Chapter 28
ELLIOTT
August
Do you know any gymnasts?
No. Why would you ask me that?
No reason
Someone is pounding on my door.
At least I think it’s my door. It could be my neighbor’s.
Whoever it is pounds a little harder.
Okay, that’s too loud. It’s definitely coming from outside my apartment.
I throw my covers aside and leap out of bed. Or at least that was my plan. But my left leg has other ideas and decides to give out. I try to catch myself on the mattress but miss completely and bruise my ass on the floor.
By the time I get to the front door, I’m this close to losing my fucking mind. When I find Loren waiting on the other side with tears in her eyes, my rage evaporates.
“I’m so sorry for waking you this early, but I need help and don’t have anyone else to ask.” She dabs at her eyes with the tissue strangled in her fist.
Her words take way too long to sink in, but when they do, my heart rate skyrockets. “What do you need?” Does this have something to do with her ex? A protective feeling surges in my chest as I glance past her, into the empty hallway bathed in an orange glow.
“Someone hit my car last night, and I don’t have time to pick up my rental before work. But that also means I don’t have a ride to the office. Is there any way you could put on a shirt and bring me downtown?” She clutches her purse to her chest like it’s the only thing keeping her together.
Holy shit. “Are you okay?”
“What?”
“You said someone hit you.”
“Not me. My car. While it was parked.”
That’s something at least. She’s not hurt. She just needs a ride into the city. I glance over my shoulder at the clock on the microwave. At this hour, traffic will be a bitch. Even so, I can’t stand to see those damn tears in her eyes.
Put on a shirt…
“You want me to drive you to work in my T-shirt and underwear?”
Her gaze drops, and her cheeks go all splotchy, like she didn’t realize until right now that I’m standing here in a pair of black boxer briefs.
Loren clears her throat, but her voice still comes out squeaky. “You really need to start putting on clothes before you answer the door.”
She’s right, but from the crazed way she was pounding, I thought the place was on fire. “What can I say? I like watching you drool.”
“I’m not drooling.”
“Then what do you call this?” When I go to swipe my thumb over the corner of her mouth, she smacks my hand away. “You’re awfully violent for someone who needs my help.”
“I really don’t have time for your teasing this morning. If you can’t help me, I’ll need to call a ride share.”
I have a better solution. “Tell you what.” I reach over to the counter and grab my keys from the bowl where I keep them. “Why don’t you just drive yourself?”
Her wide eyes fly to mine, and she clutches her purse even tighter. “You want me to drive your truck alone?”
Why not? She’s already proven that she can handle the thing. I lift a shoulder. “Sounds better than having to put on clothes.”
Her quiet chuckle hits me right in the heart. Every time I’ve seen my neighbor, she’s had so much fight. Even when all that shit happened with her ex a few weeks back, she still had a bit of life in her.
This morning, she looks defeated, like a deflated balloon in a puddle with a footprint on top.
Her fingers brush mine when she takes the keys and stuffs them into her too-large purse. “I’ll drive really carefully and fill up your tank.”
“Don’t worry about it.” The tank on the thing is huge, so a trip to the city and back will hardly make a dent.
Her eyes glisten, and she starts to blink rapidly. I assume she’s going to leave, but instead she throws her arms around me for a hug, and my dick gets the wrong idea, swelling enthusiastically against the soft cotton.
“Thank you, Elliot. Thank you so much.”
I draw my hips back so she doesn’t accidentally bump into my very noticeable erection. Next time, put on pants before you answer the door, you idiot.
I retreat into my dark apartment before she can see what’s going on downstairs and shout, “Drive safe.” The closing door cuts off her response.
Adjusting myself, I glare at my tented boxers.
“Don’t even think about it. We don’t piss where we eat.
” Yeah, she’s cute and the few times we’ve hung out together have been fun, but that is where this thing ends.
We can be friends who borrow vehicles and occasionally have dinner.
Nothing more needs to come of it. Besides, she is clearly the relationship type, and as much as I hated her calling me a commitment-phobe, she’s not wrong.
I did the whole relationship thing and look how that turned out.
My gaze catches on the spare bedroom’s closed door, and my chest tightens.
I like my very single life. I like bringing women home for a night and then sending them on their merry way after we’re both sated.
Loren moved to a brand-new city for a guy she only knew for a fucking week.
She’s a romantic at heart, looking for love.
I’ve found love and all it did was let me down.
I head back to my bedroom and flop onto my bed. After ten minutes of lying here staring at the ceiling, it’s clear that I’m not going to get back to sleep even though I didn’t get to bed until two this morning.
I reach over to my nightstand and unplug my phone from the charger.
There are a few messages from Mom asking if I want to come over for dinner. I blow her off and say I’m working.
