First of all, I know this is not how I should feel about having my boyfriend around. But today, I totally do. He was far too attentive in the pool; he was all hands. That was fine while Trick was watching, but after that…not so much. I know it sounds crazy and ridiculously childish, but it’s true. In a perverse way, I wanted Trick to be stuck with the image of me wrapped around someone else, kind of like I was stuck with the image of him and that blond girl.
I hope he doesn’t sleep a wink!
Now, Brent is determined to stay and kiss my father’s butt. What’s worse is Daddy wants him around. The son he never had, the ideal mate for his daughter—whatever the real reason, if we lived in medieval times, I’d be betrothed to Brent. You know, beneficial alliances and all. Blech!
Not that Brent’s a bad guy. He’s really not. He’s actually a great guy. Smart, handsome, well-educated, comes from a good family, treats me well. And I love him. But there’s just something missing, something I never knew was missing until I met Trick.
Brent is sort of like dark chocolate. If you try it first, you’re going to love chocolate. And that’s fine. You could go your whole life loving it. But if you ever taste milk chocolate...oh boy! From that point on, dark chocolate will never be quite as good. You’ll always crave milk chocolate.
All in all, Brent was just much more appealing before I met Trick. I realize now I just didn’t know what I was missing.
But Brent doesn’t deserve that. He deserves someone who thinks he’s milk chocolate.
I watch him laugh with my father and I feel terrible for sitting beside him, thinking about another guy.
Maybe I just haven’t given him a chance to curl my toes. Maybe Trick just caught me off guard. Maybe I just need to try harder to make it work with Brent.
I slip my fingers into Brent’s where they rest on the couch between us. He looks over at me and smiles and my conscience immediately feels a little better.
He turns his attention back to Daddy, commenting on something he said, and I realize he looked surprised by me holding his hand.
What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I do this more often? Why don’t I feel like I can’t keep my hands off him?
Greenish-gray eyes laugh at me from the back of my mind. If it was Trick sitting beside me, my heart would be pounding and I wouldn’t be able to stop looking at him. I would be thinking about him without his shirt on and remembering what his lips felt like on mine.
“Wouldn’t it, Cami?”
Daddy’s voice brings me back from my fantasy. He and Brent are both staring at me, waiting.
“I’m sorry, wouldn’t it what?”
Daddy shakes his head and smiles at Brent. “Is this how she always acts when you hold hands?”
Brent laughs and looks over at me. He winks and squeezes my hand. I smile. I want to feel something, but the only thing that stands out is the guilt I feel over thinking about Trick again.
Dammit!
“I was saying wouldn’t it be nice if Brent stayed for supper.”
“Oh, of course. I’d love it if you’d stay.” I put on my brightest smile and push Trick right out of my mind. Now if I could just get him to stay out…
“Why don’t you take him out for a ride? You’ve got time beforehand.”
I feel my smile waver. “Yeah, yeah. That sounds good.”
“You’d better get going then,” Daddy prompts, leaning back in his chair. His smile looks awfully smug, which makes me immediately suspicious. But then I realize why it’s smug. First he tells me to ride in the evenings, his subtle way of saying “stay away from Trick,” yet now he’s practically pushing me out the door. The difference? Now I’ve got Brent with me.
You sly devil! You want Trick to see me with Brent, for him to see I’m taken.
If it meant Brent making me his, Daddy would probably be okay with him peeing on my leg to mark his territory.
Men!
I excuse myself to go put on some jeans. A few minutes later, Brent and I are making our way to the stable. I’m really nervous for some reason. Excited, too.
I swallow a growl of frustration. It irks me that Trick gets under my skin like this. I’m supposed to be focusing on Brent.
Brent, Brent, Brent!
It’s my mantra all the way to big stable doors. I know I should be holding his hand, but for some reason, I just can’t make myself do it. That irks me, too.
Sooty is in the office area that sits just inside the entrance.
“Well, look who it is,” he says when he sees us. Sooty walks over to us and holds his hand out for Brent. “Haven’t seen you around in a while, son.”
Brent smiles. “Just been busy with work, Sooty. How you been?”
“I’m still kickin’.”
A throaty motor starts up at the back of the stable. We all turn in that direction just in time to see Trick pulling away in a badass classic Mustang. Probably something like a Boss or a Cobra, definitely something my dad would like.
As he passes the open side door of the stable, I see him look in. His eyes meet mine. Even across the distance, I feel the…turbulence. That’s the best way I can describe it. It takes my breath for a second.
When he drives on, I turn back to Sooty, hoping Brent didn’t recognize Trick. Sooty is watching me closely. Very closely. The edges of his thin lips turn up the tiniest bit.
