Inside, the garage was surprisingly spacious, framed by walls covered from floor to ceiling with Masonite peg-boards hung with tools. The cement floor was painted the same shade of gray as the office door, and had the usual dark puddlelike shadows made by oil and fuel leaks, but it looked as if it was swept and mopped regularly.
The tools Meriden kept on his walls were grouped by type and arranged by size. Several workbenches, fashioned out of double sheets of half- inch plywood nailed to floor frames handmade of precisely cut two- by-fours, held screw and small part bins. On one she saw an a/c compressor that had been taken apart and was being reassembled. She smelled oil, grease, solvent, and the citrus tang of waterless hand cleaner.
Her bike sat parked between the bay’s two lifts, between a garnet-red compact car missing a hubcap and a dark blue pickup in need of a new paint job.
“What do you want?” Meriden said, his baritone booming through the bay.
Rowan turned and nearly smacked her face into his chest. “Shit.” She took a step back. “Ah, hi. I thought I’d drop in and see how it’s going.”
“It’s going.” Meriden wiped his dirty hands on an equally grimy red shop rag before sticking it in the back pocket of his jeans. He’d unbuttoned his work shirt, and grease spots splotched the front of the white wife beater he wore under it. “Don’t you have some overpriced carrots to peel?”
“Today’s my day off.” Rowan went around him to her bike, and crouched down to check the tires, which he hadn’t yet replaced. “Did you figure out what blew my tires?”
“Yeah. Stupidity.” He retreated back into his office.
Rowan didn’t run after him, but took a minute to inspect the work he’d already done and give herself time to cool down. That she wanted to knock him upside the head with an impact wrench didn’t bother her; she’d bet money Meriden had the same effect on everyone. It was the set of his jaw when he’d looked at her, the glitter in his black-hearted eyes, the way his mouth had flattened. He didn’t like her any more than she liked him, but obviously, there was something else going on under that thick skull. All that seething antagonism might have fooled someone else, but not Rowan. Meriden didn’t know that she had the equivalent of a PhD in pissing off people.
She rose and went around the pickup to the inside door leading to the office. At first glance it appeared as tidy as the garage, so she focused on the man standing behind the desk. He was shuffling invoices between two stacks while drinking from a coffee mug that had seen better days. He didn’t look at her, but Rowan saw the set of his shoulders shift and the muscles in his arms bunch.
No use dancing around it, not with Meriden. “Have you got some kind of problem with me?”
“I’m waiting on some parts.” He took one pile of invoices and carelessly stuffed them into an accordion file. “Your bike will ready in a week or two. Bye.”
“You didn’t answer me.” She went over to the desk. “What have I done to you that’s got your boxers in such a knot?”
He finally eyed her. “You’ll want to stay out of my pants, Cupcake.”
“See, that’s where you’re screwing up.” Rowan sat in the customer chair and folded her hands behind her head. “Always making it sexual. I haven’t come on to you. Most I’ve done is play the good neighbor. How you doing, nice day, that’s it. Not what you’d call a green light to test-drive my box of condoms, is it?”
He dropped the rest of the paperwork and came around the desk to stand over her. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”
“Mouth, tits, ass. Brain.” Rowan gazed up at him. “Just because they’re female doesn’t mean they work any less than yours.” She cocked her head to one side. “Oh, wait. You do have a brain in there, right? Or is that space just packed with more brawn?”
He looked away from her. “You know where the door is.”
“You know something? I didn’t start this shit. You’re the one who’s been treating me like you wouldn’t wipe your feet on my face.” She was crazy for standing up and leaning into him, but if she backed down now he’d stomp right over her forever. “Well, here I am, Big Guy. You want to unload on me, be my guest. Just do it now and get it the fuck over with, because I am done tiptoeing around your hostile ass.”
He regarded her for a long moment. “You tiptoe?”
“Like I’ve been dropped in the middle of a fucking minefield,” she assured him. “Every time I have to pee, I feel like I should be calling SWAT for backup.”
His mouth tightened, and for a minute she thought he was going to let her have it. Then a rumbling sound came from his chest, and she realized he was laughing—or trying to. And she was laughing right along with him, laughing until tears sprang in her eyes and she had to fall back down on the chair and clutch her aching sides.
“It’s not funny,” he told her, still chuckling.
