Oakley
Miami was supposed to be temporary.
Then again, I say that about almost everything.
Cities. Jobs. Apartments. Hair colors. Men.
Especially fucking men.
I sit sideways in the open back doors of my matte-black van with one bare foot buried in the sand and the other hooked over the bumper, eating half a sandwich while downtown Miami glitters in the distance like it has no idea how expensive it is to exist here.
The water stretches out in front of us, blue and bright under the afternoon sun, boats cutting white lines through it while music carries down the beach from somewhere behind the palms.
It’s hot enough that the metal edge beneath my thigh is starting to burn through my shorts, but there’s a breeze coming off the water and I’m still not wearing shoes, so I refuse to complain.
Emma is sprawled across the bench inside my van like she pays rent, one leg tucked beneath her while she digs through a bag of chips and drops crumbs directly onto my thrifted rug.
I stare at her hand.
She catches me looking.
“What?”
“One more crumb and you’re eating outside.”
Her gaze drifts past me toward the beach. “Oakley, we are outside.”
“Then farther outside.”
She snorts and shoves another chip into her mouth.
My van is cleaner than Emma gives me credit for.
Dark wood covers the ceiling and most of the walls, warm little amber lights strung between the panels even though it’s broad daylight.
Matte-black cabinets run beneath a butcher-block counter with a small brass sink, and the leather bench Emma is currently disrespecting sits opposite the narrow bed tucked across the back.
There’s an old cream-and-black Persian-style rug running down the middle that I found at a flea market in Ohio, too many pillows, a couple plants I’ve managed not to kill yet and enough hidden storage to hold my clothes, and every other possession I decided was worth bringing with me.
Outside, she’s all black.
Inside, she looks like a tiny witch moved into a cigar lounge.
It’s honestly kinda perfect.
Emma holds up a broken chip. “You know this rug probably survived somebody smoking inside their house for thirty years, right?”
“She’s vintage.”
“She smells like incense.”
“Exactly. Respect her.”
“You’re emotionally attached to carpeting.”
“I’m emotionally attached to very few things, okay. Let me have this.”
Emma laughs, and I steal the bag from her before she can cause any more damage.
She’s been taking advantage of the fact I’m parked close to the beach since I got here, which I guess is fair. And I’ve been taking advantage of the fact she’s the only person in Miami I know well enough to call when I need to shower somewhere with actual water pressure.
Family is about balance.
“So,” she says, reaching across me to steal the bag back, “are we going to talk about how you’ve been here almost three weeks and haven’t made a single attempt to leave?”
I slowly turn my head toward her.
“Why would we ruin lunch like that?”
“Because you’re Oakley.”
“That’s usually how names work.”
“You don’t stay anywhere.”
“I stay in plenty of places, I just don’t stay long.”
Emma rolls her eyes.
She isn’t wrong, though.
Staying has never really been my thing.
I like knowing I can leave.
There’s something comforting about fitting my entire life into a van, turning a key and having the ability to disappear before anyone can make me feel stuck.
Most people hear that and immediately start diagnosing me with commitment issues.
Which is honestly kinda rude, and yet, accurate, sometimes.
Still rude.
I spent almost a year rebuilding this thing myself, though. Gutted it down to bare metal, learned electrical work through online videos, fucked up the first set of cabinets so badly I had to rip them back out, then swore I’d never touch a power tool again before using one the next morning.
By the time I finished, it felt more like mine than any apartment ever had.
Everything I need fits inside, including enough coffee equipment to survive civilization collapsing.
If I wake up tomorrow and decide Miami is done with me, I can be gone before dinner.
Usually knowing I can leave is enough to stop me from wanting to.
Ohio was different.
I didn’t leave because I had some dramatic need to find myself under the Florida sun. I know exactly where I am.
I left because I stayed in a relationship long enough to start pissing myself off.
That’s the embarrassing part.
The breakup itself sucked, sure, but heartbreak is manageable. You drink too much wine once, block a number, delete a few pictures and eventually stop wanting to key someone’s car.
The part that really got under my skin was realizing how long I’d already known it wasn’t working and yet I stayed anyway.
Apparently, one manipulative asshole with good cheekbones was enough to convince me perseverance was a personality trait.
