17
Orion
“Where did you go last night?”
I stopped in the doorway to the kitchen as Whitney fixed a cup of coffee. There was a chance she heard my truck start. I was hoping she hadn’t. Wishful thinking on my part, of course.
“Just felt like going for a drive.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue. All of them did. I was getting shamefully good at telling them.
I wasn’t going to the club night after night—I was going for a walk. And yeah, walking had been involved, but that walking led to me sitting on my ass, drinking a beer, watching my newest temptation dance to the filthiest music.
Now I knew what he tasted like.
I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the way he’d felt pressed against me as we’d made out in his tiny kitchen.
Whitney cleared her throat—it took a little more effort than normal to snap out of the memory. When I did, my wife was standing there staring at me like I was sick and she might need to call a doctor. Hell, maybe she did because no one who was feeling well would do half the shit I’d been doing.
“Are you okay?” she asked, setting her mug on the counter before walking over to me, placing the back of her hand on my forehead. She ran it down my cheek before rubbing along my neck.
"I’m fine. Out too late, just tired is all."
She seemed to buy that, but didn’t let go of me right away.
I knew what was next. I hated it. In the past, I would have loved it when she checked on me like this, then kissed me before walking away.
Now, the feel of her lips on mine was all kinds of wrong.
I didn’t want to replace the feeling of Sable’s pink, plush petals.
Instead of continuing to dwell, which in turn made Whitney worry more, I got up, grabbed my thermos from the cupboard, filled it with what remained in the coffee pot, added a small splash of cream and headed out the door for the day.
I wasn’t in any mood to deal with my dad or his employees, but if I was lucky, I could focus on the beautiful car I’d been working on.
If Mr. George hadn’t decided to take his business elsewhere.
He had never threatened it, but I always worried that Dad would say something stupid one of these days, and that would be it. I’d lose my best customer. Then I would have to deal with all the other bullshit that came in.
When I pulled up to the shop, it was still a good forty-five minutes before the place opened. It wasn’t unusual for me to be the first person in the door, so it was odd to see my dad’s old truck parked to the side of the building.
He wasn’t in it. I could make that out from across the parking lot, but seeing his truck like that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
I approached the building as quietly as possible, only making the gravel crunch softly under my feet, wishing that Dad had paved the damn parking lot.
He said it was insurance for work when people ultimately got a rock stuck in their tires and needed it fixed.
What the fuck ever. It was just another one of his shady practices.
The light was on in his office. I looked over the low edge to see what the hell he was up to.
He wasn’t alone in his office. Who I saw with him was even more surprising.
Not only was the person a shock, but the little baggies of pills and cash laid across the desk were as well.
Shit. I knew Dad was doing some questionable crap lately, but this was on another level.
At one point I was supposed to take over the garage, but if this was what he was turning it into, it was something I didn’t want.
The reputation of the place would be completely destroyed if word of this got out.
Then again, it had probably already been destroyed.
It explained the different clientele we’d had in the last few months.
We had fewer and fewer people like Mr. George, but more people who had questionable damage to their cars or would come in with parts of their own that they couldn’t explain how they’d gotten access to.
Fuck. Was my dad running a drug ring right under my nose that I’d been completely oblivious to?
The man he was doing business with took three bags of the pills, stuffing them into his jacket before he left Dad’s office. I rushed to the back of the building because there was no way he was coming out the front. He had to have at least a couple thousand dollar’s worth of drugs on him.
When the back door swung open, the man stopped blinking at me.
“Oh, fuck.” Was all he said as he stood there because there was no way to get around me.
“What the hell, Jayden?” All those times Whitney had tried to get me to stop spending time with him. I’d tried to tell her that he wasn’t as bad as she thought he was... but here he was proving her right.
“It’s not what it looks like, man.”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “So I didn’t just see you buying a shit ton of pills off my dad?”
He only shrugged as if it weren’t a huge deal.
