Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Give me a damn break!” I shouted, thumping the dashboard of my shitty Vitz. It was blaring a red oil light at me, and I knew I didn’t have long before the engine started making clunking sounds that my bank account wasn’t remotely equipped to fix.
I’d made it back to Glades Bay on autopilot. I had no idea what I was going to do now. It felt like I was floating in space with no tether to pull me back to Earth. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know my story. I’d just lost the only family I’d ever known.
I felt more alone than I ever had before—and it wasn’t the first time since arriving here that I wished I’d never opened that email from bloody Trevor.
My phone vibrated in the cupholder, flashing Rick’s name. I let it ring out. If I declined it, he’d call back incessantly, thinking something was wrong.
He’d be right, of course. But I had no interest in accepting a pity-party invite.
This way, he’d probably assume I was still at Dad’s and leave me alone a bit longer. Hopefully.
The sign for J’J’s Repairs and Gas appeared, and I pulled in. It was funny how things could look so different in just a matter of weeks.
The me that had pulled in here less than two months ago seemed like an entirely different person. Younger. Dumber. Part of me wanted to go back and warn her.
The woman at the counter smiled as I walked in. She had something brownish smudged on the shoulder of her black polo that looked suspiciously like baby vomit.
“Can I help you, love?”
I scanned the shelves with my eyes, hoping to locate what I needed and avoid chit-chat altogether.
“Ah, yeah. Looking for oil—for that.” I cocked my head toward the paint-peeling yellow car I typically pretended wasn’t mine.
The woman yawned, catching herself by surprise. “Sorry—late night.”
I arranged my features into what I hoped was a sympathetic expression.
“Jay keeps all the car repair stuff in the garage. Prefers to do that side himself,” she said.
“Jay?”
“Jono,” she smiled, pointing to the workshop next door. The one with the apartment above it.
“Oh,” I swallowed. Instantly hesitant. He’d met me in horny goddess mode. Today I was more… broken cup.
“From out of town?” She asked, stifling another yawn.
“I guess you could say that.”
“Well, don’t you worry. Jay’s one of the best. He’ll fix you right up.”
I gave her a polite smile and caught my reflection in the sunglasses stand on my way out.
At least my face had recovered from its earlier leaking pipe.
It seemed to be pulling off a flushed look instead of giving away the fruit salad of agony that I was actually feeling.
I also silently thanked whoever invented waterproof mascara.
I knocked on the open blue door of the workshop. I’m not entirely sure why because the roller door right next to it was wide open, but it seemed impolite, and potentially dangerous, to barge my way into the oil-smelling garage.
“Yo!” a voice grunted from somewhere at the back. I squinted my eyes, but it was dark like a cave in there, and I couldn’t see anyone.
“I just need some oil,” I called back, determined not to go in if I didn’t have to.
I heard the clink of a dropped tool and the man’s voice cursing. “Hold up,” he grunted. A minute later, a man I recognised was emerging from the shadows, wiping his hands on a grey cloth that I’m sure at one time was white.
“You,” he smirked, leaning in the doorframe, his eyes dropping down my body.
His gaze wasn’t unwelcome. There was something about emotional chaos that pushed me toward release.
And sex had always been my preferred method.
So what if a bullshit magazine called it unhealthy coping?
With everything going on, I couldn’t care less what they thought.
There were worse ways to self-soothe. Just ask my dead brother. Correction, my ex-dead-brother. Fuck my life. My point was I couldn’t completely fault my instincts. At least that was what I’d keep telling myself.
“Jono, is it?” I tilted my head to one side as if I couldn’t remember. A silent game had begun.
“That’s me,” his mouth twitched. He was wearing a fitted black singlet like the last time I’d seen him, the kind that hugged in all the right places. I let my eyes linger on the single button of his black chinos for a moment before I caught his gaze again.
“I’m after some oil.” I tilted my head again towards the yellow-pain-in-my-ass.
“So, you said,” he replied, his brown eyes full of mischief as he grabbed a large green bottle from a cupboard under the bench.
“Oh, I don’t think I need that much.” I waved my hand towards the bottle, and he rolled his eyes.
“I’m going to top it up for you, okay? That way I can make sure it’s good and filled.”
