Chapter 8
MICAH
MICAH: So, I’m texting to get information and to see if this school dance is safe.
SIENNA: Safe?
SIENNA: Micah Wolfe, you know damn well that it’s safe.
MICAH: Does the school know about you? Girl, you’re dangerous. Fuck knows what you’re going to be wearing.
SIENNA: Ugh, please don’t come.
Now, I’m intrigued.
A palm slams against the back of my head, taking me out of my forming fantasy when a deep chuckle follows. “Who you talkin’ to?”
My brows clinch as I glimpse over my shoulder to find Owen at my side. “Your mom, dickhead.”
His brows lift in faux shock. “Oh, yeah? She’s dead, prick.” Fuck, I knew that. Forgot. “But you can tell her I said hi when you go to hell because that’s probably where she is.”
I power down my screen because I can’t fuck around and tease Sienna when I got Owen eye-ballin’ me like a freak. “What do you need?”
“You finish that Buick?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He crosses his arms along his white-clad chest. “Charge her an extra twenty bucks for ruining my lunch yesterday. The damn broad wouldn’t stop talkin’ about when her car was gonna be fixed, and it got cold.”
I gape at him because that’s not going to happen. “I fix the cars. I don’t deal with the customers.”
He scoffs through his nose. “Yeah, but they’ll deal with you. Broad loves a bad boy in tattoos.”
“You have tattoos.”
“But I have an attitude. And she ruined my lunch.”
“You said that.” We have a ten-second staring contest before I say, “I’m not in charge of—”
“My lunch, Wolfe,” he repeats for the third time. “She bitches about it, she goes to you.”
“Whatever, dude.” I roll my eyes and lean up against a Dodge Challenger we’re making modifications to. “Anything else?”
Owen, the prick.
If he weren’t a decade or so older than me, already moving around kinda slow, and could possibly still throw a decent punch, I’d beat the shit out of him.
Because the douchebag hollers out for the boys, and this is going to open up a conversation I’m not looking to have.
“Hey, Micah’s talkin’ to some chick, fellas!”
My fist slams into his bicep, getting him to stumble back and out of my way because he’s not ready for another. It still doesn’t stop the evil laughter that brews from his chest, though.
“What’s that?” Graham, the best friend. “Yo, you talking to Sienna again?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa…who’s Sienna?” I watch Dylan, some twenty-year-old heartthrob who comes in the shop every Monday yakking about some chick he banged and how we’re supposed to be impressed or something.
“Shut up, kid,” I censure with a glare. “Go finish that truck up.”
I get bumped in the next second, the only one doing that being my best friend.
“Dude, you still going at it with Sienna?” I don’t know what he means by going at it because I didn’t tell him shit about what I did with Sienna, but that I was talking to someone. I don’t remember mentioning her name, but maybe I did.
“It’s not a big deal,” I tell the space of dudes who suddenly just surrounded me. “Can we get back to work?”
“Man, you need to follow that up. You haven’t been with someone since Laura.”
I wave a dismissive hand in the air. “Alright, that’s enough.” I send another withering glower in everyone’s direction. “Y’all need me to call Tony and tell him you guys are having pow-wows and shit?”
Tony’s our boss, not really a hard ass, but when he gets pissed, he’s not fun to be around.
Dylan and Owen smirk, but they take the hint and have mercy on me while they go back to doing something other than interrogating me.
Meanwhile, Graham hangs the fuck out as if I need him here for emotional support.
“She must be pretty special if you’re still talking to her.” He slides up next to me, leaning against the back window like we’re going to have it out right here about my relationships.
“She’s…” I lift my shoulders dismissively because I’m not going to talk about her when she’s on the fence of even moving forward with me. “She’s fine, dude.”
“You guys…” My face lifts as I glance over my shoulder at him to continue that sentence. He clears his throat. “I’ve been tellin’ you for years to jump back on the train, man.”
“And I’ve told you over a million times that I wasn’t looking for that kind of commitment right now.”
“So…she’s just a side piece?”
“No. She’s just…someone I’m talking to.”
“So, you haven’t fucked her yet.”
“Do you want to become part of the floor?”
He smiles. “What are you waiting on then?”
Her.
“I gotta get back to work.” Before I can even move, Graham decides to give me one last blow.
“Laura isn’t coming back, Micah. I don’t know if that’s what you’re waiting for, but she’s gone. She doesn’t deserve you and Heath after what she’s done.”
He doesn’t mean for the words to sting, but they do. I’m fully aware that Laura is never going to come back into our lives, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
We were a team. One with plans and ambitions, with a new kid on the way. We were going to get married and I planned on making her the happiest woman in the world because I believed in us.
In a future.
It wasn’t going to be a picketed fence, but it was going to be a life we could grow into.
“I’m not hanging back for her,” I vouch, my voice even. And I’m not. “Laura and I are ancient history.”
“Then why haven’t you even given it a chance to date someone? You’re not getting any younger, dude. And Heath needs a mother figure.”
“He…”
Does.
Except how is that fair for him?
How is it remotely acceptable that my son has to build a relationship with someone who’s not his birth mother? Yeah, it happens and shit to other people, but it wasn’t how I wanted us to go.
However, the reality is still the same.
Laura left both of us, and I’ve felt the bitterness of the pill for years. It’s put me into a closed-off mindset, and my mind is vacant of ever trying again.
Except with Sienna.
She excites me with a future and a means for something more. I can’t see her abandoning me for some dumbass shit about how she can’t do something. Sienna may be taking her time with deciding, with weighing out the cons for herself, and I respect the shit out of that.
However, I’m not cool with the whole product of someone else telling us what we can or cannot. I have a pretty good feeling that I met this woman for a reason.
“Don’t rush it.” Graham gives me a light slap on my shoulder. “You don’t have to jump into anything you don’t feel comfortable with.”
But I do.
I feel at ease with her.
Everything about Sienna brings me peace and havoc because I love lying with her and just being still, but I crave the widespread chaos when it comes to wanting to fuck her all the time.
“Got it,” I deadpan, and that’s good enough for Graham because he ambles and fucks off.
Meanwhile, I need to woo the woman who holds a lot of my thoughts during the day.
I need her to give us a chance.
I have to see where this goes.
I wish for nothing more than for both of us to be happy, but I wish it to be with her and nothing without.