When all I wanted to do was walk across the street and climb that man like a tree, I unpacked boxes. We were officially moved in and box free within a week. Then I set to getting the lawn and flowerbeds just right and now I was pretty sure if I submitted a picture to a home and garden magazine, they’d come out for a photo shoot. Then, I worked on the garage. I pulled everything out of there and sanded the floor and then repainted it. That took an entire weekend. When I was finished, I could barely move, but I could damn sure hold my vibrator.
It had taken the builders less than three days to put in my shop in the backyard, so I had spent the last 11 days working at home until the wee hours of the morning. I’d rebuilt an engine for my dad’s tractor, given every vehicle we owned a tune up and oil change, fiddled around with some spare parts and made a statue for the backyard, and worst of all, I’d taken a Sharpie and outlined each and every tool on the wall - as if I didn’t know exactly where that shit belonged or something.
I’d run out of things to do on the custom Sportster I was building until more parts came in and I was fucking exhausted.
But, I was still horny and I knew that Daughtry was the only one that could successfully scratch that particular itch.
But we were ‘friends’. Dammit. And I had fucking suggested it!
I shook my head at myself as I tried to concentrate on work.
And then Daphne walked by and headed into Daughtry’s office. She was everything I wasn’t. Slim and put together with flawless hair and makeup - she always looked like she had just walked off the cover of a magazine. And the bitch of it was that she was a fucking sweetheart, so I couldn’t hate her.
Until I heard her and Daughtry laugh behind his closed office door.
Then, I realized it was pretty easy to hate her.
“You’ve got a bike?” Lout asked me from the hall in front of my tool bench.
I looked up at him with one eyebrow raised and nodded my head.
“How did you know?”
“Your boot,” he told me and glanced down at my feet. “That left toe is a sure sign of someone who has shifted gears more than once.”
“Oh,” I laughed as I looked down and realized he was right. My left boot had marks on the top of it where I pushed up on the gearshift when I was on my motorcycle. “I never really noticed that.”
Lout shrugged, “I notice things. Why haven’t you ridden it up here?”
“I can’t just yet,” I told him. “I want to, believe me, but not yet.”
I was going to take the plunge. After seven years of building motorcycles, I was going to let someone put my name and face on the pages of a magazine and I was going to take credit for my work. For once. I had decided to go for it a few weeks ago when Daughtry had apologized for thinking I couldn’t do the work because I was a woman.
For years, I had stayed in the shadows, wanting my work to speak for itself rather than the fact that I was a woman making it somehow more special. But, I’d realized that there might be other women and girls out there who wanted to build or just be regular mechanics and they were stunted by what the people around them thought.
I wanted to be in a magazine and give an interview or two in the hopes that maybe at least one girl could hold it up and wave it in some man’s face and say, “If she can do it, so can I.”
I knew it was a lofty dream, but it was mine and I was going to fulfill it.
“Why not?”
“I need to take some pictures with it and I want to make sure it’s in perfect condition when I do.”
“Sucks you can’t ride until then.”
“I’m working on another one right now anyway. A Sportster this time. I think maybe it will be my everyday ride and the other will be my ‘special’ baby.”
“I’ve got some of each of those,” Lout laughed.
“Yeah,” I laughed and glanced through the window into Daughtry’s office. He was leaning up on the desk in deep conversation with Daphne while she reached across and pointed to something on the paper in front of him. I wanted to hit her with a socket wrench.
“Well, I better get back to it before boss man docks my pay.”
“Would he do that?” I asked.
“Hell no,” Lout laughed.
“You’ve known him a long time.”
“I have,” Lout nodded. “Since we were kids. He’s a good man.”
“He seems like it,” I glanced over at the office again and saw that Daughtry was leaning back in his chair listening to Daphne talk. She wasn’t close to him anymore, so I wouldn’t have to use the wrench. Maybe just pull her hair or some shit. Catfight style. “He’s a good man to work for, too.”
“That he is,” Lout pushed away from the wall. “Well, it’s off to the transmission I go.”
I laughed as the handsome man walked away and turned my back on Daughtry’s office so I wouldn’t be inclined to stare. I needed to get my shit together so no one would realize that this mechanic had the hots for her boss.
8.
JAMIE
“What the hell is taking you so long?” I heard my brother ask from the hallway. “It’s not a goddamn pageant, ladies - it’s a fucking cookout.”
“Screw you, Eli,” I heard Neva shout from her bedroom down the hall. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I jumped into bed and pulled the covers up over my face before Eli got to my bedroom. As he always had, he threw the door open without knocking.
“Dammit, Jamie Lea,” Eli shouted. “Get ready to go!”
I threw the covers back with a laugh and he saw that I was dressed and just shook his head.
“Is it too much to ask to be on time for once?”
“I’m never late,” I shrugged with one shoulder. “Talk to her.”
“I heard that,” Neva yelled from the mouth of the hall. “I can’t get this zipped. Eli, help me.”
I saw Eli grimace before he turned around and walked toward Neva. I didn’t get why he was so touchy around her and I knew that it was probably not anything I wanted to hear. Eli and Neva had tiptoed around each other since we were kids and he would come visit in the summer.
“Are you wearing leather pants?” Eli’s shocked voice asked Neva. I turned around and Neva was decked out in leather pants, high-heeled black boots with buckles going up her calves, and a lipstick red shirt that was like a second skin across her chest. “Why the fuck are you wearing leather pants, Neva Monroe?”
“It’s a biker party! There’s going to be single men there and I want to look my best,” Neva explained. It didn’t help that she was looking at him like he was stupid and I saw something flicker in his eyes just before he exploded.
“This is a goddamned family picnic, Neva. Not an excuse for you to dress like a club whore.”
“You think I’m a whore?” Neva asked quietly. She spun around and walked to the other end of the hall where her room was and slammed the door behind her. Eli looked up at me in confusion and I shook my head at him.
“Fix it,” I glared at him. “I’ll make sure the boys are ready to go.”
“The boys are already out at the truck,” Eli told me. “Go on outside and let me talk to her.”