18. Arden
Arden
Iwake up the next morning feeling like I had too much whiskey last night.
Possibly because I stayed up drinking–and thinking–long after Orion stalked off without another word after telling me more than a little about how he felt when he was living in New York.
I still don’t know much about him. His history is shrouded in darkness and secrecy, probably on purpose, but I’m starting to piece it together.
He feels like someone who had parents he couldn’t count on, and his statement about people not noticing when you disappeared in the city reeks of running away from home... and parents who didn’t search for you.
I can relate. I didn’t run on purpose, but I know for a fact that my father isn’t searching for me.
If he was, he would have found me by now.
Hell, if they were looking, I’m certain Sonya would have said something to her brother about it. And yet Mars hasn’t heard a peep from New York.
I still think I should head home. I’m safest there, with the guards and armored vehicles my family has at their beck and call. I’m certainly not secure here in Wood, where the very MC that was holding me lives right down the road.
Here, it’s only a matter of time until everything comes to a head.
Which makes my reluctance to leave very, very confusing.
I could have been on a train home three days ago. By this time I’d be back in my father’s house, secure and safe and going back to my regular life.
And yet.
I throw my legs out of bed and climb to my feet, forcing myself to stand up straight and face the day. And the moment I’m up, I realize that my head isn’t as sore as I thought. The fog that surrounded me in bed starts to lift, and I can feel my eyes clearing.
Excellent.
That means I can carry forward with my plan for today.
Because as long as I’m going to be here, I want to know who I’m living with. It’s time I start figuring out Mars and Orion.
An hour later I’m downstairs, showered and breakfasted, and I’m ready to start exploring. I move down the hall that leads into the garage, open the door, and peek out into the space.
I need to make sure both men are out here and accounted for.
After all, if I’m going to start exploring, I don’t want to get caught.
Mars is on the other side of the shop with Dutch, though, staring at a paper and gesticulating like he’s upset about something. I stifle a smile at that; if I know Mars, this means that something hasn’t gone according to the plan he set out, and he’s now dealing with the fallout.
The man hates when things don’t follow the rules he sets for them.
I shift my eyes around the space, looking for my other roommate, and find him bend over a scruffy bike in the corner.
The body of the bike is pure, soulless black, but the pipes running up the side are a bright copper.
The tires are white walls, which gives the whole thing a classic, vintage feel, and I can see from here the bike looks like it’s been through a war.
Every inch is scratched or dented, and I wonder at that.
That man literally works in a body shop.
He could fix the bike up in a single day.
Pull out the dents, polish out the scratches, and give it a new paint job.
Shine those pipes until they glowed and make the bike the envy of every other biker here.
I’ve seen what the other men ride, those squat, hulking machines, and they’re nothing like Orion’s classic piece.
His looks like it belongs in old Hollywood, under a man with well-gelled hair and a cigarette in his mouth. It could be beautiful.
And instead he leaves it marked up like he’s never bothered.
Then again...
Then again, I amend, I expect that bike is an extension of him, a shouted oath to the world that it might be scruffy and scratched, but it’s more nimble and powerful than anything else in the shop.
And I bet that’s a statement about Orion as much as the bike.
My entire body relaxes at the thought and I smile softly.
Orion wants someone to notice him and care for him regardless of his external faults. But try as I might, I can’t seem to break through those walls he’s put up.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying.
I throw one more look at Mars to make sure he hasn’t seen me, and that he’s still busy, and then I shut the door, turn, and hustle back into the house.
Time for some snooping.
I walk quickly out of the hallway and through the living room. This is a common area, so it doesn’t really count for anything. Mars has his office on the other side of the kitchen, and that’s where I’m heading. When I arrive, though, I see that it’s the same as the common areas.
Neat.
Faceless.
Precise.
His boots are lined up, his coffee canister is in the same place every morning, and bills are stacked neatly on his desk. All the pens in the holder are the same color. The floors are polished to within an inch of their life.
Even his trash cans are empty.
I frown. I’d expected to find at least some personal information back here but it barely looks like anyone lives in these rooms. They could be right out of a catalogue, but I think a catalogue would at least put a stuffed animal on the couch to make the space look more human.
Mars doesn’t give his rooms any personality at all. And it’s not because he doesn’t have a personality. After all, this is the man who loves cinnamon rolls so much he has standing appointments at the bakery, and bought me an armload of books when I said I wanted one.
No, the lack of clutter is something else.
Then it occurs to me that Mars is the man everyone comes to when they need something. He’s constantly solving other peoples’ problems, and he’s always ready to go to someone at a moment’s notice.
Perhaps the lack of decor isn’t about lack of personality.
It’s about needing to move quickly when someone needs him.
The thought breaks my heart more than a little bit, because no one’s life should depend on how quickly they can get out of the house to save someone else.
I leave his office with my brain full of thoughts and heartbreak and make my way toward Orion’s hallway.
And here I find the complete opposite.
Orion’s part of the house isn’t cluttered, exactly, but it is full of personality.
It’s not tidy by any means, but it is intentional.
There are books stacked in the hallway. That single shoe still sits in the middle of the space, lonely without its mate.
The floors are clean but they’re not sparkling, and I wonder whether he keeps it this way on purpose.
Just enough clutter to keep people afraid of touching anything.
Then I find the office, which is so orderly it makes my eyes hurt.
