Chapter 7 Sloane #2
After staring long enough that it’s embarrassing, I call the only person that I have faith will come and save my stranded ass.
Forty-eight minutes later, a black Chevy pickup drives down the road. He parks behind me, and I give him an awkward wave.
“Sorry, I know you’re like saving lives and shit, but I had no one else to call,” I mumble, rubbing the back of my neck.
“What about your dad?” Beckett asks, because yes, that should have been my go-to option.
“He wouldn’t have answered,” I whisper, my cheeks turning a bright shade of pink.
His jaw clenches enough that I notice it. He doesn’t ask me any other questions after that. He just goes around to the back of my car and grabs the items he needs to fix the tire.
“Looks like you popped it off the bead. I’ll have to fix it for real later, but the spare will do ‘til this weekend.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” I say, nodding along like I understand what he’s saying.
He nods, getting the tire out of the back and the jack. “You have to go opposites,” he informs. I crouch down beside him once he actually gets the bad tire off and the donut tire on. His words, not mine.
“Ok,” I say, watching him as he does almost a star shape while putting the bolt thingies back on.
It actually doesn’t look as hard as I thought it would, and it doesn’t take as much time, either.
He stands up and dusts himself off, black smudges the white tee that he is wearing under his dress shirt.
“Thanks again for helping me,” I say, and he nods, grabbing his dress tee and putting it back on.
“I’ll be home a little bit earlier tonight, I don’t have a ton to do,” he says. I nod, making a mental note to make sure that dinner is done and ready for whenever he does get home.
“Ok, perfect. Thanks again. I’ll see you later,” I say, pushing my hair out of my face and climbing into my car.
I turn the ignition, signal, and turn onto the main road to continue my drive back to the house.
God, that was so fucking embarrassing. I can’t even change my own tire, kill me now.
I feel even worse for having to call him. I knew he was at work. There’s no way that I would have been able to just hangout on the side of the road, hoping for someone to drive past and save me.
I didn’t have anyone else to call. Monica would have been no help, and I didn’t want to have to deal with her sketchy, creepy boyfriend. Kaden is in California doing summer training, prepping for the NBA draft.
It hurts. A lot. But what could I do? So, I called Beckett, and luckily, he was able to come save me.
I wait up for him on the couch, laptop open on my lap as he comes in. It looks like it’s been a rough day. He hangs his keys up on the hook and takes his shoes off. He doesn’t greet me as he walks in, like he normally does, so I don’t say anything either.
There’s a tension in his shoulders that isn’t usually there, like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his back. I don’t know what to do to help. So I just pretend like I don’t notice and turn back to my laptop.
When the microwave beeps, he grabs the plate, his beer, and heads straight into his office.
I sit in the living room for another ten minutes before a crazy thought comes to me. I’m not sure what possesses me, but I might need to call a priest because what I do next is not normal.
My bare feet pad softly against the floor as I go down the hallway to his office. I take a deep breath and knock softly on the door. I don’t hear an answer right away, so I’m afraid that I didn’t knock hard enough.
But then I hear a soft, “Come in.”
I open the door, poking my head in. His normally slicked-back hair is a mess, like he’s spent the last ten minutes running his fingers through it aggressively.
I can’t help but feel little butterflies flutter in my stomach at how good it looks, all disheveled. Because my brain knows no boundaries, it begins to wonder what his hair would feel like if I ran my fingers through it.
I shake my head at my momentary lapse in judgment. The food on his plate has hardly been touched.
“You ok?” I whisper, letting myself into the small room and closing the door behind me.
“Mhmm,” he grunts, not looking up at me. I grind my teeth together slightly, feeling very nervous all of a sudden. I’m not sure why. I’ve been alone with him for weeks, but for some reason, this feels weird. More intimate. Like I’m seeing a piece of him that I shouldn’t be.
That little thing that’s possessed me makes me round his desk without a word, and I rest my hands on his shoulders.
He tenses, but he doesn’t shrug me off as I begin to knead the muscles with my fingers.
After a few seconds, I feel him begin to loosen up.
He lets his head fall forward in a way that lets my thumbs get the back of his neck.
Neither of us says anything as I work his shoulders.
An intrusive thought hit me from nowhere. ‘What if you leaned down and nibbled on his neck?’
What the fuck? Where did that come from? I look around the room as if it could hear my most inner, inside thoughts.
My hands move down his back just slightly to a particularly tense knot, and he lets out a small groan.
Get back inside your cage, you stupid butterflies.
What the fuck is wrong with me? This guy is family. I mentally scold myself, like I’m a bad puppy who chewed on a shoe or something.