I doubted the innuendo was accidental, even if it was cringe-worthy and took two points off his hotness scale.
“I thought you might’ve left town by now,” he said, leaning over the engine a beat later. “Haven’t seen you around.”
His arms flexed as he worked, and I caught myself watching the dried oil deep in his thick-fingered hands. I didn’t know what it was about men with work-rough hands, but I was here for it.
Dax didn’t have hands like that. Unless we were gardening. He was always clean and had his perfect pile of exact change. Always trying to be helpful and understand me better.
Ugh.
I tried to shake him from my mind; it’s not like we were a thing. We’d never even gone on a date. He was… a weirdly helpful cop friend. With a great ass. That was it.
After my dad’s revelation, my mind felt like someone had twisted the kaleidoscope and all the shapes were suddenly unfamiliar. But I did know one thing that could make it feel better. For an hour anyway, and I’d take any reduction in pain at this rate.
“I meant to,” I said, intentionally running my finger across my bottom lip.
Jono swallowed. “Oh yeah? Got some unfinished business to attend to?”
He shut the bonnet with a thud.
“You could say that,” I replied, letting my gaze flick up to the apartment above the garage. Then I looked back at him through my lashes.
A smile danced across his mouth.
“You want some coffee while you’re here?” he asked. “I’ve got a fancy Nespresso upstairs.”
Take me now, sailor. A Nespresso machine.
Next he’d be offering to let me use the good mugs. You know, the ones that didn’t have a dancing woman who got more naked the quicker you drank.
I swallowed a smile.
“Coffee sounds good,” I heard myself say.
It felt like I’d separated from my physical body somewhere during the drive home.
The corners of Jono’s eyes crinkled in a way that made my stomach swoon, and he flicked the sign on the workshop door around from open to a message that read ‘I’m currently attending a call-out. Please leave your details with Maewyn’. I assumed she must have been the tired woman from earlier.
“Original or extra strength?” Jono asked as we climbed the stairs.
He kicked the base of the door at the top of the steps before shouldering it open.
“Breaking in?” I asked, stepping into the obvious bachelor pad behind him.
Empty beer cans and car magazines with busty women sprawled across the front of them scattered his coffee table.
His décor comprised a naked woman calendar that hadn’t been turned for two months.
The brown-haired beauty must have been a favourite.
It’s not that it was dirty; the carpets appeared vacuumed and dishes dried in a down-turned pile on a rack on the stainless bench, it was just an obvious single-person zone.
“Huh? Oh, the door,” he said, making his way to the far wall and the kitchenette, which indeed housed the promised machine. “Nah, gets sticky when it’s been raining.”
“Original,” I said, answering his earlier question as I took in the surroundings.
It was less of an apartment, more studio flat—everything in one room.
At least the grey duvet cover looked smooth on his bed.
Hopefully clean. I bypassed it and made my way to the brown sofa instead—one of those deep, squishy ones that looked like it might swallow you whole.
This was the couch where the action probably happened—if Jono was the kind of guy who entertained action, that is.
People like us usually stand out to each other.
It’s like a radar of understanding that we take part in a hanky panky no judgement zone.
“Original,” Jono echoed, as he sat next to me, handing me a cup that read ‘DUDE’ on it. My mouth curved as I drank. Totally clocked him.
The moments that came after this were where it could get awkward depending on the people involved.
Sometimes, the navigation from casual coffee to casual sex needed a map.
I didn’t have the strength to entertain a thinly veiled Netflix-and-chill session today.
I had a mission and was happy to sit in the cockpit, so to speak. Ha, that’s what she said.
My mug clanked against the glass top of the coffee table as I set it down, then reached for his cup and placed it next to mine.
“I knew you were going to be a dirty one,” he purred.
Great. A talker. Not my favourite. Although that wasn’t the only reason we were hovering above the uncomfortable.
My brain had suddenly decided to play re-runs of every other casual sex encounter I’d ever had, right as Jono was staring hungrily into my eyes.
Had sex with a stranger really helped? And then there was Dax again.
Self-loathing was crawling up my throat at a rapid pace, as was the emptiness threatening to engulf me.