“Oh, yeah? You should try listening through a door with your legs and eyes crossed.” She covered her mouth to smother the last of the giggles, and then wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “God, I needed that.”
“Yeah,” he agreed softly. “So did I.”
She glanced up. He looked less menacing without the usual scowl; his eyes almost looked warm and friendly. “So are we Sean and Rowan now, or back to Farm Boy and Cupcake?”
“Rowan.” He tested her name as if it belonged to a foreign language. “I’ve got a lot on my plate. Sorry for taking it out on you.”
“So buy me a beer sometime. Sean.” She cuffed his arm in a friendly gesture. “And thanks for working on my bike. I know it wasn’t your idea.”
His expression changed, became more reserved. “You doing all right, working at the restaurant?”
“It’s good. I’m learning a lot from Dansant.” She didn’t like the way he was looking at her now. “I probably should head back.”
He leaned over, grabbing the armrests and trapping her between him and the chair. “You said it’s your day off.”
“I’ve got things to do.”
“So?”
He straightened. “So come on.” He grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it. “I’ll buy you that beer.”
Maybe we should have stayed Farm Boy and Cupcake. Rowan got up and followed him out.
The bar Meriden took her to was small, dark, and un-apologetically Irish. The smell of beer and whiskey blended with that of a couple decades of cheap frying oil and exhaled cigarette smoke to give it a dank, sour ambience. Not one of the half-dozen men parked on the bar stools looked a day under fifty. The bartender, an impassive-looking thug with smudged blue anchors tattooed on his biceps, greeted Sean with a jerk of his chin.
“Let me guess,” she said as she parked herself next to him at the end of the bar. “You’re a regular.”
“Don’t insult my watering hole.” He held up two fingers, and the bartender brought them two bottles of dark ale. “Thanks, Clancy.” Sean exchanged a ten for them, and then lifted his bottle to her. “Happy days, Cupcake.”
“Back at you.” She took a swallow, nodded over the agreeably bitter, yeasty taste, and examined the label, which sported the name of an unfamiliar local brewer. “Nice. I was expecting Guinness.”
“I’m not that fucking Irish.” He checked the football game on the overhead television and then glanced at the pool table behind the bar.
“You up for a game?”
He regarded her. “You’re not going to do that girl thing where you act like you’ve never played before and then proceed to wipe up the floor with my ass.”
She smiled serenely. “I never do the girl thing.”
He snorted and picked up his beer. “I bet.”
Rowan waived her feminine right to break, and watched as Meriden nearly cleared the table in less than five minutes. Only a bump in the table’s aged surface spoiled his fourth bank shot.
“You’re good.” She chalked the cue she selected and walked around the table, assessing the lousy shots he’d left her. “I think I’m in real trouble here. Care to make a friendly wager?”
He folded his arms. “I told you about the girl thing.” She laughed and set up for her first shot, and then went to work. Meriden was good, but she was better, and by the time she sank the eight he had dropped his arms and was watching her along with every other guy in the bar.
Clancy came out from behind the bar and joined Sean as they studied the pathetic remains of the game. “Look at it this way, lad,” the bartender said, clapping him on the shoulder. “At least we own the world.” Shaking his head, he retreated.
Rowan managed to keep her face straight as she parked the end of her cue on the floor. “Good game. Want to go for two out of three?”
“My rep’s shredded enough, thanks.” Sean took her cue and returned it to the rack. “Come on. Finish your beer, and I’ll buy you a victory hot dog.”
Meriden led her from the bar to a corner pushcart, where a talkative Chinese man with a beautiful Bronx accent built them two dogs on toasty home-baked rolls.
“Best thing for a cold day, huh? All beef, all the best,” he assured Rowan. “You want onion, sauerkraut? No? Ah, your boyfriend not care, sweetheart.”
“Let me check.” She turned to Sean. “Boyfriend, you care?”
“Wait,” he told the hot dog man, then bent over and kissed Rowan fast and hard on the mouth. “Okay, she can have them now.”
The vendor grinned so wide his merry dark eyes became crescents. “You see? I always right.”
Rowan licked her lips, which stung a little. “The things I do for a little sauerkraut.”
They walked over to Central Park, found a bench and sat to watch the after-work joggers huffing along the running paths. Rowan devoured her hot dog in a few bites and washed it down with the Coke he’d bought her. “I guess you’re not a fan of French cuisine.”