This room is absolutely packed with papers, boxes, suitcases, and an old hobby horse, and everything is fit together like puzzle pieces. Box after box lines one wall, bookshelves cover a second, and the wall opposite me holds odds and ends that must not have fit anywhere else.
What the fuck is all of this?
I venture in on my tip toes, too aware that he probably doesn’t want anyone in here, and run gentle fingers along a box to my right. I don’t want to open it up, don’t want to invade his privacy by looking at his private things, but just touching it makes my skin come alive.
This is where Orion keeps his past. This is where he keeps himself.
I wonder how he got all of this up from the city. I don’t know why, but I didn’t get the feeling that he was living well when Mars found him, and this stuff seems like it would have taken up an entire storage facility.
I breathe out slowly, letting my eyes run around the room in curiosity and something that feels like awe. Inside those boxes, Orion has secrets and a past, and something in my heart is desperate to know where he came from and what he had there.
What battles he fought to get out and come to Wood.
But I’m just as certain that it’s not my place.
And I care about him too much to try.
I turn and leave the room as carefully as I came in, and close the door quietly behind me, suddenly sorry that I thought I should snoop on these men at all. They’ve been nothing but kind to me and here I am rifling through their secrets like I have a right to them.
I won’t do it again.
I don’t like the sticky feeling it’s left on my skin.
I turn back toward the garage, desperate for the real-life men rather than the echoes of their pasts.
“Why is it all so disorganized?” I ask, staring into the garage.
The place is filthy, the floors in need of a mop and the walls covered in cobwebs.
It’s also set up in a way that doesn’t make any sense.
Men are running all over the place, grabbing one or two tools here and there and then heading back to whatever project they’re working on.
It’s cluttered at best and inefficient at worst, and my engineering mind is tying itself in knots trying to solve it.
Rookie snorts. “It’s not disorganized. You just don’t understand the system.”
“So explain it to me.”
He shrugs, then starts pointing. “The tools are over there. Except specialty tools, which are over there. Standard stuff–hammers, screwdrivers, nails, and the like–are all along that wall. So you just go to the section you need and get what you want.”
“Okay but if you need tools from several different sections, that has you running all over the place,” I say. “And that’s a waste of time.”
Rookie pauses and chews his lip, digesting this. “Yeah but this is how Mars designed it.”
“Did he design it, though? Or did he start by putting everything in arm’s reach and just expand without a plan?”
More processing. More lip chewing. And then a sharp, conspiratorial grin. “You’re right, but don’t tell him I said so. In exchange I won’t tell him that you just called him inefficient.”
I gasp. “I didn’t call him inefficient!”
“You did, though. You said–”
“Rookie!” I shriek. “I never said that!”
She’s giggling now though, and I suddenly realize that he’s not serious. He’s fucking teasing me, riling me up for no reason. While making fun of Mars.
I sock him gently in the arm, giving him a mock serious face. “That’s not funny.”
“Oh but it is,” he says. “You should have seen your face! Anyhow, I think you’re right. But Mars has never let me reorganize anything.”
I look at him thoughtfully, then turn to the garage itself.
Mars and Orion have been taking care of me since I got here, and I know it hasn’t been easy.
Hell, last night Orion ran all the way back from the festival with me in his arms, and though I still think he was crazy not to just take a car, the fact remains that I owe him.
I owe them both.
And what better way to repay them for their kindness than to make the garage work better?
“What if it was my idea rather than yours?” I ask, tapping my chin.
“I don’t think he’d tell you no about anything,” Rookie responds, and I hear the truth of it in his voice.
The reverence for Mars himself, and the surety about my position in the household.
I think he might be wrong–I’m not nearly as important as he thinks–but I’m willing to find out.
“Will you help?” I ask.
“Obviously.”
I can’t help the grin that comes to my face. “Perfect. Then here’s what we’re going to do.”
I go through my idea quickly, leaning toward my new accomplice and speaking as quickly as I can. The day is already half done and I want to have this finished by the time they close tonight.
Mars has been stressed about operations in the garage.
And if I can make his life a little bit easier, in exchange for him saving mine, it’s worth the risk of getting in trouble.
By the end of the day we’ve entirely reorganized the space.
There’s no longer a wall full of specialty tools, another of standard hammers, and a third of everything else.
Instead, there’s a setup for every many who comes into the garage to work.
A tool belt, a handheld case full of tools, and an apron in case he needs to weld.
The specialty tools are still housed in one location but they’re pinned to a board so a man can look through them more quickly, find what he needs, and get back to his project.
Every man will have the same set of tools at his fingertips, and he’ll keep those tools with him all day.
Right now every setup looks exactly the same, but in time I expect them to personalize them.
Use the brands they like best. Include tools that I haven’t included but that they use often.
Put individual designs on their tool belts.
The point stands: They’ll come in, grab their setup, and go about their lives, pausing only when they need something specialized.
And Mars is staring at me like I’ve just created fire.
“It’s just more efficient,” I tell him. “No mechanics getting in each other’s way.
No one fighting over tools that they both need to use at the same time.
And everyone will take ownership over their tools, which means they’ll take better care of them.
Nothing is public property. Their stuff is their stuff. ”
“You did all this in one day?”
I shrug. “Half a day, actually.”
He stares at me like he’s forgotten how to speak, so I say one more thing.
“You saved my life, Mars. I had to pay you back somehow.”
Then I turn and leave, ready for a shower, dinner, and maybe a book. Behind me, I hear Mars not following me, and wonder how long he’s going to stand there being amazed that I have a brain.
And that I know how to use it.