Chapter 3
Elliot
Not Taking No for an Answer
One Week after My Wedding
“What do you mean she’s gone?” My voice echoes through the groom’s suite as Rhonan stands there with a crinkled piece of paper in his hand.
“What do you know about her boss?”
Water assaults my face, ripping me out of a dead sleep and the same fucking nightmare that’s been on repeat all week.
“What the fuck?” I shout, eyes still squeezed shut to protect them from the sting of the water pelting my skin.
“Get up!”
That voice. I don’t even have to open my eyes to know who it is.
“What the actual fuck, Dilynne?” Attempting to block the water, I turn away and lift my hands just as the spray stops.
I drag my hands down my face before I finally crack one eye open and find Dilynne Clark standing in my living room in her signature overalls, black tank top, and red bandana tied around her head.
The faint smell of oil and grease hits my nostrils, and that’s when reality hits me.
“Did you really just bring the garden hose into my house and spray me with it?”
She plants her hands on her hips as water drips from the spray nozzle attached to the end of the hose. “Damn right. I could smell you from outside. Now go take a proper shower and get dressed.”
I slick my hair back with my hand and then assess my couch—my now very wet couch. “Fuck you, Dilynne. My couch—”
“Will dry. But you? You’ve been cooped up in this house for a week. The boys don’t know what to do with you, so…”
“They sent you? Jesus, they must be really fucking desperate if that’s the case.”
She leans forward, just far enough that I catch a glimpse of her cleavage poking out over the top of her overalls, and I quickly avert my eyes. Nope, not going there. Not with Dilynne.
“For your information, I came over here on my own. I’m gonna take you somewhere that’s going to make you feel better, but not with you smelling like you sat in a vat of grilled onions for a week.
” She waves her hand toward the hallway.
“Now, go. Scrub your pits and balls, Thorne. I don’t have all day. ”
Cautiously, I stand from the couch and meet Dilynne’s eyes. “Why are you doing this, Dilynne? Why do you fucking care? Hell, I bet you’re happy Tori left me.”
Dilynne nods. “Yeah, I am fucking glad that she left, Elliot. She left before you were tied to her legally. Come on, you’re a lawyer. Think of what an even bigger mess that would have been.” Shaking her head, she narrows her eyes at me. “But the real reason I’m doing this is…”
Silence descends between us as she contemplates her next words. For a split second, I see the harshness in her face melt away, leaving a delicate vulnerability that I rarely see. But in a flash, her shield is back up.
“Well, because… Because it’s no fun to argue with you when you’re acting this pathetic!
” She fans her hands up and down my body, then snaps her fingers.
“My snappy remarks are being wasted without you to spar with. So, you need to bust out of your pity party so we can get our witty repartee back up and running.”
Part of me can’t help but wonder if that was really what she was going to say, but the other part of me is glad that she did say it. It feels normal, and that’s something I didn’t know I needed.
“Well, that’s selfish.”
She shrugs. “Call a spade a spade. All I know is that you and I fight. That’s what we do.”
“And whose fault is it that we’ve been nemeses since we were teenagers, huh?”
I eye her curiously as years of flashbacks assault me—us in high school in particular. That’s when things really started to take a turn. I take a step closer to her, forcing her to crane her neck back as she stares up at me.
I watch her throat bob as she swallows, opening her mouth as if to say something.
But she snaps it shut, retreats from my proximity, and poises the hose right in front of my face instead.
“We don’t have time to go back down memory lane, Elliot.
Now, get your stinky ass in the shower, or I’ll be forced to hose you down right here. ”
Rolling my eyes, I head in the direction of my bedroom, but not before I hear Dilynne shout from the living room, “Dear God! I think I just saw a rat scurry across the floor!”
And the corner of my mouth tips up for the first time in a week.
***
“Where the fuck are you taking me?” We’ve been driving on a dirt road for what seems like an eternity, and I’ve barely said a word since we got into Dilynne’s jet black ’69 Chevy Camaro after I scrubbed every inch of my body.
I won’t admit that the shower actually made me feel better though, because no amount of soap could clean up the chaos stinking up my mind.
“Don’t worry. If I was going to murder you, I would’ve done it long ago.”
Twisting to face her, I watch for her reaction when I ask, “You’ve actually thought about it, haven’t you?”
There’s a quirk in her lips, but she recovers quickly, shrugging. “Even if I had, do you think I’d admit that to a lawyer?”
