Frankie and Jay were still at odds. They managed to work together, but they were constantly throwing insults back and forth. “Such a bitch,” Jay mumbled under his breath. “I’ll fucking cover for him. You don’t need to worry about it, Frankie.”
Frankie took a step back and looked Jay up and down. “You know that means actually working, right? Remy does more than wander around shooting the shit with everyone, you know that?”
He flipped her off. “Stand back and watch, Frankie. You’re not the only one who knows how to work.”
She splayed her hands out in front of her. “You working is something I’ve wanted to see for years. Who would have known all it was going to take was Remy getting a girlfriend?”
Jay’s jaw dropped, and his head swiveled toward me. “Girlfriend?” He said the word as if it were laced with poison.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have a girlfriend. It’s nothing”
“Yeah, you know guys text and call the same girl for two weeks and say that it’s nothing.” She nodded her head. “Totally nothing.”
“When in the hell did you get a girlfriend?” Jay was still stunned.
“It’s just a date.”
“With your girlfriend,” Frankie added.
Now Frankie was driving me crazy. “Is it the chick you were dating back home?”
“Corrine?” I shook my head. “Hell no. I haven’t talked to her in over a year. Besides, she lives in Rockton. She isn’t coming all the way to Leeds Square just for a date.”
Jay smirked. “I got a list of girls who would travel over a hundred miles to spend the night with me.”
“You are such an ass,” Frankie muttered.
“Don’t hate the player, Frank. Hate the game.”
She tossed her hands up in the air. “I can’t believe those words just came out of your mouth. You’re like one of those cocky jerks from those 90s movies who manages to get all the girls while be a complete douche canoe.”
He brushed off his shoulders. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.” He stepped around Frankie and threw a salute to me. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to convince Roc he can head home while we unload.”
“I knew it,” Frankie called. “You aren’t going to actually work. Gonna use that mouth of yours again.”
“Don’t you worry about what I do with my mouth, Frank.” He sauntered out of the garage with a wave over his head to me.
“You’re seriously not going to leave, are you?” she asked me.
I unzipped my overalls and stepped out of them. “Yes. I know Jay can talk Roc into leaving. With Roc gone, I know I can leave.”
She leaned against the workbench. “Where are you going, Remy?”
I grabbed the overalls off the floor and tossed them over my shoulder. “A date, Frank.”
“I know that. I want to know with who.”
“None of your business.”
“It’s with that girl we met before we left, isn’t it?”
I patted my back pocket to make sure I had my wallet and grabbed my car keys off the bench. “No comment,” I muttered. How in the hell did she know that?
“It’s her. I know it is. I heard you talking to her the other night.” She smirked and shook her head. “At first, I couldn’t believe it, but now you saying you got a date, I know it’s true.”
I grabbed my hat off the bench and put it on backwards. “Just a date, Frank.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “A date I’m going to be late for if you keep talking to me.” I still needed to run back to the duplex, shower, find some clean clothes, and haul my ass over to Harlyn’s house before seven.
She stood to the side and motioned to the door. “Then I guess you better sneak out the back door before Roc comes looking for you.”
I knew Frankie didn’t like I was leaving before all of the work was done, but I didn’t care. I would make it up to her later.
I snuck out the side door of the shop and stayed to the side of the building, thankful I had parked in the back of the parking lot, not close to where the hauler was parked. After I slid into my car and took off down the road, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
I loved my job, but seeing Harlyn was more important.
*
Harlyn
The doorbell rang.
I just stared at the dark wood of the door.
I had been fine all day. The fear I felt hadn’t loomed its head until Remy had rang the doorbell the first time.
The doorbell rang, again.
Answer the door, Harlyn. Man, I wished I could disappear right then and there. How on Earth did I think this was a good idea?
“Harlyn?”
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Babe, I know you’re home. I parked next to your car.”
“Double shit.” I should have parked in the garage.
“I just heard you say double shit.”
I threw my hand over my mouth and took a step back from the door. I was going to have to have a serious talk with my landlord about the lack of sound proofing. “No Harlyn here.” I pulled my English accent out of my bad accents bag and prayed Remy would leave.
“Harlyn. Open the damn door. I’ve been waiting two weeks to see you again.”
I racked my brain trying to figure out a reason why I couldn’t open the door. “I’m tired.” I clamped my eyes shut and prayed to God he would grace me with a little bit of reserve against Remy.
“And?”
And what? That should have been reason enough why I couldn’t open the door. “I’m gonna go to bed. Maybe we can try this in March.”
His chuckle floated through the thin door. “You do know it is April, right?”
That was the whole point of telling him March. That would give me a year to pack everything up and move to Nicaragua. That should be far enough away from Remy. “Yes.” There wasn’t any sense in denying it.
I pressed my face to the peep hole and caught a glimpse of Remy. His hand was resting on the door, and his face was turned away to the street. Even from the side, the man was drop-dead gorgeous. How he had ended up at my door was beyond me.
He turned his face to the door, and my breath caught. “How about this? Since you're tired, you let me in, I order pizza, and we watch a movie?”
“Urgh, okay?” At that point, I would have agreed to anything he suggested.
“You’re gonna have to open the door, baby.”
My hand automatically when to the handle, and I pulled it open, smashing the door into my face. Move out of the way of the door, Harlyn. Such an easy idea, but yet, I struggled with it. I stepped to the side and rubbed my nose. “Uh, come in.”
He slipped through the open door and pulled it shut behind him. “You okay?”
I nodded.
“Those doors can be tricky sometimes,” he smirked. He slowly surveyed my living room. “Can’t even tell you moved in a couple of weeks ago.”
“Uh, yeah. I’m a little anal about having boxes all over the place. By the second day I was here, everything was at least unpacked.”
He shook his head and whistled low. “Damn, baby. I’m pretty sure I have four boxes in my closet that still need unpacking.” A smirk spread across his lips. “Been here for four months already.”