Never again.
When it finally imploded, I didn’t wait for closure because closure is usually just somebody lying to you one last time with better wording.
So, instead, I packed.
Clothes, books, my espresso maker and every tattooed little piece of myself I still liked.
Then I pointed the van south.
Miami was supposed to be somewhere warm to land while I figured out where I wanted to go next.
Except now I’m looking at the water, eating lunch with my cousin in the back of my house, and leaving sounds less appealing than it did three weeks ago.
“I might stick around for a while,” I say.
Emma freezes with her hand halfway inside the chip bag.
Slowly, she looks at me. “Holy shit.”
“Relax.”
“You said ‘stick around.’”
“I said might.”
“That’s basically a marriage proposal coming from you.”
I kick her thigh with my heel. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I should call your mom.”
“I will push you into the ocean.”
“She’d cry.”
“Then definitely don’t call her.”
Emma laughs, but her expression softens anyway.
“You like it here.”
“I like the beach.”
“You like Miami.”
“Oak.”
I sigh and lean my shoulder against the doorframe. “Fine. I maybe, kinda like it here.”
Her grin gets obnoxious.
I point at her. “That does not mean I’m buying property or joining a neighborhood association.”
“You live in a van.”
“Exactly. Property taxes are a scam.”
“You’re such a Capricorn.”
“Hot, financially suspicious and always right?”
“I was going to say stubborn and emotionally unavailable.”
“Wow.” I press a hand to my chest. “And here I thought family was supposed to support you.”
“We are.” She steals another chip. “By telling you when you’re being a pain in the ass.”
“Remind me why I moved closer to you?”
“Because unfortunately for both of us, you love me.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Ew. Don’t say weird shit while I’m eating.”
“Love you too, bitch.”
I take another bite of my sandwich before glancing toward the skyline again.
The only real problem with staying is money.
Turns out Florida still expects me to pay for shit even though I provide the local economy with excellent vibes.
My photography work is enough to keep me alive, but freelance money comes in waves and, apparently, my van also likes having gasoline inside it.
“I need a job.”
Emma stops chewing.
I look at her.
She keeps staring.
“What?”
“I’m just taking this in.”
“Taking what in?”
“The personal growth.”
I smack her knee.
“I have had jobs.”
“You quit the last one because your manager told you your tattoos weren’t client friendly.”
“She told me to cover them.”
“You told her, her eyebrows weren’t client friendly.”
“Well, they weren’t.”
“Oakley.”
“They looked angry all the time.”
Emma starts laughing.
I shrug. “Hostile workplace.”
She shakes her head, then goes suspiciously quiet.
I know that look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Emma.”
“There might be something.”
“Why does that sound illegal?”
“It isn’t.”
“Disappointing.”
She reaches behind her and grabs her tote bag.
“I know a guy at work who’s been trying to find someone before the season starts.”
Emma works at a track outside the city.
I understand maybe sixty percent of what she actually does there because whenever she starts talking about paddock schedules and operations, my brain eventually replaces her voice with static.
There are bikes.
People race them.
Emma makes shit happen.
Good enough.
“What kind of someone?”
Emma’s mouth curves like she’s been waiting for me to ask. “A nanny.”
I pause with my drink halfway to my mouth, then glance down at myself—tattoos covering both arms, cutoffs, black tank, bare feet still dusted with sand—before looking back at her.
“Be serious. What about me screams nanny?”
She laughs. “You’re good with kids.”
“I’m good with kids because they’re usually less annoying than adults. That doesn’t exactly make me Mary fucking Poppins.”
“Good thing I don’t think he’s looking for Mary Poppins.
” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a folded piece of paper, smoothing it across her thigh before handing it to me.
“There’s a race in a couple days, so everyone’s basically living at the track right now getting ready.
Stop by this afternoon and talk to him before it gets completely insane. ”
I unfold the paper. There’s an address scribbled across the top, followed by a garage number and a name underneath.
Emma taps her finger directly over the name before I can pay much attention to it.
“That’s who you need to find.” She crumples up the wrapper from her lunch and tosses it into the little trash bin beneath my counter. “Worst case, you hate him, tell him to fuck off and drive your house somewhere else.”