I release a bone-deep sigh at the mention of my profession. “Don’t remind me. I’m not exactly eager to go back to work and that life. But if I take any more time off, my father might fire me.”
She glances over at me. “Can he do that?”
“Technically, yes, since he owns the firm.”
Dilynne shakes her head. “You’d think he’d cut you some slack. Given the whole…public humiliation thing.”
I scoff. “Yeah, not sure that’s in Henry Thorne II’s makeup.”
She takes a slow turn and pulls up to a chain-link fence with a gate blocking the entrance.
“Give me a sec.” Pulling out her phone, she shoots off a text, and then the gate in front of us slowly slides open. Dilynne moves the car into the vast space, and as I look around, I realize we’re in a junkyard full of old cars.
“What the hell…”
“Unclench your butt cheeks, Thorne. Everything will make sense in a minute.” She finds a spot to park, and then she’s hopping out from the driver’s seat before I can ask another question, walking toward a man who looks like he’s lost more teeth than he’s kept.
“Timothy!”
His nod is curt. “Dilynne. Good to see you, as always.”
“Thanks for letting us come by. I know you’re usually closed on Mondays.”
He hoists his pants up higher on his waist that’s hidden by a massive beer belly. “You’re the only person I would do this for. Say, did you ever find that part you were looking for?”
“The one for the Porsche?”
“Yeah.”
Dilynne shakes her head. “Nope.”
“Ah, well, you still have time.”
“I know. But a year goes by fast.”
I scoff at her words. Right now, one fucking day feels like an eternity. Thinking about how I might feel a year from now feels like an impossible task.
“You’ll find it.”
Dilynne nods and then turns around to find me. “This is Elliot, by the way.”
I lift a hand. “Hey.”
“Nice to meet you. Dilynne said you needed a little therapy.”
“Excuse me?”
He chuckles. “Don’t worry. It ain’t that kind of therapy.” He turns back to Dilynne. “I left the tools out there for you.”
She pats him on the shoulder and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek. “You’re a doll, Timothy.”
“Anything I can do to help. Just text me when you’re done.”
“Will do.” She spins to face me again. “Follow me, Grumpzilla.”
“Grumpzilla?” My feet carry me in the same direction that Dilynne is headed, taking in the piles of mangled metal on both sides of me.
I’ve never seen so many destroyed cars before.
Most of the piles are simply parts of cars—fenders, mirrors, rims, and everything in between.
The tires are separate, though, stacked in towers near a fence on the back of the property.
I can literally smell the rust in the air, which has me a little concerned.
“Yup. It’s your new nickname,” Dilynne says over her shoulder.
“That’s…surprisingly tame. You feeling all right?”
She shoots me a glare that’s sharp enough to confirm she’s exactly as unwell as ever. It’s when that look disappears that I should start to worry. “Trust me, I came up with worse options. Want to hear them?”
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I shrug. “Honestly, I’m just waiting for you to tell me why we’re here.”
Dilynne turns a corner and that’s when I see a white BMW sitting all alone with a baseball bat, sledgehammer, and blowtorch next to it. Dilynne walks to the car and turns around to face me, fanning her arms out like Vanna White. “Ta-da!”
The sight of this car is making my adrenaline spike. “What the fuck is this?”
“I know it’s not the exact model of Tori’s car, but it’s close enough.”
“Why the fuck…”
She grabs the baseball bat from the ground and a pair of safety goggles from the hood of the car before walking back over to me. “You’re going to beat the shit out of this car.”
Her hands are outstretched, waiting for me to grab the bat and goggles, but I’m frozen. “You…you brought me out here to fuck up a car that looks like Tori’s?”
Pride radiates from the smile on her face.
“Hell yeah, I did. Trust me, this is better and cheaper than therapy. Though eventually, you should talk to a professional about that witch.” She walks back over to the car and knocks on the hood.
“But this is a great way to let out your anger, Elliot. A great place to start, at least.”
Nowhere on my bingo card for this year did I anticipate Dilynne orchestrating something like this for me. Then again, I didn’t see my fiancée walking out on our wedding either. I’m at a loss for words, though. There’s so much running through my head that I can’t even pinpoint one single thought.
So instead, I don’t think. I grab the goggles and bat from Dilynne, slide the goggles onto my face, and tap the bat into the dirt as Dilynne backs away from the car.
Then I swing.
The headlight on the driver’s side of the car caves in with a sharp crack, and something in my chest finally loosens.
“That’s it, Thorne!”