed and promptly fail to fall asleep. Why?
A certain siren with white-blond hair, silver eyes, and a body I literally have embarrassingly wet dreams about keeps splashing through my mind. I just can't stop thinking about her. I want to know what put the sorrow in her eyes. I want to heal it. Take it away. Put joy in those bright eyes, put a laugh on that beautiful face.
The wet dreams are less altruistic.
I wake up hard as rock, visions of Ember in that damned teeny bikini dancing through my mind…but in the dreams I'm kissing her and my hand is stealing up to her back and tugging on the string, and the blue scraps of fabric are tumbling away to bare the most glorious tits I've ever seen…
I always wake up right before I see them, leaving me aching and frustrated and restless.
Night after night, I have the same stupid, maddening dream. Yet I can't bring myself to allow any relief. It would feel like a violation, or…or taking advantage of her somehow to jerk off to thoughts of Ember James. She wouldn't even go on a date with me, much less let me put my dirty hands anywhere near her perfect, golden skin.
Which means I've gotten intimately acquainted with the hellish normality of ice-cold showers. Not that it helps, mind you. I still have the dreams, still wake up with an erection so hard I could drive nails with it, and I still can't allow myself to do anything about it. I even tried porn, something I'm not usually a big fan of, but I kept seeing Ember's face when I closed my eyes, and imagined Ember's hand on me when I gripped myself. I just can't do it.
A week turns into two, and the dreams continue, and I'm growing increasingly desperate. I swipe through Tinder and find a handful of good matches that would without a doubt lead to a fun weekend tumble with a horny fudgie, but I can't even bring myself to hit send on the flirty messages I drafted.
Because I don't want some random tourist.
I want Ember.
Fuck.
I don't know what to do.
Find her? Ask her out again? To what end? She's not interested. She'd have said yes if she was.
A quiet, niggling voice in the back of my head suggests that the way she ran after me means she may have had a change of heart. I mean, I'd swear she was crying when I drove away. Why would she be crying?
I just can't find the courage to go looking for more rejection.
It makes me surly at work. Well, more so than usual. I'm not typically a jokey sort of boss. I get shit done and expect my guys to work hard. I'm not their friend, I'm their boss. Bear is an exception to that rule, which is how he gets away with calling me out.
We’re sitting on my tailgate at the yard—Crowe Construction and Demolition HQ—sipping from sweating water bottles while the crews clean and put away tools, sweep out equipment trailers, and clock out for the day.
"You know I got respect for you, Felix," Bear says in his bone-rattlingly deep voice, “but you need to figure your shit out."
I press the cold bottle to my forehead—it's a hot day. "What shit?"
He gestures at me vaguely with his bottle. "You've been kind of a dick the last couple weeks, boss."
I glance at him. "I'm always kind of a dick."
He shakes his head. "Nah. You're firm but fair. You work hard, lead by example, and don’t tolerate bullshit or laziness. Whatever's going on with you, it's different."
"Different how?" I know he's right, but I need details.
Bear huffs. "Snappin' at people, man. Like earlier this mornin', Larsen and Martinez were fucking around and you ripped 'em a new asshole."
"They were fucking around."
"They were moving shingles up to the roof, and the guys on the roof weren't ready for more yet. They were just fuckin' with each other. You know damn well Larsen and Martinez are solid, Felix. They get their shit done, and they don’t’ fuck around unless they know they're good to kill a minute or two."
I growl, realizing that he's right. "Fuck."
"And yesterday, you almost made Trent quit on the spot."
I pinch the bridge of my nose, remembering with brutal clarity what he's referring to. "Yeah, I guess I owe him an apology, huh?"
Bear slugs back the last of his water, crumples the thin plastic bottle into a tiny wad, and screws the top on to keep it compressed. "Larsen and Martinez have been with you for long enough to know that wasn’t you, so they're good. But Trent is new, and this is his first real full-time job."
I tip my head back and hiss. "Fuck."
He pats me on the shoulder, which feels sort of like being hit with a jackhammer, albeit gently. "I smoothed it over with him. But you oughta talk to him. And more than anything, figure your shit out."