“Well, well, well,” he says.
I look away from him, too, back at Brent. His eyes are darting between me and Sooty.
“Well what?”
Sooty clears his throat. “Well, I guess we’d better get you two saddled up and out the door before dinner time. You came to ride, right?”
Sooty winks at me.
What’s that old man up to?
Sooty acts perfectly normal after that, leaving me to wonder if I had just imagined his strange behavior.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Trick
If a car could be a soul mate, my Mustang would be mine. Nothing in the world can soothe me like doing fifty-five on a curvy road, the wind pouring in and the music pouring out. She responds quickly to my slightest touch—I’ve tweaked the steering to near-perfection—and she hugs the turns as we snake our way through the country.
I don’t really have a destination in mind. I just want to drive for a while and clear my head. It’s not a matter of not being able to have Cami. Not really. I’m pretty sure if I pursued her, I could have her. At least I think so.
No girl is worth you losing this job, though. No girl! You’re the only thing standing between Mom and Grace and destitution. And they’ve lost enough already. We all have.
After almost two hours of reiterating my priorities, which keep getting high-jacked when Cami comes around, I find myself at Rusty’s garage. The lights are on and his car’s out front. Rusty’s always working. Well, to Rusty, it’s more like playing. Kind of like me working with horses. When you’re doing something you love, you can’t really call it “work.”
“What up, man?” He rolls out from under the front of a T-Bird and greets me with a cock-eyed grin.
“Just…out.” I sit in a chair that he’d obviously been resting in at some point, drinking a beer.
“Uh-oh. Don’t want to go home. Can’t stay at work. You’re homeless for the moment. That it?”
I shrug even though Rusty’s already wheeled back under the car. He rolls back out and frowns up at me.
“What are you doing here so late?” I ask.
“Got a guy coming in with his ‘Vette in about a half hour or so.”
“The guy from the field party?”
“Yep.”
I nod.
Rusty narrows his eyes on me. “All right. What is it?”
I lean back and exhale. Rusty knows me too well.
“I’m just still getting adjusted to the way things are now. That’s all.”
“Is it about the money?”
I close my eyes. It seems that everything boils down to the money. My entire life has been reduced to the singular pursuit of money above all else.
“That must be a ‘yes.’ And she still won’t let you sell the car?”
“Nope. And it would solve everything.”
“Well, you can’t really blame her in a way, though.”
“Yeah, but there’s a time when sentimentality has to take a back seat to practicality.”
“Nice! Spoken like a true college kid.”
I can’t help but wonder if I’d ever get to finish.
So close…
“Well, it is what it is. I just need to see us through the next year or so until I can get some things worked out. Maybe then…”
“I hope so, bro,” Rusty says. We sit in silence for a minute, something Rus is rarely ever comfortable with, before he casually slides back under the car without another word. He’s already overextended himself.
As usual, he has music on while he works. I close my eyes and listen for a few minutes before my thoughts start crowding in on me again. I’m just not the type to be idle with my musings unless they’re about some sort of trouble I can fix. Right now, there is no fix. This is the fix.
I get up and pull my shirt over my head. No sense risking getting grease stains all over yet another shirt.
“What can I help with, man? I’m tired of thinking.”
“Why don’t you get under the hood and loosen the bolts from those brackets.”
Grabbing a socket set from the workbench, I pop the hood and get to work.
After about five minutes, Rus and I start talking shop and my mind is adequately occupied. The garage bay doors are open and the slightly cooler night air is coming in, the music is still playing and my troubles are, for the time being, somewhere else.
Until the breeze carries in the faint scent of strawberry. I rise up from under the hood and there, standing in the garage entrance, is Cami.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Cami
I can’t decide whether I’m thrilled or frustrated when I walk into the garage with Brent and I see Trick come out from underneath the hood of the car he’s working on. I am a little frustrated; constantly running into him is making it harder to concentrate on Brent. And it’s certainly not helping me to not think about Trick, which is what I really need to do. But mostly, I’m thrilled. Excited. I hate to admit it, but I am.
He’s shirtless. Again. He’s not sweaty or dirty or anything. He’s just all bare skin and well-defined muscles. And there’s something so sexy about the way his jeans hang on his hips. I can even see those little dents at the bottom of his stomach. If I’m being honest, I really just want to walk right over to him and touch them. With my tongue.
Cue the blush.
I feel the heat working its way up my neck and into my face.
You idiot! What did you think would happen if you thought about things like that?
