Blue Colla Make Ya Holla (18 page)

“C
ustomers aren’t supposed
to be back here,” he says, turning back to the motorcycle.
He doesn’t recognize me.

“Twist, it’s me.”

He drops the wrench and looks back up at me. “Marlie?” he says in disbelief.

I nod, but I can’t find my voice. God, he looks so good. He must work out every day to have a body like that. And those eyes, just as I remembered only so much sexier.
Fuck.

Standing, he wipes his hands on his jeans, looking at me as if I’m a ghost. “What are you doing here?” His voice is filled with disbelief, not anger as I expected from him when I played this moment a million times in my head.

“I moved back here about two months ago.” My voice shakes a little, and I hope he doesn’t notice. I can still see glimpses of the boy I loved in this hot-as-hell man standing in front of me. Much like Riley, Twist is tall and broad with defined muscles, and he still exudes that same magnetic allure he had when we were teens. His eyes, always dark and expressive, lock onto mine. I see pain, and my heart clenches.
I never should have come here.

“Oh.”

I cough a little and look down awkwardly. “I’m sorry; Riley made me come back here. He’s bringing my bike in tomorrow to do some work, but he wanted me to let you know in person that I was back in town.”

“You have a bike?”

“Yeah, I guess I fell in love with riding when you taught me…”

“I thought you fell in love with
me
,” he says, and the glue holding my broken heart together lets loose. He went straight for the jugular with that one.

“Twist…” Tears brim in my eyes, and I blink them away.

“You never even visited me,” he says lowly, his voice spiked with pain. “Or even wrote me a fucking letter, Marlie. You just left me.”

I swallow back the lump in my throat, completely unprepared for this. “My father sent me away a week after you went in.”

He scoffs at me. “You can’t write a fucking letter from a different state? You just forgot all about me, after everything we went through together. After all the plans we made. I know we were young, but I meant Every. Fucking. Word.” The last words come out like bullets as he turns away and walks over to the utility sink in the corner. His arm muscles flex as he washes his hands. The anger coming off of him is palpable. This is exactly what I was expecting, though, if we were ever to come face to face again.

I take a few steps towards him but stop before I get too close. I ache to touch him and put my arms around him, to tell him how sorry I am and how much I’ve missed him, how I’ve never stopped thinking about him, not even for a day.

“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say. It’s not nearly enough, but to say more would just throw salt on our wounds.

“Sorry?” he repeats, drying his hands off on a gray towel before angrily tossing it to the side. “I am too.”

I cross my arms, hating myself and feeling awkward and too much like a grown woman. I want to be his fifteen-year-old girlfriend again, innocent and happy. “I can take the bike someplace else,” I offer. “I didn’t want to do this and dredge this all up.”

“Don’t worry about it, Marlie.” He walks by me as he talks, his shoulder accidentally brushing mine, but the brief touch gives me a heat shiver. “This is my job,” he continues, not looking at me. “And I don’t turn work away because that affects Riley and Pop. You’re a customer, that’s it.”

My chin quivers, but I hold my head up. “Thank you.” I turn on my heel and leave the shop, ignoring the girl at the counter as I bolt out the front door to my car. I’m crying by the time I get behind the wheel, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He hates me. The only man I’ve ever loved hates me.

I drive to Perfect Paws and head straight to the kitten room, nodding quickly to Wendy, my volunteer who works the front desk. There are eight kittens in the kitten room. I love how we set up this room with two big cozy chairs for prospective adopters to sit in and added several cat condos in bright colors for the kittens to play and sleep on. As soon as I sit in one of the chairs, the kittens flock to me, one snuggling up on my lap and purring and two others perching on the chair arms begging to be petted. These little guys came in two weeks ago after being found under someone’s porch. They were a little skittish at first, but with a lot of attention and cuddles, now they love people. My bad mood starts to slowly fade as I cuddle the kittens. This is what matters. Unconditional love from these precious little pets is what gets me through the days.

*

Setting the Have-a-Heart
humane trap on a milk crate next to the garage, I drag the hose over and start to spray the trap down to make sure there aren’t any remnants of old food stuck in it from its last use when I’m startled by a loud truck pulling into the driveway with Jacobs Motorcycle Shop emblazoned across the side.
Shit
. It’s the flatbed to pick up my bike. I thought Riley would call me before he came to pick it up. I go back to spraying the cage.

“So this is how you catch men now?”

I’d know that voice anywhere, even though it’s deeper and cockier than the younger version I grew up hearing.

“Very funny,” I say, trying to compose myself as I’m standing in a puddle wearing old sweatpants, a hoodie, and of course no makeup. Why couldn’t Riley come pick up the bike? Having to see Twist is like a knife in my heart all over again. He saunters closer to me, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a black thermal shirt stretched over his muscled chest and arms.

“Seriously, what are you doing with that?” he asks.

Sighing, I push my hair out of my face with the back of my hand. “There’s a little stray dog over in the fields by the old train station. He’s been out there for a long time; he won’t last much longer if he’s not eating. I’m hoping if I load this up with chicken, I’ll catch him. So far I’ve only caught a raccoon.”

