Very Wicked Things (10 page)

“Maybe I don’t care if my somedays never come true,” I said.

“Then you’ve given up?” she asked. “You don’t care about being a doctor anymore? Or being happy?”

“I’m happy,” I said. I wasn’t.

She sighed heavily and put her back to me, gingerly picking up a wrench from an old compact toolbox.

“Jumper cables might be more useful if it won’t start,” I said.

“Feel free to leave anytime,” she mumbled from underneath the hood.

I glanced around at the gathering dark. And as much as my head was telling me to go, my body wanted to stay. I came in closer, watching as she fiddled with the oil stick, knocked on the radiator, and then clanked on the battery, making an awful metallic clanging noise.

“You should bang on the oil pan too. That might help,” I yelled over the racket.

She paused and the silence stretched. And stretched.

I grimaced. I’d been trying to break the ice, but, of course, it didn’t work because too much was between us. The barrier too thick.

“Please leave,” she said, rising up and pushing her hair off her face. “We’re not friends, and I don’t need your help.”

But she appeared uncertain. And worried.

“You don’t know much about cars, do you?” I said.

She spun around to face me. “Put your hand out.”

I did and she slapped the tool in my palm. Hard. “Why don’t you take a shot at it, Mr. Handyman? Show me what you got.”

I looked at the wrench in bemusement. There had been a ghost of a smile on her lips. Just a tiny one, and maybe she would have given it to any human, but I’d seen it. I’d take it. “Okay.”

She moved aside, and I slid in next to her, closer than we’d been at our lockers. I stared down at her, fucking weak in the knees as I lingered on her lips. The lipstick from earlier was gone, leaving her lips bare, but they were still plump and soft. My hands itched to grasp her face and pull her to me, to press my mouth to hers until I couldn’t breathe, until she begged me for air.

Swallowing, I edged away. I could never have those lips again.

She shivered, hugging herself.

“If you wore more clothes, you wouldn’t be cold,” I said pointedly.

“If you’d stop talking, my car might get fixed.”

I got stupidly giddy at the tartness in her voice because it was banter. Sparring with her had always been part of our fun. And then the sadness hit, and because this day was messed up royally already, I opened my mouth and said the wrong thing.

“I miss you, Dovey,” I said flatly. Feeling defeated. Knowing my words wouldn’t count, but needing to voice it. “Most girls suck up. You never have.”

“I never cared about who you were or how much money you had,” she replied, her voice dull like mine. She rubbed her arms again.

“My jacket’s in the car.” I didn’t wait for her to answer but ran to my car and grabbed a black wool car coat, nice and thick. “Here,” I said, shoving it in her hands. I wanted to drape it over her shoulders, but didn’t push my luck. Not with that wary look on her face.

She peered down at it and then gazed back at me. Something fragile flickered in her eyes as she handed it back. “I’m not cold,” she said softly.

“Your arms are covered in goose bumps. It’s forty degrees out here, and you’re nearly naked.”

“Cuba, don’t be nice to me. I don’t want your jacket. Ever.”

I startled, déjà vu smacking me in the face, remembering another day when she’d taken my varsity jacket.

I tried to make a joke. “It’s not the
same
jacket.” She didn’t smile, and I nodded. “Fine. I get it. You’d rather freeze.” I took it out of her hands, and she glanced away from me, still holding herself.

I asked her what happened with the car, and she explained she’d been warming it up when she noticed the temperature gauge spike. Then smoke came from under the hood.

After a few minutes checking out her engine, I figured out the problem. “Radiator hose is busted which isn’t too bad, but you really need a new car. This one’s ready for the junkyard.”

She stiffened. “Cars don’t grow on trees, but you with all your millions, you have no clue. So, back off.”

I immediately wanted to crawl under a rock. Perhaps I was spoiled when it came to money, but she was richer in other things. She had hope.

I rubbed my jaw. “I’ll take care of this.” I dug my cell from my track pants and called the local garage where Dad had our cars serviced. I talked to the manager briefly, explained what I’d seen, and they promised to get a tow truck out in the next twenty minutes. I hung up, feeling a sense of satisfaction.

She scowled at me. “Why did you do that? Why do you assume I want your help? And FYI, I don’t have the money to pay a mechanic from Highland Park. Call him back and tell him to forget it. He won’t get a dime from me. I can buy my own hose and put it on myself.”

I arched a brow. “Admit it, you don’t know anything about hoses. You banged on your car like it was a drum.”

She huffed. “It’s a hose. How hard can it be?”

“Yeah, but as much as you drive, you need a real mechanic to take a look. And I can pay for it. You probably—Who are you calling?” I asked as she walked away from me and pulled out her cell.

“Spider. So he can come get me and take me home.”

Oh, hell no.

“I’ll take you home,” I growled, my jaw tightening.

She shook her head. “Nope. It’s out of the way for you. Plus he knows where I live.”

Oh, that last part pissed me off.

“Dovey—”

She threw her hand up to silence me, opened her mouth to talk on the phone, and I lost it a little, okay, maybe a lot. But it was that kind of day. For some reason, my gut told me I had to be the one to take her home, not Spider.

I grabbed her phone and hung up on Spider. I needed her to give me a chance.

For what
? I asked myself.

She sputtered, “You’re insane.”

Maybe. Probably. I tucked her phone in my pocket. “I’m taking you home.”

Her brow wrinkled. “I’m not your charity case.”