I wait, but no questions are forthcoming. "Figured you'd ask."
He shrugs a massive shoulder. “Ain’t my business, Boss. I'm your friend, I hope you know that. You wanna talk about it, I'm here. But I ain't the type to push."
"It's just…personal shit. And I don't know what to do."
He just eyes me sidelong, allowing a long, leading silence. Naturally, I fill it.
"Girl troubles."
He snorts. "Ain't it always?"
"I can't get her out of my head."
"But?"
"She doesn't wanna give me the time of day, man. She's…she's hurting, somehow. I can tell. And I’m…I ain't the one to fix her, Bear. I got my own shit."
"Speaking from experience, Boss, a lot of the time, women don't want you to actually fix anything." He runs his long, braided red beard through his fist.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
He tips his head to one side. "Well, like the other day. Noelle was all in a tizzy about something that happened at work. She got into some stupid tiff with one of the other stylists and she came home all bent out of shape and pissed off and ranting about it."
I laugh. "Sorry, but I have a hard time seeing her pissed off."
He rumbles a laugh. "It was a shock. But man, she was hot , like pissed all the way the fuck off. And I was offering her suggestions for how to handle it. Thought I was helping."
"But you weren't?" I surmise.
"Nope. She yelled at me, which she's never done. She was like, Bear, stop trying to help and just listen . I don't need your damn help. I don't want you to fix anything. I can handle it myself. Just fucking listen to me."
I scrape my ball cap off my head and muss my sweaty hair. "She doesn't want to talk about it."
"She doesn’t know you."
"I asked her out and she…well, she didn't say no, but she hesitated a long fuckin time, like, well, I dunno…"
He shakes his head. "You're an idiot."
I frown at him. "What?"
"She hesitated, and you took it as a no? What if she needed a minute to figure out how she felt about it?"
I groan. "That has crossed my mind afterward.”
"So what are you doing about it?" He correctly interprets my lack of an answer. "Felix, you know better. Shit ain't gonna fix itself."
“Yeah, yeah, I know."
"So when you say you don't know what to do,” he says, “what you really mean is you do know, you just don't wanna do it."
"I've got hangups, okay?"
"I spent a decade in prison for something I didn't do. I'm a huge, scary ex-con with more than a little literal blood on my hands. I know a thing or two about hangups." He eases off the tailgate. "In my experience, limited as it is, the idea is usually scarier than the reality."
"I'm not fuckin' afraid," I snap.
Bear just laughs. "Okay, buddy. Pull the other one—it's got bells on it."
"What?"
He laughs again. "Somethin' Noelle's dad says when her brothers spout some bullshit, which is all the time."
I groan a laugh. "Fine, I'm scared outta my fucking mind. I want her, man. Bad."
"Why?"
I frown. "Why? Why what?"
"Why do you want her? What is it you want? And if it's about what she's got going on between her shoulders and her knees and nothin' else, don’t waste your time or hers.”
"When did you become the voice of wisdom, Bear?" I say, shaking my head in bemusement.
"Noelle is gorgeous, that ain't a secret. Her body makes me crazy. And I love that about her. But that’s not what our relationship is about. I'm saying you gotta figure out if you’re just hot for her, or if it's somethin' more than that." He holds his arms out and lets them slap against his thighs. “That's about all the wisdom I've got, Boss. But please, for the sake of the guys, do something about it."
I nod. "I hear you, Bear. I will."
"A'ight. Noelle and I have plans, so I gotta get home and grab a shower."
"Well then, what are you still here for, you big lunk? Go!"
I watch him climb into his pickup and drive off. A few minutes later, the yard is quiet and still, and the dust from the gravel is swirling and settling under the hot sun.
Maybe I should find Ember. Shouldn't be that hard, right? That bright orange bus with all those stickers sorta stands out.
I cruise aimlessly through downtown Three Rivers and find no sign of her or her bus. I prowl north of town as far as the beach where I last saw her and then cut through the neighborhoods north of town on my way back south. She's not at any of the restaurants, cafes, or stores in town or around it.
