Chapter 2 #2
“Shit,” she mutters when she flips the screen over to face her. “It’s my brother. I forgot I have his spare key for his truck that he’s selling today. Can we swing by the garage?”
“Uh,” I stammer as she answers her brother Miguel’s call and promises him we’ll be there soon.
“Sorry about this,” she says to me after ending the call.
“It’s fine,” I say, though the way my insides are bubbling says otherwise.
Miguel and Rowan are partners in a vehicle restoration business.
It’s been Rowan’s dream for as long as I can remember.
His grandfather on his mom’s side was an Army mechanic with a passion for older cars, and Rowan would tinker with engines alongside him any time they visited his grandparents in California.
Miguel has the same eye for detail, but where Rowan’s expertise is on the precision under the hood, Miguel’s is all about the body.
In two years, they’ve flipped enough junkers to buy prime garage space right off the highway.
This little pitstop would have been fine yesterday. But today? I’m trying to make sense of what happened by the pool last night. I’d fill Cami in, but she’s still drunk enough to lose her shit in front of Rowan and her brother. And I’m certainly not in the mood to take that on.
It takes us twenty minutes to get to the garage, and after not seeing Rowan in person for a year, I ready myself to come face-to-face with him for the second time in a dozen hours.
My eyes instantly go to the historic license plate on the back of his seventy-four Camero.
The RJ007 brings a smirk to my face. His middle name is James, and for a few weeks of high school, he tried to get everyone on board with calling him James.
Because boys are, well, boys . . . he became James Bond instead.
The doors are both rolled up when we park, and Cami waits for a few seconds in the passenger seat as I get out and round the vehicle to open her door.
“Ah shit, is my sister hungover?” Miguel’s familiar laugh brings a smile to my face, and I turn toward him as Cami pushes her door open with her foot.
I wrap my arms around his neck in a hug, looking into the garage over his shoulder.
Rowan’s jean-covered legs shift along the ground as he scoots his body underneath a rusty Bronco.
“Yes, she is. Do you have anything to drink in that place?” Cami whines. She fans her still clean backpack toward the garage.
“We got beer,” Miguel answers, reaching a hand to his sister. She grasps it, but he quickly shakes her off.
“My keys, you pain in the ass.” His lips purse as his sister glowers at him, but she eventually pulls the spare key from her console and places it in his palm.
“Now help me to your couch,” she says, waving her hand at her brother until he gives in and helps his sister to her feet.
“Don’t you dare puke on me,” he warns, bracing her until she seems to find her balance.
I hang back as the two of them wade toward the garage, just a few extra seconds to myself so I can suck in some air and brace myself for whatever’s to come.
Cami flops on the dusty black leather sofa near their business office within seconds.
The crack from a beer cap pings across the garage where Miguel pulls a cold one from their fridge, and the sound must have piqued Rowan’s interest as he slides out from under the Bronco a second later.
His gaze finds me right away, but his expression is blank, as if he were looking at a stranger.
“Kinda early to start, no?” His head swivels as he looks at Miguel. Away from me.
Miquel holds up the beer, then tilts it toward his nearly passed-out sister on the couch.
“Hair of the dog,” Miguel says.
Rowan chuckles, then scoots himself back out of sight.
My legs suddenly feel weak, but unlike my friend, my tremors have nothing to do with the alcohol I drank last night.
I’m simply perplexed to the point that it’s making me dizzy.
It’s not that I expected Rowan to rush at me and sweep me into his arms at first sight, but I didn’t exactly anticipate a cold shoulder.
I move from the arm of the sofa to the space right next to my friend, nudging her so she sits up and stays awake.
“Rude,” she gripes.
“I kind of want to go home and take a shower,” I remind her.
She lets out a heavy sigh before grumbling, “Fine.”
“We’ve got a shower in the back,” Miguel suggests.
My eyes go to Rowan, his legs unchanged, hands working at the underside of the vehicle he’s buried beneath. I doubt he even heard his friend.
“I don’t exactly have a change of clothes,” I say through an awkward smile. I’m still wearing cutoffs and a bikini top, and I’m tired of smelling like chlorine.
Showering here isn’t ideal, but also, there’s a part of me that wonders what Rowan would do. Before Miguel can take the offer back, I get to my feet and huff out, “Okay, whatever. But can I at least borrow a shirt?”