“This ok?” I whisper, my voice more breathy than I mean for it to be.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice a little deeper than normal.
I nod even though he can’t see me. I rub out his muscles for a few more minutes. When I go to pull my hands away, his fingers on my wrist stop me.
“Thank you,” he says gruffly. I struggle to find words. My voice is gone, my throat dry.
“You’re welcome,” I squeak. He lets go of my hands, and I all but sprint out of the room.
I don’t see Beckett again until Sunday morning. I’m sitting at the island, sipping on a matcha and scrolling through my content calendar for the week, trying to finalize it.
Beckett comes downstairs in a plain navy tee, jeans, boots, and a baseball cap. I immediately have to avert my eyes to keep from staring at him. He looks good. Too good. I feel my cheeks heat up for staring, and then they get even warmer because of how embarrassed I am, because of my staring.
“Do you have any plans today?” he asks, pouring himself a cup of coffee and leaning against the counter by the sink.
He sets his mug down on a coaster and crosses his arms over his chest. My eyes linger far too long on his forearms.
“No, I was just gonna hangout and get a jump on filming for this week,” I say, averting my eyes from him and looking back down at my laptop.
“How would you feel if I helped you work on your car?” he asks casually. I look up at him this time, my brows scrunching in confusion.
“But there’s nothing wrong with my car?”
“I need to fix your tire properly, remember? Plus, you should know how to do basic maintenance, checking your oil, knowing how to refill your windshield wiper fluid, how to jump a car battery,” he says, listing a few things that I wouldn’t know how to do even if you made me read the car’s manual or watch a KoVi tutorial.
I stare at him for a minute. “Why?” I ask.
“You want to be independent, and this is how you do it. Now go get changed into something that you don’t mind getting dirty, and drive your car around back to the shop.”
He finishes his coffee, grabs a beer out of the fridge, and leaves through the back door. I watch him leave, staring at the door for a few minutes before closing my laptop and going upstairs to change.
I pull my hair up into a ponytail and check myself out in the mirror. I take a quick selfie, uploading it to my story, before pulling on some old Converse and going outside to get my car.
I get in and pull it around the side of the house, following the gravel path into the backyard and pulling it into the shop.
“Beckett, what’s under here?” I ask, pointing to a tarp in the back corner. I’ve been out in the shop a few times, but I’ve never really explored what is out here.
He comes over to me, an almost nostalgic look in his eyes as he slowly pulls back the plastic to reveal a sleek black car. It’s older, more muscle-y, kinda like the one that Vin Diesel drives in the Fast and Furious movies.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. I’m not sure why I whisper, but I do.
“It’s a 1969 Camaro, a project car that I got from my dad,” he says, and I can hear the sad note in his voice.
I was probably ten when Grandpa Hayes died.
He wasn’t my actual grandpa, but I spent lots of time over there since he lived right next door to Monica and Briar.
My parents fought a lot. He was a nice old man who seemed to have millions of stories, and lots of old, nice cars like this one parked in his shop.
“Does it drive?” I ask, looking up at him. He looks down at the car like it holds some kind of secret, or something much deeper than I could ever understand.
I know that he and Grandpa were close; Grandpa basically raised my dad. I remember it being really weird at home after he died. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have your parents pass away.
I never met his mom; she passed away when Beckett was a teenager, Briar said once. I feel sad for him all of a sudden. Having no parents must be hard.
I mean, I don’t really like my parents most of the time, but I can’t imagine what it would be like if they just weren’t there.
“No, it doesn’t. I have to replace the transmission and fix a few other minor things,” he says, and I nod.
“Do you think it will ever drive?” I ask tentatively.
“I hope so,” he says, his voice so quiet that I barely hear it.
He stares at the car for a long time. I wonder if I should give him a moment to be alone with it.
In a poor attempt to lighten the mood, I say something that I probably should’ve kept to myself.
“You’d look good behind the wheel. It’s so…
you. Muscle-y, kinda brooding in an almost intimidating way, but also pretty…
uh, masculine.” I can’t look at him because I can feel my cheeks turning pink at the use of the word pretty.
Stupid man and his ability to make me blush. And he didn’t even say anything this time.
We stand here in a weird silence before he awkwardly clears his throat and recovers the car with the tarp.
“Come on, let’s go work on your car,” he mumbles. I nod, still unable to look at him as we go back over to where my car is.
He turns it off and pops the hood. There’s a ladder set up that I drag over so that I can see what we’re doing.
“Alright, so, first things first: we’ll check the oil.”