But it’s not like I intentionally thought about doing that. It was almost involuntary. Most of my reactions to Trick have been. It’s like something else takes over and I’m sort of helpless to stop it.
I see his eyes flash and a grin pulls at one side of his mouth. That’s how I know he noticed my blush.
I turn and look at Jenna. She’s always a lifesaver in situations like these. Only Jenna isn’t paying any attention to me. She looks kind of stunned herself.
I look back toward Trick and I see that another guy has emerged from beneath the car. That’s what caught Jenna’s eye. Or, rather, that’s who caught her eye. And boy, did he ever!
“What’s he doing here?” Brent asks of Trick’s friend.
“He’s a friend of mine. And he’s great with cars. Is that a problem?”
I think I see Trick cringe a little. Obviously his friend doesn’t know about his run-in with Brent.
Brent doesn’t answer at first. I can almost see him weighing his options, weighing his pride. “I guess not, if he keeps his hands and his comments to himself.”
“He won’t be a problem.”
Brent nods. “Trevor wanted to bring his car out to let you look at it. He’ll be driving us back.”
Brent had talked to Trick’s friend (was his name Rusty?) about doing some work on the Corvette. He’d heard Rusty does some of the best work around when it comes to the classics. Trevor had then talked to him about doing some work on his car. When Jenna had called and asked me to ride out with Brent and then us ride back with her and Trevor, I’d agreed. I didn’t want too much time to think. Besides, I have to spend more time with Brent if I’m ever to be crazy about him. So I agreed.
Well, that plan’s shot to hell!
I make a point not to glance at Trick, standing a few feet away. I try to pretend I don’t know him, that he doesn’t work for my father, and that I haven’t given him a second thought since that night.
But I have! Ohmigod, he’s practically all I can think about! It’s ridiculous.
I search immediately for something else to concentrate on. Thoughts like that will only make me blush. And he’ll notice. And he’ll smile that sexy smile. And Brent might notice. And that won’t turn out well for anyone.
I turn again to Jenna. She’s standing at Trevor’s side, trying her best not to stare at the garage owner. I look at him again.
He’s tallish and lean with dark reddish-brown hair. His eyes are bright, bright blue and they continually flicker to Jenna. Looks like she’s not the only one with an interest.
Who wouldn’t be interested in Jenna, though? With her Greek heritage, she’s very striking with her shiny black hair and bronzy skin. Very exotic. And her personality? Psssh, forget about it!
Ohmigod! You know you’re off your rocker when your thoughts sound like a 60s mobster’s.
I hope he doesn’t sleep a wink!
Now, Brent is determined to stay and kiss my father’s butt. What’s worse is Daddy wants him around. The son he never had, the ideal mate for his daughter—whatever the real reason, if we lived in medieval times, I’d be betrothed to Brent. You know, beneficial alliances and all. Blech!
Not that Brent’s a bad guy. He’s really not. He’s actually a great guy. Smart, handsome, well-educated, comes from a good family, treats me well. And I love him. But there’s just something missing, something I never knew was missing until I met Trick.
Brent is sort of like dark chocolate. If you try it first, you’re going to love chocolate. And that’s fine. You could go your whole life loving it. But if you ever taste milk chocolate...oh boy! From that point on, dark chocolate will never be quite as good. You’ll always crave milk chocolate.
All in all, Brent was just much more appealing before I met Trick. I realize now I just didn’t know what I was missing.
But Brent doesn’t deserve that. He deserves someone who thinks he’s milk chocolate.
I watch him laugh with my father and I feel terrible for sitting beside him, thinking about another guy.
Maybe I just haven’t given him a chance to curl my toes. Maybe Trick just caught me off guard. Maybe I just need to try harder to make it work with Brent.
I slip my fingers into Brent’s where they rest on the couch between us. He looks over at me and smiles and my conscience immediately feels a little better.
He turns his attention back to Daddy, commenting on something he said, and I realize he looked surprised by me holding his hand.
What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I do this more often? Why don’t I feel like I can’t keep my hands off him?
Greenish-gray eyes laugh at me from the back of my mind. If it was Trick sitting beside me, my heart would be pounding and I wouldn’t be able to stop looking at him. I would be thinking about him without his shirt on and remembering what his lips felt like on mine.
“Wouldn’t it, Cami?”
Daddy’s voice brings me back from my fantasy. He and Brent are both staring at me, waiting.
“I’m sorry, wouldn’t it what?”
Daddy shakes his head and smiles at Brent. “Is this how she always acts when you hold hands?”
Brent laughs and looks over at me. He winks and squeezes my hand. I smile. I want to feel something, but the only thing that stands out is the guilt I feel over thinking about Trick again.