“Come on, Orion. It’s rough out there. I gotta make a little extra cash somehow.”
It was the last thing I’d pictured Jayden doing after his mom had died from an overdose when we were in tenth grade.
He’d been absolutely destroyed. That was when things started going downhill for him.
His dad sort of checked out, leaving him to figure things out on his own.
Jayden became the king of rebellion. Probably to get the attention he was starving for.
Selling the same drugs that killed his mother was not the way.
I glared at my friend because he knew how important the garage was to me, but here he was basically spitting in my face.
“Fuck you. This is bullshit.” I went to push past him. He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t act so judgmental. It’s not like you haven’t been back to that club almost every night since I introduced you to it.”
Fuck. How did he know that? He hadn’t been there since. Not that I’d been able to see, anyway.
His laugh was derisive. “Oh, Orion. Come on. The guilt is all over your damn face.”
Was it? I shook my head, trying not to let it show that his words bothered me. Maybe Jayden wasn’t a good friend after all. I should have listened when everyone else tried to warn me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to sound convincing, but my voice shook so much I wasn’t even sure I could convince myself.
That got me another humorless laugh. “Why don’t you just forget what you saw here today, and I won’t run off and tell that sweet little wife of yours that you’ve been seeking company elsewhere.”
I slammed my eyes closed, letting Jayden walk away, because what other choice did I have?
Iwas exhausted by the time I made it home. There was a soreness to my muscles that wasn’t normally there, but it was probably because I’d started my day so on edge.
What the hell was I going to do now that I knew what my dad was doing with the garage?
There was a chance I could look into starting my own business, but that took funds that I just didn’t have.
Not to mention that Dad would probably get pissed and retaliate if I took any of his clients. I didn’t want them.
Okay. Maybe Mr. George, but I think he was sort of the exception in my father’s books. He wasn’t like all the other assholes that came through.
The smell of spices greeted me the second I walked through the front door.
I paused. Was Whitney cooking? She hardly ever did that anymore.
Most days we ordered something or just ate random shit around the house.
Today had to be one of her better days. I needed to learn how to pay attention to those.
As I walked to the kitchen, I could pick out the smells of cumin, chilies, and other Mexican spices.
Whitney stood over the stove, stirring a pan of meat. She looked up at me, smiling when I entered the room.
“Hey you. It’s nothing fancy, but I was feeling in the mood for some tacos.”
On the counter behind her, were all the ingredients laid out for us to make our own. She’d sliced fresh tomatoes, cilantro, onion, and even made a homemade salsa.
“This looks great,” I said, making my way over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing the back of her head. The move earned me a bright smile. One I hadn’t seen in some time.
Whitney turned off the stove, moved the taco meat into a serving bowl, and set it on the counter next to all the other ingredients before we set to work making our plates.
We took our food to the table and sat across from each other.
I watched as Whitney ate her food with that same smile plastered on her face.
I didn’t want to sour her mood, but I had to know what had changed.
“What’s gotten into you today?” I asked, lifting a taco to my mouth to take a bite.
Whitney took another bite of hers before shrugging. “I don’t know. Just felt really good today, that's all. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t just sit around the house. I got up, did some cleaning, then felt like making dinner.”
At least she wasn’t mad about me asking. I knew she was depressed, so it was nice to see her in a good mood for the day. She deserved many more good days.
That worry that Jayden could sneak in stealing that joy from her at any given moment? That didn’t feel good at all. It wouldn’t have been so bad had I not touched Sable, but I’d gone and done something stupid. I fucking kissed him.
As we ate, Whitney went on and on about all the things around the house she’d done.
Apparently, the dust in the living room had been getting out of control.
She swore she could make a stuffed animal from the sheer amount of it she’d collected.
I believed it because neither of us had been very good about keeping the place clean for a while.
Maybe there was a little depression involved for both of us. Neither of us was happy all that often. Neither of us had any motivation to do anything about the cleanliness of our home or get out and do things together.