I’d started packing up her tools, but I paused to meet her eyes. “I meant what I said. I
am
sorry. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but at least let me take you home. Just this one thing.”

She mulled it over, nibbling on her lip. “I am in a hurry to get home, but this doesn’t mean you’re paying for my car to be fixed.”

Oh, yes it does
.

“Whatever you say,” I stated, feeling a glimmer of exhilaration slice through me at the thought of being alone in a car with her.

But then she got her revenge, knowing exactly how to get to me.

Her eyes caressed the Porsche. “Fine. I’m driving.”

“
Cuba was part of the beautiful people
.
I wasn’t.”

–
Dovey

“DON’T GRIND THE gears,” he reminded me as we approached his Porsche.

I bit back a grin. Cuba loved his car and someone else driving killed him. “I know how to drive a stick. And I’ve driven it before. Remember?”

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes burning into mine. “Oh, I remember.”

My body clenched at the images that tumbled into my head. Of me straddling him in the front seat, my tongue tracing the curves of his tattoo…

I slapped that memory away.

He opened the driver’s door for me, and I got behind the wheel and even though I’d had a crappy day, I swooned. Because it was a freaking Porsche. A 911 Carrera Turbo with a seven-speed manual transmission, bucket sport seats, black leather interior, a slamming audio system, and matching silver alloy wheels with the Porsche crest.

It was sex-on-wheels. And I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit his car made me horny every time I got in it.

I settled into the soft leather. “Am I the only girl to drive your car?”

He tightened his lips. “Yep.”

“Huh.”

“You know, my dad gave me this car for helping him run his charity basketball camp. It took me eight summers of volunteering to get it.” He shrugged. “But I loved working with him and those kids.”

“Oh,” I said, a bit surprised at his talkativeness. It seemed strange and surreal for us to be on easy terms, but I went with it. We were in a small car for the next forty-five minutes. “So your ride means a lot to you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That and a few other things.” And then I felt him staring at me, but I didn’t check to see. Because he was crazy gorgeous with his yellow eyes and broad shoulders. And, he was
right there
, making my palms sweat. Plus, the last time I’d been in this car, we’d made love. Oh, wait, correction: we’d fucked.

We headed out of the stop-and-go-traffic of Highland Park and got to the open road. The Silver Bullet—as I liked to call her—ate up the interstate, getting closer and closer to Ratcliffe.

A few miles in, I glanced in the rearview mirror. A grey Mercedes had been tailing us since we’d left, and I hadn’t missed that it had made every turn I had. I sped up and so did they.

I squirmed a little in my seat. The only people who drove expensive imports were people like Cuba or the wrong kind from my neighborhood. I doubted anyone in Cuba’s life would follow us, which led me to believe it might be Barinsky’s men. My stomach twisted at that thought, wondering if they’d been in Highland Park looking for me.

I checked the mirror again, relived when I saw that the car had fallen back a few lengths. It was probably just a coincidence.

A few minutes later, I took the ramp and turned onto 54
th
Street, trying to imagine my part of town through Cuba’s eyes. Masked by darkness, much of the underbelly was hidden beneath the night, but there was no misconstruing the hookers on the corners or the homeless with their cardboard boxes. As we drove by, neon signs from the stores flashed, from the red lights of the liquor store to the blinking yellow sign above the Chinese diner.

It
almost
looked pretty, but it wasn’t.

Soon, we’d be out of here.

“I live in Ratcliffe,” I announced. “You got a problem with that?”

“I know where you’re from,” he replied. “It isn’t where you live, but how you live that matters.”

“Easy to say when you’re rich.”

He grunted. “I never judged you for being poor, so don’t judge me for being rich. And maybe you have more important things than money.”

I remembered his mother again and softened. “Cuba, I know what today is. I’m sorry about your mom.”

He winced but gave me a short nod as he scratched at the leather seats. “I—I never mentioned it when we were together, but I had a sister once. Cara. She died five years ago when she was six. I was thirteen.”

I blinked
. A sister?

“I had no idea,” I said, shooting him a quick glance. The moment between us felt big, maybe because he was opening up to me, and I don’t think he talked about his feelings much to anyone.

He stared out at the night. “It happened before you came to BA.”

“What happened? If you want to talk about it?”

He fidgeted, his hands clutching his knees. “I watched her die right in front of me. Her death was the worst thing I’d ever seen.”

Horrible scenarios flashed in my head, but I kept silent, waiting.

His head turned to me, and our eyes clung for a moment until I had to look back at the road. The intensity of the emotion I read on his face made me want to pull over and give him my full attention. It made me want to comfort him,
hold him
.

But I couldn’t do that. He hadn’t wanted my sympathy at lunch.

Yet, I was tempted to reach across the space that divided us and maybe grasp his hand. My heart had been walled up when it came to him this morning, but somehow in the space of a few minutes…

No. I clutched the gearshift instead.

“I’m sorry, Cuba. That must have been tough.”

“Yeah.” His voice was raw, his pain a visceral thing.

We were silent for the next ten minutes, each in our own thoughts. I kept thinking about him and his sister, picturing Cuba holding a dying little girl with soft curls like his. What had happened to her? Was it some awful disease like cancer?

Finally, we pulled up in my driveway, and his headlights showed Beckham House, a run-down brick building with beige trim that needed painting and mildew that grew around the roof. A wonky-looking metal fence framed the property.