Dammit!
“I was saying wouldn’t it be nice if Brent stayed for supper.”
“Oh, of course. I’d love it if you’d stay.” I put on my brightest smile and push Trick right out of my mind. Now if I could just get him to stay out…
“Why don’t you take him out for a ride? You’ve got time beforehand.”
I feel my smile waver. “Yeah, yeah. That sounds good.”
“You’d better get going then,” Daddy prompts, leaning back in his chair. His smile looks awfully smug, which makes me immediately suspicious. But then I realize why it’s smug. First he tells me to ride in the evenings, his subtle way of saying “stay away from Trick,” yet now he’s practically pushing me out the door. The difference? Now I’ve got Brent with me.
You sly devil! You want Trick to see me with Brent, for him to see I’m taken.
If it meant Brent making me his, Daddy would probably be okay with him peeing on my leg to mark his territory.
Men!
I excuse myself to go put on some jeans. A few minutes later, Brent and I are making our way to the stable. I’m really nervous for some reason. Excited, too.
I swallow a growl of frustration. It irks me that Trick gets under my skin like this. I’m supposed to be focusing on Brent.
Brent, Brent, Brent!
It’s my mantra all the way to big stable doors. I know I should be holding his hand, but for some reason, I just can’t make myself do it. That irks me, too.
Sooty is in the office area that sits just inside the entrance.
“Well, look who it is,” he says when he sees us. Sooty walks over to us and holds his hand out for Brent. “Haven’t seen you around in a while, son.”
Brent smiles. “Just been busy with work, Sooty. How you been?”
“I’m still kickin’.”
A throaty motor starts up at the back of the stable. We all turn in that direction just in time to see Trick pulling away in a badass classic Mustang. Probably something like a Boss or a Cobra, definitely something my dad would like.
As he passes the open side door of the stable, I see him look in. His eyes meet mine. Even across the distance, I feel the…turbulence. That’s the best way I can describe it. It takes my breath for a second.
When he drives on, I turn back to Sooty, hoping Brent didn’t recognize Trick. Sooty is watching me closely. Very closely. The edges of his thin lips turn up the tiniest bit.
“Well, well, well,” he says.
I look away from him, too, back at Brent. His eyes are darting between me and Sooty.
“Well what?”
Sooty clears his throat. “Well, I guess we’d better get you two saddled up and out the door before dinner time. You came to ride, right?”
Sooty winks at me.
What’s that old man up to?
Sooty acts perfectly normal after that, leaving me to wonder if I had just imagined his strange behavior.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Trick
If a car could be a soul mate, my Mustang would be mine. Nothing in the world can soothe me like doing fifty-five on a curvy road, the wind pouring in and the music pouring out. She responds quickly to my slightest touch—I’ve tweaked the steering to near-perfection—and she hugs the turns as we snake our way through the country.
I don’t really have a destination in mind. I just want to drive for a while and clear my head. It’s not a matter of not being able to have Cami. Not really. I’m pretty sure if I pursued her, I could have her. At least I think so.
No girl is worth you losing this job, though. No girl! You’re the only thing standing between Mom and Grace and destitution. And they’ve lost enough already. We all have.
After almost two hours of reiterating my priorities, which keep getting high-jacked when Cami comes around, I find myself at Rusty’s garage. The lights are on and his car’s out front. Rusty’s always working. Well, to Rusty, it’s more like playing. Kind of like me working with horses. When you’re doing something you love, you can’t really call it “work.”
“What up, man?” He rolls out from under the front of a T-Bird and greets me with a cock-eyed grin.
“Just…out.” I sit in a chair that he’d obviously been resting in at some point, drinking a beer.
“Uh-oh. Don’t want to go home. Can’t stay at work. You’re homeless for the moment. That it?”
I shrug even though Rusty’s already wheeled back under the car. He rolls back out and frowns up at me.
“What are you doing here so late?” I ask.
“Got a guy coming in with his ‘Vette in about a half hour or so.”
“The guy from the field party?”
“Yep.”
I nod.
Rusty narrows his eyes on me. “All right. What is it?”
I lean back and exhale. Rusty knows me too well.
“I’m just still getting adjusted to the way things are now. That’s all.”
“Is it about the money?”
I close my eyes. It seems that everything boils down to the money. My entire life has been reduced to the singular pursuit of money above all else.
“That must be a ‘yes.’ And she still won’t let you sell the car?”
“Nope. And it would solve everything.”
“Well, you can’t really blame her in a way, though.”
