I see a small coverall-clad figure standing on a stool, ass in the air and head buried in the engine compartment of a truck. “Hey, kid!”
No response. Not even a flinch.
“Hey! Kid!”
I step to the side, reaching out to tap the kid on the shoulder. But instead of the ‘good afternoon, sir’ that manners and customer service require, according to Shay, I get greeted by a wrench swinging up in an arc from inside the vehicle to aim right at my head. My hand shoots out automatically, catching the kid’s wrist to stop the attack. “What the fuck?”
The kid’s wrist twists in my hand, some looping motion that breaks it free, and at the same time, a steel-toed boot connects with my gut and pushes me back.
Pushes me back, all two hundred pounds of don’t-fuck-with-me warning-labeled asshole actually moving from the kid’s shove.
“Get your fucking hands off me, motherfucker.”
The response is threatening and more of a lip reading, but the message is loud and clear. It also comes accompanied with a press of the wrench to my throat that keeps me off-balance after the not-quite kick.
“Hey, hey . . . sorry . . . just trying to get your attention.” Every bit of my apology is yelled at volume eleven in an attempt to be heard over the music and drown out my own instincts to instantly fight back.
And something suddenly becomes real fucking crystal clear. It’s not a kid in front of me. It’s a woman. A gorgeous one.
She’s tiny, maybe five feet tall at most, and swallowed by her navy-blue coveralls, which are rolled up at the arms and the ankles.
There’s a thick knot of dark hair piled on her head and a map’s worth of freckles across her nose and cheeks, along with a few smudges of black grease. Her dark chocolate-brown eyes are blasted through with gold, not like some pretty poetry shit but like she’s about to start shooting fire right at me.
“Alexa, turn down the music.” The deafening music quiets, leaving only the ringing in my ears. “What did you say?”
The urge to swallow against the wrench rides me hard, but I don’t dare, not willing to admit to her or myself that I’m at her mercy. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Wanted to see if someone could look at my truck.”
The wrench drops to her side. “Then you knock on the damn door like a normal fucking human being. You don’t touch me, or anyone, without permission or without their even knowing you’re fucking here.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who curses as much as I do. And I curse a fucking lot, which is saying something considering I don’t speak much. I think I just fell in love a little bit with this wisp of a woman. Not seriously, of course, but that big mouth is kinda fun in a surprising way. A very small percentage of folks stand up to Brody Tannen, and an even smaller percentage of women ever gives me sass. Insults, yes, but smartass back-talk? This might be a first.
“Hell of a way of getting customers—blasting metal, attacking people, and cussing them out when they’re just trying to hire you to do your damn job,” I deadpan, only half joking.
She’s shit for customer service. I’m shit at being a customer. Match made in heaven, we are.
“Waltzing in here like you own the place, putting hands on people, and somehow thinking you’re in the right.” She ticks off my shortcomings on her greasy fingers with the wrench and enough attitude that she should be ten feet tall and bulletproof. “Fuck off. We’re closed.” Somehow, the movement of dismissal she makes with the wrench feels like she just flipped me off. Makes no sense, but it’s the truth, and there’s talent in that, I suppose.
Lil Bit—that’s what I’ve decided to call this pretty stick of dynamite because one, I think it’d piss her off and that sounds like twisted fun, and two, she seems full of sparks and danger—turns her back on me, spinning in place and stepping back onto her footstool, which puts her roughly at the same height as me.
I’m stuck here with Bessie misbehaving the way she is and a woman who damned near took my head off with a Craftsman tool. Luckily, just my actual head, not my cock because it’s feeling some quick stirrings of ideas it wants to accomplish before I start pushing up daisies.
“So can someone take a look at my truck or not?”
“Nope. Shit outta luck, Cowboy.” The words echo in the engine compartment of the truck, but I can hear her victory in shutting me down.
“How’d you know I’m a cowboy?” I curl the brim of my hat out of habit, not admitting that I’m double-checking myself that I don’t have my cowboy hat on, because it’d be just my luck to challenge her when I’m wearing something that makes it real obvious what I do for a living.
With echoing words again, she says, “Dirty boots, dirty jeans, dirty shirt, dirty hands, and you smell like cow shit.”
My lips quirk of their own volition. I barely notice that last one anymore. “Seems like you checked me out pretty good while you were sizing me up as a threat. No worries. I was checking you out too.”
My flirting is rusty, like a tractor left to rot in a field for a few years’ worth of rain and snow, and comes out more threatening than complimentary. Lil Bit makes not a peep of noise under the hood.
Something interesting occurs to me, and the question pops out before I can stop it. “How’dya know what cow shit smells like? As opposed to horse shit, dog shit, or people shit?”
What the hell am I doing? Why am I talking about shit?
Before she answers, or maybe she’s not planning to anyway because who wants to talk about shit, a door opens and my eyes are pulled away from her ass. I figured I could try to suss out what was under those coveralls without her noticing. Hadn’t planned on someone else catching me, though.
Two guys come into the garage, also clad in navy blue coveralls, and I make the mental jump that they work here too. The first guy is tall, not like me, but compared to the short and stocky other guy, he seems to think he’s the hotshot here. The tall guy crosses his arms, trying to widen his rangy frame. Posting up to me ain’t a good move, man.
Once upon a time, that challenge in his eyes is all it would’ve taken for me to start throwing haymakers. I’ve gotten better now, more stable, more thoughtful. Not because I’m getting soft in my old age, but I don’t have the same rage boiling in me like I used to when I was constantly dealing with Dad’s shit.
The chest patch on the lucky bastard I’m not beating up says Reed. The other guy’s says Manuel.
“What can we do you for?” Reed says. His narrow eyes measure my height, width, and the distance from me to Lil Bit’s ass. I don’t move.
“Truck started acting up. Think it’s the transmission, thought someone might take a look at it.”
I’m still talking to Lil Bit, even though she’s tits-deep under that hood, but Reed’s eyes light up when I say transmission. I don’t know much about trucks, but I know it’s an expensive repair, and a shop would have to be stupid to turn down a sure job with the vehicle sitting like a stone in the lot.
“Yeah, sure,” Reed agrees easily.
That echoey voice calls out again. “Touch that truck and you’re fired, Reed.”
He licks his lips like it pains him to tell me, “Sorry, no can do, man.”