Chapter Six
Avery
I was the only car in the lot when I pulled into Grady’s Auto Shop. The place was obviously well past closed. I was starting to feel a little uneasy, and mentally cursed myself for coming. Why would some random guy offer to work on my car after his shop had already shut down for the day?
He was either a serial killer or he wanted to sleep with me. Both of those options were bad news. The serial killer thing for obvious reasons, but the second part because of David.
Oh, David.
My fiancé had become nearly insufferable since my father doled out his bullshit promotion.
With every day that went by, I felt more and more like other people were living my life for me.
I took a quick look in the visor mirror and decided that I didn’t look like complete dog shit.
I took the final puff off the butt of my cigarette and then screamed as a man appeared at the side of my car, seemingly out of nowhere.
I took a few deep breaths and then rolled the window down. “Jesus Christ!”
He looked mortified. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you saw me walking up.”
“It’s all right. And no, I didn’t see you… you’re like a ninja or something.”
He laughed. “I’m pretty hard to miss.”
I put the cigarette out by dropping it into the nearly-finished Coke can in my cupholder and got out of the car. I glanced up at his face, and then back down at the ground. I clasped my hands together in front of me and kicked at a small rock with the toe of my shoe.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” he said.
“I should quit,” was all I managed to get out.
He was a lot taller than I had realized.
I guess I’d only ever seen him sitting down at the diner.
Getting a good look at him now, even in the dim, early evening light, it was easy to see that my previous thoughts of him flirting with me were misplaced.
There was no way this gigantic, rugged man would ever be even the slightest bit interested in me.
Honestly, I questioned my judgment for ever having thought he could be gay in the first place.
He looked like he spent as much time in the gym as in the garage.
So, that just leaves serial killer…
“Um. Do you, uh, have the keys?” he asked, the corners of his mouth turning up in a grin as he stared at me.
“Oh, yeah… sorry. Look, I didn’t mean to make you work late, or anything. I can just come back another time.”
“It’s okay. Seriously, I didn’t have anything to do.”
I started to say something else, but hesitated, leaving him free to speak again.
“Avery, am I making you uncomfortable?” As he asked, he took a step backwards to put some more space between us. Honestly, he hadn’t been that close to begin with.
Yes, but not because I’m scared of you… I think.
He put his hands up and took another step backwards. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset. I really just wanted to help with the car.”
I shook my head. “No, no! It’s nothing like that. It’s just been a long day. I’m sorry. I’m fine, really.”
God, why was he such a gentleman?
I took two giant steps forward and handed him my keys. He took a wide step around me in the direction of my car, then opened the door. “May I?”
I nodded, and he lowered himself down into my driver’s seat. Well, only halfway. His legs were too long to fit inside without pushing the seat back… a lot.
He started the engine and the dashboard lit up. ”Jesus Christ, Avery.”
“Sorry, I know my car is kinda messy,” I replied, a little embarrassed.
“No,” he began. “Well, yes, it is messy, but I’m talking about the three lights flashing on your dashboard. How long has your check engine light been on?”
I shrugged. “Not that long… a couple months.”
When he turned and looked at me, I thought his eyeballs were gonna pop out of his head like a cartoon character. “A couple of months?! How long has your oil light been on?”
“I don’t know. Not as long as the other one.”
“And your tire pressure is low.”
I leaned into the car and looked at the dash. “Is that what that means?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Okay, well, let’s get it in the back.”
“I brought you some pie,” I told him as I wandered around the garage looking at all the tools hung up all over the walls. There was also a poster of a naked woman with teased hair and bolt-on boobs, her legs spread wide showing her vag. “Umm… you’ve got some interesting artwork.”
He slid out from beneath my car for a moment and glanced up at the poster. “Yeah, sorry about that. Mechanics are pigs. You said something about pie, though?”
“Yeah, it’s in the passenger’s seat. I know you like app-”
“Apple is my favorite,” he interrupted.
“Well, we were out of apple, so I brought you cherry.”
I heard him laugh. “Delicious.” Sliding back out again, he sat up.
“There’s something wrong with your exhaust system.
That’s what the code machine is saying, but I’m going to have to take it all apart to figure it out.
There’s nothing I can see from just poking around.
Honestly, I think you’ve got several problems.”
If he only knew…
“Okay, so, how long does that take?”
“A day, or so probably. Then I imagine I’ll have to get parts, so it might be in the shop a couple of days, honestly.”
“Shit, okay. I’m probably going to have to wait on that a little bit.”
He nodded. “Yeah, no problem. It’s not an emergency, but you’ll definitely want to get it taken care of soon.”
Why is his voice so deep?
“Okay, well, thanks for your time and meeting me so late. I really appreciate it.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, no problem. Did you still want me to change the oil?”
Oh, duh….
“Yeah, thanks. That would be great.”
“It’ll be about 20 minutes. You can hang out here, or there’s a customer lounge just through that door. Wherever you are more comfortable.”
He walked away, turning his focus back to my poor, neglected Nissan. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and began to thumb through it. I figured if I put my focus on my phone’s screen, I would be less likely to get caught staring at JR while he got all sweaty and covered in grease.
My intense attraction to him was so strange to me. I hadn’t had a man make me nervous like that since I was a teenager. There was just something about him. Something that made me want to be close to him and at the same time I wanted to run as fast as I could in the other direction.
I felt like I had become completely disillusioned with men as a whole. Which, being a man myself, was really saying something.
In my incessant need to garner my parent’s approval, I’d let myself become trapped in a relationship with someone I didn’t love.
I tried so hard at first. My parents weren’t happy when I came out.
My father didn’t speak to me for weeks after I told them.
