3. Event Horizon
THREE
EVENT HORIZON
Flynn
“Did you just growl at me?”
“Shut up.” I snatch the card out of Mike’s hand then grab up the car keys Jackie slammed down.
There are at least five pounds of keys on the ring.
Who has this many keys? And fobs. There’s a weird fob with a digital readout of numbers on it.
One more thing to add to the list of questions I have about this girl.
“You did. You actually growled at me,” Mike says, laughing. “You’re hilarious.”
I glare at him. “I wasn’t the one winking at the girl, now was I?”
“I always flirt. That’s why you have me out front.” He puffs out his chest. “Women love me.”
“It sure as shit isn’t for your typing skills,” I say, gesturing to the computer.
Mike flips me off.
“Be careful, princess, that’s your good typing finger.”
“Har, har,” Mike says with an eyeroll. “You better get going if you want to catch up with her. Being a dick to a customer is not good for business, bro.”
I shouldn’t have been anything less than appreciative to Jackie from the start for getting Rose home safely.
I don’t know why this girl brings out the jerk in me.
Thinking of the flush that spread down her neck when she was angry, I say, “Even if that girl was a few seconds away from ripping me a new one?”
“A few seconds away?” Mike barks out another laugh. “Dude, all I have to say is you better take it easy next time you take a seat, maybe invest in one of those circle pillows — she didn’t need any more time. She ripped you one good.”
“Whatever.” I pocket her number and head out the door.
Leave it to Rose to send her late night designated driver in for car repairs.
Fucking Rose. When the heck did she have time to dent the girl’s car?
Now I probably have to pound out an expensive car door and eat the labor cost in addition to apologizing.
Out of everything, though, the fact that Jackie thinks Rose is my girlfriend pisses me off the most. ‘Cause that’s just incestuously disturbing. No other reason.
The front parking lot has three cars. A BMW M3 Manhart, a 1957 Pontiac GTO that I personally restored, and a rusted-out Honda of unidentifiable age, except to say ancient . The BMW is a Space Ex executive who came in earlier for a tire rotation. That leaves the clunker.
A bad feeling starts churning in my stomach. None of Rose’s rich-ass friends would be caught dead driving this junker. Maybe this isn’t her car. But when I step up to the driver’s side door and insert the key, the lock pops.
Shit.
Okay, plus side, Rose isn’t making friends with any more privileged asses. Con, once again I’ve been a complete dick to Jackie, this time by assuming she is a rich, privileged ass.
I look down the highway to the right. Nothing. To the left I can just make out a blond ponytail swishing back and forth a few blocks away. Damn, the woman can move fast. I pocket her keys and get out my own, jogging over to the GTO.
This baby needs a drive anyway. It’s just convenient and practical to take her for a spin.
Nothing to do with impressing the enigma of a girl with the sexy as fuck glasses.
Jackie
My anger lasts two minutes outside in the Texas heat. It might be cooler than normal for June, but cool in Texas means 82 degrees. Not counting the heat index. I have about three miles to walk to my apartment. Uncool.
One, I cannot believe I yelled at the hot guy. Kudos to me.
Two, he will now only be referred to as Hot Guy, or even better, The Asshole That Shall Not Be Named. He doesn’t deserve a name. Especially not one as cool as Flynn West. I mean, honestly, who’s named Flynn West? It’s almost as ridiculous as Jackie Darling Lee.
Three, he, at least, has lived up to his cool name potential. He’s a hot mechanic who owns his own business and lives in a house worthy of John Glenn.
Argh .
Angry again, I stomp one block closer to my apartment. A horn beeps close behind me.
I turn to see the freaking Asshole That Shall Not Be Named driving the bad boy car from the garage parking lot.
Of course he is.
He pulls into the Whataburger parking lot I’m currently bypassing. Some say they can hear a car purr, but this car doesn’t purr. It growls. And I feel that growl in my downtown so fiercely, I shiver.
ATSNBN climbs out of the car and jogs over to where I’m standing.
One, why is he following me?
Two, who can jog wearing folded down and tied coveralls without a wardrobe malfunction?
Three, why am I severely disappointed when the aforementioned wardrobe malfunction does not occur?
Four, why am I still counting things?
“Yo.”
This is how he greets me. Not ‘I’m sorry for being such a douche canoe,’ or ‘Please let me give you a ride as it’s hotter than hell outside and you’re too pretty to sweat,’ or even a polite ‘Hello.’ No, I get, ‘Yo.’