There’s another message from an unknown number that I stupidly click open because I can’t handle seeing those little red notifications anywhere on my screen.
UNKNOWN
We need to talk.
I don’t need to have the number stored in my contacts to know who the cryptic message is from. She has some nerve texting me today of all days. There’s just enough intrigue to keep me dangling on a fucking hook like some pathetic worm.
Deleting a message has never felt so good.
Why is it that every time I start to feel a semblance of peace, the past comes back to haunt me?
The longer I lie in this bed, the more I think about those four words.
Four fucking words that have the potential to ruin a perfectly good day. No way am I going to let that happen.
I find August in my recently called list and click his name. He answers on the second ring as chipper as a fucking daisy. Fucking morning person.
“Good morning, sunshine. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
“Can’t sleep. Need an extra set of hands today?
” He’s a firm believer in the old adage: Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.
That guy works more jobs than I can keep track of.
Not only does he bartend with me, but also he pretends to be a landscaper in the spring and a barista at a coffee shop down by the lake in the colder months.
In the summer, it’s the bike shop or the bait and tackle. Sometimes he even picks up shifts at the ice cream parlor.
I’d commend him on his hard work if I didn’t know the real reason he keeps so busy is to avoid being alone with himself.
“Seriously? I can always use an extra set of hands. Especially ones as big and strong as yours.”
I hate him so fucking much. “Swing by my place on the way. I’m riding with you.”
The moment I climb into his Jeep, August tips his baseball hat like an idiot. Seriously. Who does that? August, that’s who. Even from behind his sunglasses, I can tell he’s scanning the parking lot. “Where’s your truck?”
“Doesn’t matter. Nice shirt, by the way.”
I wouldn’t be caught dead in a lime green V-neck sweater. Looks like his sister is still picking out his wardrobe.
He takes his hand off the gear shift and leans back against his door as he slides his sunglasses up to his forehead. “Where is your truck, Elliott James Grant?”
So much for distracting him. “Loren borrowed it, all right?” I do my best not to look at him, but then I do, and it annoys the shit out of me. “Don’t give me that look.”
“What look?”
He knows damn well what look. That wide-eyed, raised brow, smirky-mouthed look.
Now that smirk is growing into a full-blown grin. “I find it very interesting that you don’t even let me drive your truck and we’re related by blood. But you let this chick drive it, what, twice now?”
“She needed a ride to the city, and I didn’t want to deal with the traffic.”
“Mmmhmmm…”
“Whatever you’re thinking, get it out of your head.”
He shifts to reverse and backs out of the parking space, a smirk still on his face. “You say that like it’s easy to control my beautiful mind.”
There’s something about smelling like sweat and fresh air that makes you feel like you’ve done a hard day’s work. My mom would be appalled if she saw the sweat gluing my shirt to my skin.
August’s legs swing as he sits on the tailgate. Four hours of hard labor and our grandmother’s garage is completely devoid of junk.
I don’t understand how that woman gave birth to my mother.
Maybe she was adopted.
I take a bite of the chicken salad sandwich my grandma gave me, then glance over at August. That would explain so much.
As if he can feel me looking at him, August kicks my boot. “Mom won’t shut up about the reunion this year. Think you’ll go?”
As a kid, I used to look forward to those things every year. Everyone brings different covered dishes, and they have every single pie imaginable. There are puppet shows for the kids, skits for the adults, and a singsong at the end of the night around a mammoth bonfire.
Now that I’m older, I see them for what they really are: A chance to pry into everyone’s private lives.
Southern families love some good, old-fashioned gossip and heaven knows I’ve provided them with enough to last a lifetime.
Which is why I say, “No fucking way.”
August drops his head with a groan. Some of the filling from his own sandwich slips from between the slices of homemade bread and plops onto the driveway. “Come on, man. Don’t make me be the only single one there again.”
Our family marries young and stays together, making August and me the black sheep of the Nolan clan for two very different reasons.
Our cousin Molly married her husband right out of high school. Most of the others were more sensible, waiting until after college. There are kids everywhere. It’s impossible to keep up when all of them seem to have at least four. We multiply like rabbits.
I kick him back. “You still have a few months. Surely you can get a girlfriend by then.”
The bread of his sandwich flops over when he shoves it toward me like that’s going to help him make his point. “I could get ten girlfriends. But I’m not like you. I enjoy the single life too much to give it up.”
“So do I.”
“Mmmhmmm.”
I tear off a piece of crust and toss it at his infuriating head. “Don’t do that shit.”
He doesn’t even bother dodging it, just lets the chunk land on the shoulder of his ugly sweater “What shit?”
“Act like you know something when there’s nothing to know.” He always does this to me.
“Says the guy without a truck.”