Finally, on a whim, I decide to check the YMCA—the only chain gym in town. There are plenty of independently owned gyms, but my thinking is that if she lives in her van, she needs a place to shower, and having a membership to the Y means she'd have access all over the country.
And…bingo. Her bus is parked at the back of the lot, and she's walking out to it with a gym bag over her shoulder and her hair pulled back in a wet braid. She seems upset though—she yanks the sliding door open rather aggressively, hurls her bag in, and then slumps to her butt in the open doorway, shoulders hunched.
I park a few spots away, and she doesn't look up at me until my boots are in her line of sight.
She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. "Felix!"
I hesitate and then point at the open space beside her. "May I?"
She slides over with a nod. "Sure."
She's trying to act like she wasn't just crying, or that her eyes aren't still red and watery.
"Um." I clear my throat. "What's going on? Anything I can do? Or…or just…listen?"
She swallows hard. "My bus died. Like, dead-dead.”
"Dead how?"
"I don't know for sure. But there was a loud grinding noise, a thunk, and then the engine just conked out. I barely made it to this parking spot. It won't turn over, just makes this godawful noise like she's sick."
I wince. "Oof. That's not good."
She sniffles. "No, it's fucking not. Pumpkin is my home. She's all I have. Everything I own is in here. I can't even get myself to a short-term rental or a motel. I don't know what to do." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. It's not your problem. I shouldn't vent to you, of all people."
I frown at this. "Why me of all people?"
She takes a long, shuddering inhale, holds it, and lets it out slowly while wiping at her eyes. "I feel bad about that day at the beach. I just…you took me by surprise, and I—"
"Hey, no, that's okay, Ember. It's fine. I was stupid and overly sensitive. I ran off without giving you a chance to even think. I know you’ve got…things…that you don't want to talk about which might make me asking you out a tricky situation. I should have been more considerate."
She shoots me a lopsided smile. "You did take off. I called after you, and I even chased you all the way up those stupid stairs, all one million of them."
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I…I don't have an excuse. I have explanations, but no excuses."
"I'm sorry, too, Felix. I…I have a feeling it wasn’t easy for you to ask, and I know I should have given you a better answer, even if it was just ‘I need a minute to think about it.’ I know when a guy asks you out, 'let me think about it' isn't what they want to hear, but…."
"It wasn't easy, no. But I…I mean, I don't get it, because I don't know from personal experience what you’ve been through exactly, but I get it." I hesitate, licking my lips as nerves sing through me. "I, uh, I have a flatbed back at the yard, and my buddy Nyx is the best mechanic in town. I also happen to know he specializes in vintage auto repair."
She tries to smile, but it's wobbly. "That's very sweet, Felix, but then what? Where do I go while it's being repaired? What if it needs a whole new engine?"
"What about Faye?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "I'd ask, and I’ve thought about it, believe me, but she's been under the weather lately. She says she's fine, but I worry. She's even talking about finally finding somewhere in California near her daughter and grandkids." Another shake of her head. "She should go to California. I love her weird, crazy ass, and I'd miss her, but I think she…" she swallows hard. "I don’t even want to say it."
"She doesn't have a lot of time left," I say.
"No," she whispers. "I think she senses it, too."
"Look, let's just get your van out of this parking lot and have Nyx look at it, and go from there."
She nods. "Okay. I…I don't want to impose." She shrugs. “It's not like I have a lot of other choices."
"Come on," I say, and without thinking, I clap my hand on her thigh, a familiar gesture of comfort—except I barely know her and it's way too intimate, especially since she's wearing super short denim Daisy Dukes, so her thigh is bare and warm and smooth under my palm. I yank my hand away. "Sorry. I—sorry."
She doesn't answer right away, her strange, silver eyes searching mine, expressive and intense but unreadable. "It's…fine. It's fine."
I lurch to my feet before my hands do anything else idiotic. "You, um, need anything from in there? We’re coming back in a few minutes, obviously, but if there's anything valuable you don't want to leave…"
She shakes her head, shrugging. "I mean, everything is valuable to me—it's my stuff. But nothing of much monetary value." She frowns. "Except…"
She rolls to her hands and knees and crawls into the bus, sliding aside a secret panel under the bench seat to reveal a hidden safe.