Rowan’s movement isn’t fast. He wheels out from under the Bronco in an almost lackadaisical fashion, wiping his hands on a grease-stained rag before hopping to his feet and opening the Bronco’s driver’s side door.
He pulls out a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and walks it over to me, not an inkling of emotion anywhere on his face.
He hands the shirt to me, but doesn’t let go immediately when I grab it.
Our eyes lock, and for a moment, my body flashes white hot.
My lips part as I sneak in a tiny breath.
Rowan licks his lips, but the dimple never comes.
No flicker in his eyes either. But I feel it.
Despite the lack of physical clues, there’s a thread between us.
A pull. It’s brief, and it dies a second later when he’s back on the floor, wheeling himself back under the Bronco.
“Thanks,” I say, lifting the shirt in acknowledgement before returning my attention to my friend, only to find her face buried in her phone. Her brother doing the same as he sits on a stool by the tool counter.
Nobody saw that. Not that there was anything to see.
I laugh silently at myself and carry Rowan’s shirt toward the back hallway that leads to their work shower.
It’s not a very sexy room, more like a gas station restroom than anything.
The space is tight, but it feels good to strip away a day-old swimsuit and stand under a hot stream of water.
I spend ten minutes lathering my body with the masculine-scented body wash I find on the shelf, turning the shower off when the hot water feels like it’s running out.
I swipe my hand over the glass door to clear away the condensation before popping it open just enough to reach for the sky-blue towel neatly folded by the sink.
I don’t realize that the towel was resting on top of my borrowed shirt, and a suddenly appeared pair of gray sweats, until I wrap my hair in it.
I didn’t come in here with a towel or those pants.
My heart starts to kick and my tummy twists, not from fear, but from thrill. It was probably Cami. In fact, I’m sure it was. But what if?
My hand slides from my neck to my breast, then down the center of my body to my stomach as I look back toward the still frosted glass of the shower. I’m not sure how much of me there was to be seen anyhow.
Rather than spiraling any deeper with this stupid fantasy, I finish getting dressed, ignoring the overwhelming scent of Rowan’s cologne on the shirt as I pull it over my head. I hang the towel to dry, then make my way back to the garage, where Miguel and Cami are exactly where I left them.
“Feel better?” my friend asks, not bothering to peel her eyes away from her constant scrolling on her phone.
“Yeah,” I hum, my gaze drifting to the now lowered Bronco.
Rowan’s back is to me as he moves a mop around the glossy floor near the rolling doors, but I keep my eyes on him, waiting to see if he glances at me over his shoulder.
I study every twist of his arm, the way his body sways as he moves the mop back and forth.
I search for a tell. But there isn’t one.
Shaking my head, I move to the other corner of the couch and flop down to sit next to my friend, joining the doom scroll party as I pull my phone into my palms. The clank from the mop handle falling against the brick wall in the corner snaps me from my sudden trance in time to catch Rowan’s back as he heads toward his Camaro.
“Make sure you pick up more invoice slips. We’re running low,” Miguel shouts to his friend.
Rowan raises a hand in response, then gets into his car and revs the engine.
“Fucking show off,” Miguel says through a chuckle.
My phone buzzes in my hand, so I drop my gaze to my screen and slide up on the message notification. The number isn’t familiar. But it doesn’t matter. I know exactly who it is.
UNKNOWN: You look good in my things.
My eyes dart to my right to make sure Cami is still lost in her own world. Then to my left, where Miguel has moved on to a laptop where he seems to be researching car parts. When my phone buzzes again, I jolt, cupping my phone to hide the screen as I read Rowan’s follow-up.
UNKNOWN: And don’t worry about getting anything . . . wet.
I bite my bottom lip, unable to hold back the smile or stop the heat that rushes to my cheeks. Fuck. Me. In fact, I almost type that in response. Thankfully, though, I have enough sense to think before texting. I wait until Rowan pulls away before I finally hit send.
ME: I’m keeping the shirt.
I hold my breath while I wait for him to respond.
And when a few minutes pass, I remind myself that he’s driving.
After thirty minutes, however, I give up and tuck my phone in the pocket of his sweatpants and resolve to quit indulging in something that’s clearly played out as far as it’s going to go.