“Yeah, but there’s a time when sentimentality has to take a back seat to practicality.”
“Nice! Spoken like a true college kid.”
I can’t help but wonder if I’d ever get to finish.
So close…
“Well, it is what it is. I just need to see us through the next year or so until I can get some things worked out. Maybe then…”
“I hope so, bro,” Rusty says. We sit in silence for a minute, something Rus is rarely ever comfortable with, before he casually slides back under the car without another word. He’s already overextended himself.
As usual, he has music on while he works. I close my eyes and listen for a few minutes before my thoughts start crowding in on me again. I’m just not the type to be idle with my musings unless they’re about some sort of trouble I can fix. Right now, there is no fix. This is the fix.
I get up and pull my shirt over my head. No sense risking getting grease stains all over yet another shirt.
“What can I help with, man? I’m tired of thinking.”
“Why don’t you get under the hood and loosen the bolts from those brackets.”
Grabbing a socket set from the workbench, I pop the hood and get to work.
After about five minutes, Rus and I start talking shop and my mind is adequately occupied. The garage bay doors are open and the slightly cooler night air is coming in, the music is still playing and my troubles are, for the time being, somewhere else.
Until the breeze carries in the faint scent of strawberry. I rise up from under the hood and there, standing in the garage entrance, is Cami.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Cami
I can’t decide whether I’m thrilled or frustrated when I walk into the garage with Brent and I see Trick come out from underneath the hood of the car he’s working on. I am a little frustrated; constantly running into him is making it harder to concentrate on Brent. And it’s certainly not helping me to not think about Trick, which is what I really need to do. But mostly, I’m thrilled. Excited. I hate to admit it, but I am.
He’s shirtless. Again. He’s not sweaty or dirty or anything. He’s just all bare skin and well-defined muscles. And there’s something so sexy about the way his jeans hang on his hips. I can even see those little dents at the bottom of his stomach. If I’m being honest, I really just want to walk right over to him and touch them. With my tongue.
Cue the blush.
I feel the heat working its way up my neck and into my face.
You idiot! What did you think would happen if you thought about things like that?
But it’s not like I intentionally thought about doing that. It was almost involuntary. Most of my reactions to Trick have been. It’s like something else takes over and I’m sort of helpless to stop it.
I see his eyes flash and a grin pulls at one side of his mouth. That’s how I know he noticed my blush.
I turn and look at Jenna. She’s always a lifesaver in situations like these. Only Jenna isn’t paying any attention to me. She looks kind of stunned herself.
I look back toward Trick and I see that another guy has emerged from beneath the car. That’s what caught Jenna’s eye. Or, rather, that’s who caught her eye. And boy, did he ever!
“What’s he doing here?” Brent asks of Trick’s friend.
“He’s a friend of mine. And he’s great with cars. Is that a problem?”
I think I see Trick cringe a little. Obviously his friend doesn’t know about his run-in with Brent.
Brent doesn’t answer at first. I can almost see him weighing his options, weighing his pride. “I guess not, if he keeps his hands and his comments to himself.”
“He won’t be a problem.”
Brent nods. “Trevor wanted to bring his car out to let you look at it. He’ll be driving us back.”
Brent had talked to Trick’s friend (was his name Rusty?) about doing some work on the Corvette. He’d heard Rusty does some of the best work around when it comes to the classics. Trevor had then talked to him about doing some work on his car. When Jenna had called and asked me to ride out with Brent and then us ride back with her and Trevor, I’d agreed. I didn’t want too much time to think. Besides, I have to spend more time with Brent if I’m ever to be crazy about him. So I agreed.
Well, that plan’s shot to hell!
I make a point not to glance at Trick, standing a few feet away. I try to pretend I don’t know him, that he doesn’t work for my father, and that I haven’t given him a second thought since that night.
But I have! Ohmigod, he’s practically all I can think about! It’s ridiculous.
I search immediately for something else to concentrate on. Thoughts like that will only make me blush. And he’ll notice. And he’ll smile that sexy smile. And Brent might notice. And that won’t turn out well for anyone.
I turn again to Jenna. She’s standing at Trevor’s side, trying her best not to stare at the garage owner. I look at him again.
He’s tallish and lean with dark reddish-brown hair. His eyes are bright, bright blue and they continually flicker to Jenna. Looks like she’s not the only one with an interest.
Who wouldn’t be interested in Jenna, though? With her Greek heritage, she’s very striking with her shiny black hair and bronzy skin. Very exotic. And her personality? Psssh, forget about it!
Ohmigod! You know you’re off your rocker when your thoughts sound like a 60s mobster’s.