I was still in college at the time, and I seriously thought they were going to disown me.
Then, one night, I came home from work and David was sitting on the couch drinking a beer with my father. He introduced him as a new rookie cop on Dad’s squad, and, basically, that was it.
I can’t say that I was necessarily forced to go along, but it sure felt like it was David or bust as far as my father was concerned. I get why—they were a lot alike and my father had always loved anyone who was willing to suck up to him.
Meanwhile, there I was in the garage feeling majorly confused.
Conflicted. Whatever. Yeah, my car needed an oil change, but it’d needed that for months, and I didn't give a shit. But, suddenly, some stupidly sexy man tells me he’s a mechanic, and I just can’t wait to get my car into his hands?
Why did he have to be so hot though? And so menacing at the same time?
Why did he have to smile at me the way that he did, and look like he could snap me in half with his arms tied behind his back?
Why did he have to call me adorable?
Nobody had ever called me that before. Well, nobody in person, that was.
James told me he was sure I was the most adorable boy on the planet in one of his letters once.
Which was hilarious, considering he had no clue what I looked like.
In fact, I think the only man I’d ever been attracted to was James.
And James was practically just a figment of my imagination.
My dream boyfriend that would never materialize.
Although… he was materializing, wasn’t he? I got a little anxious thinking back on the last letter I had received from him talking about his release and promising he would contact me when he was stable and had a phone.
I didn’t think I was brave enough to face him.
I lied to him. For years, I led him on and never told him about David.
I knew it was fucked up, but I just couldn’t bring myself to be honest. I couldn’t lose James.
We had been exchanging letters since before I even met David, but I also never stopped sending him naughty letters even after David and I were together.
I felt like James was a part of me at that point. I couldn’t describe it.
James was literally my best friend, my only friend.
That was kind of a pathetic realization.
My only friend was some random guy I wrote letters to in prison.
It was the lowest-pressure relationship on the planet, and I still ended up botching it.
I’d lied to him all this time, and now he was getting out of prison and expected us to… I don’t know, be together?
It might make me a terrible person, but part of me wished James was serving a life sentence, like I’d told everyone in my life that he was.
David knew I had a pen pal, but he thought it was an old guy, a lifer.
Were that actually true, I could at least still have him and my cozy little fantasies of us being together while I lived my shitty real life.
I was inevitably going to lose the only thing I actually enjoyed.
Once I told James the truth, he’d never want to see or talk to me again.
And even if he did, David would have an aneurysm.
He didn’t even like it when a stranger smiled at me.
He was constantly worried that I’d cheat on him, and I guess, to be fair, I technically had.
I’d never been physically intimate with anyone else since we’d been together, but those letters would definitely be considered outside the boundaries of mine and David’s relationship.
I knew that, which is why I lied. And why I’d kept the letters coming to my parents’ house instead of the apartment David and I shared.
When our letters started becoming more personal was about the time I was introduced to David.
I was hopeful in the beginning, and figured I would learn to love David.
My parents, especially my father, liked him so much that I just accepted the fact that he was supposed to be there. But it’d never been great.
Our sex was good, even if he normally only wanted it after he’d been drinking.
There’d been a thousand times I’d thought that he didn’t actually want to be with me, but liked being close to my father.
For my part, I don’t actually know why I stayed.
Guilt? Shame? Parental approval? David hadn't started getting rough with me until six or seven months ago.
Sometimes he grabbed a little hard when he was really angry.
I sometimes thought he was starting to suspect how I really felt about him.
I could blame my current situation on a million things, but when push came to shove, I was an adult and responsible for my own actions and decisions. Despite the feeling like I woke up in this life one day and had no clue how I ended up there, the fact remained that I continued to let it happen.
Why?
I had a loose exit plan if shit really hit the fan, or if, by some miracle, James actually did love me, but it would mean losing my family, too. My parents would never forgive me for running out on David for a convict.
“You’re all set.”
He startled me out of my thoughts, and he lunged forward to steady me as I nearly dumped myself off the stool I was sitting on into the floor.
I got to my feet with his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you… again.”
He chuckled. “You’re like a cat.”
“Sorry, I just get lost in my head sometimes.”
JR smiled and looked away. “Look Avery I was wondering if-”
“What do I owe you for the oil change?” I interrupted him, too nervous to let him finish his sentence.
“Oh, uh. Don’t worry about it. I wanted to tell you…”
“No, I can’t do that. You worked late and spent like two hours fixing my car.”
Fuck, why am I sweating?
“It was only an hour, and I wanted to do it. I’ve been wanting to talk to you…”
I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket. “I can pay, I’m not poor or anything.” I took a step forward and held two twenties out towards him.
“Avery, I don't want your money,” he protested.
“Then, what do you want?”
He took a swift step forward, closing the distance between us. In an instant, his calloused hand found the side of my face, and he tilted my head upwards as he covered my lips with his own.
It was like every muscle in my body relaxed simultaneously, and I completely melted into his arms as my lips parted, and his tongue swept into my mouth.
I moaned against his lips and looped my arms around his neck.
He pulled me in tighter against himself.
He kissed me again and again until I was drunk on the taste of his mouth.
Feeling his erection grind against me through his jeans was like a bucket of icy water being dumped over my head. I pulled back, and he groaned and chased my lips for a split second before he opened his eyes.
I must have had a panicked look on my face because he immediately took a step back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
Without letting him finish I just hurried over to my car and started the engine.
“Avery…”
I heard his muffled voice through the closed car window, but I ignored him. I put the car in reverse and screeched the tires to get out of there. I got turned around and sped out of the parking lot as I watched him jog out of the garage in the rearview mirror.
“Fuck!”