Now that sounds more like my kind of job interview.
I fold the paper and shove it into the back pocket of my shorts. “Fine. I’ll go.”
Emma grins.
“Stop looking so pleased with yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely fucking are.”
I hop down from the back of the van and brush the sand from my legs, already questioning whatever series of life choices has, apparently, ended with me interviewing to nanny for some guy at a racetrack.
Then again, three weeks ago I was still in Ohio.
Clearly, making questionable decisions is working out pretty well for me.
A few hours later, I’m pulling my black van through the gates of a racetrack wondering how the fuck lunch turned into a job interview.
The place is louder than I expected even without a race happening. Somewhere beyond the garages, an engine screams through a gear before cutting sharply, and the sound vibrates straight through the steering wheel.
Okay.
Kind of hot.
The guy at the gate checks my name, hands back my ID and points me toward a row of buildings farther inside.
“Garage four.”
“Thanks.”
I park where he tells me, grab Emma’s folded paper and hop out.
The air smells like hot rubber, fuel and metal, and there are people moving everywhere carrying tires, tools and expensive-looking pieces of machinery I would absolutely drop if someone trusted me to hold them.
I head down the row and find the bay doors to garage four open.
There are several bikes inside on stands, bodywork partly removed while a handful of men work around them.
One guy is crouched near a front tire, another is looking at something on a laptop, and somebody farther inside is swearing at a wrench like it personally betrayed him.
Well, shit. I like this place already.
I step into the entrance and at first nobody notices.
“Hi.”
Nothing.
An engine fires nearby and I jump just enough to piss myself off.
“Okay. Fuck you, too.”
When it shuts off, one of the guys near a workbench finally looks over.
He wipes his hands on a rag. “You lost?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m looking for someone.”
His mouth twitches.
“Who?”
I hold the paper up, and the guy beside the tire glances up.
Someone else turns around and I look between them.
“Why does everyone suddenly look entertained?”
The first guy grins. “No reason.”
“Suspicious.”
He turns toward the back of the garage.
“Yo! Someone’s here for you.”
A metallic clank sounds behind one of the bikes.
Then a man stands.
Well.
That’s fucking irritating.
He’s tall, broad, dark-haired, wearing black riding pants with the top half of his leathers hanging loose around his hips and a fitted shirt that makes it very obvious God has favorites.
Grease streaks one forearm.
Tattoos cover his chest and arms, with a few small ones along the sides of his face, and the expression on his face says he probably considers smiling an unnecessary use of energy.
His gaze moves to me and stays there.
Not sliding down my body.
Just studying me.
Assessing.
I immediately dislike that.
Mostly because now I’m assessing him right back.
He tosses the wrench in his hand onto the workbench and walks over.
Up close, he’s worse.
Or better.
Depends how committed I am to avoiding bad decisions after moving across the country because of my last one.
“You looking for me?”
Deep voice.
Of fucking course.
I glance down at Emma’s paper one more time, mostly to buy myself half a second because apparently the universe thinks handing hot men access to motorcycles and abs is funny.
“Well, that depends.”
“On?”
He grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head like he isn’t actively making my afternoon more complicated.
Well.
Fuck me.
My eyes betray me for exactly one second before I drag them back to his face.
“Are you Ajax Sawyer?”
“Yeah.”
I fold the paper and tuck it into my back pocket, giving him a slow once-over now that there’s no point pretending I didn’t already.
“Then unfortunately, yeah. I’m looking for you.”
The name hangs between us for a second while he studies me with that unreadable expression, and something low in my gut tells me this probably isn’t going to be as simple as showing up, watching a kid, collecting a paycheck and moving on.
Typical.
I fold the paper and shove it into my back pocket.
Miami was supposed to be temporary. So was this job, if I even took it, and honestly, temporary has always suited me just fine.
I don’t do roots. I don’t do five-year plans. I sure as hell don’t rearrange my life because some ridiculously hot man in a garage looks at me like he’s already trying to figure out what the fuck to make of me.
I’m Oakley fucking Thomas.
Complicated is usually my cue to leave before anything gets the chance to stick.
Usually.
To be continued…
New Team. New City. New Series.
Are you ready?