My god, her ass is absolutely ridiculous. I can't look away. Perfectly round, delectably plump, and on mouthwatering display in those micro shorts and in that position, facing away from me.
"You're staring at my ass, Felix," she says, over the sound of digital keys beeping as she enters her code.
"Yep," I say.
She snorts. "Not even gonna deny it?"
"Nope." I clench my hands into fists, but that's not good enough so I shove them into my pockets to prevent them from going rogue and petting her perfect, pretty ass. "Art is meant to be appreciated."
I hear the safe door open, and a moment later she sinks backward to sit on her heels, a fireproof, waterproof, zippered cash bag in one hand and a wooden box in the other. She sets them down, turns back to shut and lock the safe, and returns the secret panel back in place.
She returns to sitting on the edge of the open doorway. "Okay, number one, that was a fucking stellar line, Felix Crowe."
I grin at her. "Wasn't a line, Ember James, it was plain facts. What's number two?"
She shrugs. "Isn't one." She lifts the items she retrieved from the safe. "All the money I have in the world, and my mother's jewelry. Well, my family heirloom jewelry. Belonged to my three-greats grandmother. She brought it over when she left Germany in the twenties."
"They got out early, huh?"
She nods. "Family lore, at least, claims my three-greats grandfather saw what was coming when Hitler first started in politics after World War One and got them out. How true that is, I have no idea, but that's what GramGram told me."
"I mean, sounds believable to me," I say. "They wouldn't be the only ones, if I'm remembering my high school history correctly."
She opens the box, which is about the size of a quart of strawberries. Within is a jumble of silver necklaces with small precious gem pendants—a ruby, a sapphire, an emerald, and a diamond. I'm not a jeweler, obviously, but they look like they're high quality although small. There are a few rings, also with a variety of stones, and also small but of high quality, some silver and some gold. A brooch with a large, oval, opaque reddish stone set in delicately filigreed silver, and a stunning pair of diamond earrings.
"Damn," I say. "No wonder you're not leaving those here."
She closes the lid, nodding. "I mean, monetary value aside, it's all I have connecting me to my family."
I frown. "Really?"
She nods. "I'm sort of alone in the world, Felix." She doesn't look at me, tracing idle patterns on the lid of the box with a fingertip. "All my grandparents are dead, I never knew my father, Mom is dead, and I'm an only child." She waves a hand, giving me a breezy smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. "But hey, that's life, huh?"
"That all you wanna grab for now?"
She nods. "I'll pack a bag when we come back for Pumpkin."
I hold out my hand, and she accepts it—her hand is small and warm in mine, and I gently pull her to her feet. I make a point of meeting her eyes for a long, intense moment.
"See?" I say. "I can make eye contact."
She snorts. "Lovely. You get a gold star."
I keep hold of her hand, drawing her toward my truck. I open the passenger door and toss the detritus of my job into the back seat—a clipboard and pen, a pneumatic nail gun and its hose, a partial case of bottled water, and a few cardboard tubes containing blueprints.
"Sorry about the mess," I say. "I have a house, but I spend most of my time in here."
Her laugh is bell-like, musical, and infectious—just the sound of it puts a smile on my face. "I am the last person on the planet to judge you for having a messy vehicle you live in, I promise." Once I have the seat cleared off, she leans in, sets her box and cash bag on the seat, and then climbs up and in.
I shut the door after her and round the hood to slide behind the wheel. I start the engine, put it in gear, and glance at Ember.
And for a moment, I have the most bizarre, unsettling, out-of-body experience of my life.
I see her beside me, platinum hair sunlit and gleaming, silky smooth skin sun-bronzed, denim cutoffs bunched up around her thigh-hip creases with the white flags of her pockets sticking out under the fraying hems, a white V-neck clinging to her curves…and I see the future.
I see her there beside me, smiling, laughing, teasing me, a ring on her finger. I see her there beside me with a belly burgeoning with child.
For a split second, I see it all.
And I fucking want it.