I cross my arms and let my cocked eyebrow speak for me.
“I...” His mouth seems to stall.
I’m about to try and harness my earlier kick-ass-and-take-names attitude, but I’m distracted when he runs his hand through his hair. It does seriously wonderful things for his arms.
The hair he pushes back falls forward again when his arm drops to his side. “Look. I’m sorry. Okay?”
I’m a little surprised that he has it in him to apologize, and I almost say ‘okay’ out of some ingrained habit, but I don’t.
Because his apologetic face mirrors his mad face, and though the expression does nothing to dampen his hotness, I’m mad that he seems mad that he’s apologizing. Magnificent arms be damned.
Am I even making sense anymore?
He steps closer, bringing our proximity down to a nerve-racking two feet. My earlier forwardness gone, my body freezes on me.
“You forgot these.” He holds out my keys.
I stare at his outstretched hand a minute, until what the keys mean seeps in, unlocking both my mind and mouth.
“Fine. You don’t want to fix my car that your girlfriend dented—fine.
Just fine.” I snatch the keys, smart enough not to short circuit my brain again by touching his hand.
I make a move to go around him back toward the garage. At least now I won’t have to walk.
His fingers wrap gently around my upper arm to stop me. “No, it isn’t that.”
My breath catches at the feel of his callused fingers on my skin. His hand is large enough to wrap completely around my bicep. I find this wildly erotic for some reason. It must be the heat.
“I took the car key off. You should never leave house keys with someone else. It isn’t safe.” He reaches out and fingers one of the fobs on my ring. “Plus, this looked important.”
Holy crap. I actually left my NASA token, the off-site security key clearance, behind.
It enables a two factor authentication that allows me to access classified government information remotely.
I mean, unless someone knows how to access NASA’s secure server it’s probably useless in another person’s hands, but even so, I never should have left it.
“Yes.” I wrap my hand around it, grazing his. “It is important.”
I turn my attention from my keys to Flynn’s face and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Without the look of anger I’m so accustomed to seeing, he is ridiculously handsome.
It’s like staring at one of my cowboy romance covers come to life.
The sides of his eyes crinkle and a small smile plays on his lips.
I shake my head a bit. Why won’t my brain work properly?
“Th-thanks.” I move to pull the keys out of his reach but his fingers close on mine and he gently pulls me closer.
Oh. His eyes aren’t just blue. They have flecks of green and a thin ring of amber around the iris like an event horizon around a black hole.
I’ve always been drawn to black holes. They’re misunderstood.
People think of them as destroyers, ominous orbs sucking life into the depths of their nothingness.
But black holes aren’t nothing. They are everything .
Still waters running deep. Their strong gravitational pull attracts stars, particles and light.
So strong is the pull of a black hole that stars will actually orbit it, drawing close to its force.
Though unseen by the human eye, when a black hole and star get in close proximity, a high-energy light is made.
From a telescope, this light is spectral in its beauty.
Looking into Flynn’s eyes, I feel as if I am the star, desperately trying to wallow in the pull of his gravitational singularity.
Heat is radiating from us, and for once I don’t think it’s from the Texas sun.
“Jackie?”
I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head. But the smells of oil, sweat and musk only compound my delirium.
It’s the sound of David Bowie singing that finally pulls me back to reality.
“My phone,” I mumble, stepping away from Flynn to pull my phone from my bag. “Space Oddity” is my work ringtone. I clear my throat.
“Jackie here.”
The words coming through sober me from Flynn’s spell, firing my brain back online.
“I understand. When is the emergency briefing? I see. Yes. I’ll be there.” Shoot. Ten minutes. I look down the long road toward work. There’s no way I can get there in time. But Jules. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. No, I will get there.
“Jackie?”
I jump, startled out of my reverie. His unruly dark hair falls forward into his beautiful eyes as he looks down at me.
I blink away all thoughts of his hotness and focus on the task at hand. “Listen, I hate to ask, but there’s an emergency at work and I need to be there, like, now. Is there any way you can drive me?”
He stays quiet, his eyes probing mine.
Panic rises.
“I’ll pay you,” I add.
This might have been the wrong thing to say, going by the affronted look on his face. “You think I’d take your money for a ride? What kind of guy do you think I am?”