He nods, taking a drag on his cigarette. “You catch dogs now?”

“I guess you could say that. I run the new shelter over on Elm Street. So yeah, part of that is catching stray animals, getting them vet care, and finding good homes for them.”

Surprise crosses his face. “Wow. Good for you. Is that why you came back here?”

Winding the hose up, I nod. “Yes. My mom inherited some money and offered to give me funding to get it going. She knows it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a nonprofit rescue, so everything is based on volunteer work and fundraisers.”

His face softens as he watches me set the hose on its hanger. I hate that I am dirty and sweaty and totally shaken by seeing him again. In all my stupid daydreams of him, I imagined myself being pretty and composed, not a wet mess of nerves.

“It’s good you’re doing something you love, Marlie.”

“I do love it,” I reply, smiling. “The bike is in the garage.”

I watch him walk to the garage and pull up the heavy door. Even from the back, he looks amazing, his shoulders broad and strong, and the way those jeans fit him…

“Nice choice on the bike,” he says when I come up behind him. He’s standing in front of the motorcycle and looking it over.

“Thanks. It was a bit of an impulse buy.”

“Nothing wrong with that. You got the keys?”

“They’re inside. I’ll be right back.”

Once I get upstairs in my apartment, I wash my face quickly and try to fix the mess on my head that is supposed to be my hair. I hate the formal awkwardness between us now. We used to be able to talk about anything and everything so naturally. Half the time he could read my mind without me having to say one word, and I loved that. Being with someone who knows your heart and mind so well is the best feeling in the world, and even at fifteen, I knew that was rare.
And I lost it.

When I get back to the garage, he’s sitting on the bike, leaning it this way and that. I admire how much he loves working on motorcycles and how passionate he always was about making them perform at their best, just like his dad.

I hand him the keys, our fingers touching. His eyes meet mine and then quickly dart away. “You should come by the shop on Saturday so we can talk about everything that needs to be done. I’ll have to lower the suspension and slam the seat. I don’t think you’ve grown an inch since you were fifteen,” he jokes. “You’re still short, exactly how I remember you.”

“Yup, still five foot three.”

He smiles and starts the bike up. “We’ll get it all fixed for you. And we’ll talk about how you want it painted, too.” He glides his hand over the tank, and I can already see his imagination working. I’ve always envied his creativity and the beauty he could create from almost anything.

“That would be awesome. I’m excited to see it all finished.”

“You’ll love it, I promise.” He winks at me and my heart jumps a little. God, how can he still make me feel so shaky and lightheaded?

Once the bike is all loaded up and secure, he jumps down off the back of the truck.

“Good luck catching your dog,” he says. “I think what you’re doing is great, really.” He glances at the huge house. “Mrs. Montagne is good people. You got really lucky getting this place. Her niece used to live here, but she got married last year. She married a friend of mine, actually.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. She’s really nice, I only met her briefly. She’s always jetting off someplace.”

“Come by Saturday around noon?” he asks.

“I’ll be there,” I answer. “Thank you for doing this. I know you don’t want to—”

He puts his hand up to shush me. “I was a douche the other day, I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, and a lot of shit I’d buried came back up. Regardless of what happened ten years ago, you’re a customer now, and we treat our customers good. See ya Saturday.”

I stand in the driveway and watch him pull away.
A customer. That’s all I am to him now.

Twist

‡

I
barely look
up from the bike I’m working on as I hear the click of high heels coming towards me. Wiping my hands on a rag, I’m just about to stand as a pair of black boots stop in front of me. Waiting.

My gaze slowly creeps up the leather boots, up a leg clad in skin-tight faded jeans with holes that were made from wear and not bought that way, over a slim hip, and finally pausing on a pair of gorgeous tits hugged by a tight pink V-neck T-shirt with a black heart splattered across it.

“Ahem,” she says as my eyes stay on her chest a bit too long.

Looking up, I’m met by ice blue eyes that have been burned into my soul since I was five years old. They used to belong to a cute little girl who lived next door and giggled at everything I said. Now they belonged to a drop-dead hot babe.

Marlie. My first friend. My first love. My favorite mistake.

I keep playing our first disastrous meeting over in my head. She came to us with her bike, and I let my emotions take over and treated her like shit. I was a fucking dick to her. And maybe she deserved that, but I like to be in control of my emotions and actions.

When I heard Riley was going to pick up Marlie’s bike today, I took over and told him I was going to do it myself. I was hoping to talk to her more and dig further into her life and what she’s been doing, but once I got there, my fucking brain just went stupid. And while she looked hot as hell the day she came to the shop, today she looked adorable all messy. She looked like the Marlie I remembered, cute and shy.
My girl.

Hearing she was living here permanently rocked me. This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone, and it’s kinda hard not to run into people. I hated her for abandoning me all those years ago. I did a year of time for loving her, and I did it gladly, without regret. I loved her fiercely back then and would have done ten years if I had to. I never took advantage of her. She knows that, and so does anyone else who knew me. Except for her asshole father who, for whatever reason, wanted to punish us. Maybe knowing your only little girl is having sex makes you go insane. I don’t have kids, so I’m not sure what that feels like.