I should have told her when I had the chance.

Hearing about my past would have been so much better coming from my lips. Not from those that have a vested interest in making me look as bad as they possibly can in Caila’s eyes.

I feel like an ass driving away but it’s fucking tearing me up inside. I’m not the sort of man to let her see my weakness. She can know what she means to me but my own pain is my problem. I won’t ever dump that on her. It’s my job to shield her from that shit and make her feel secure.

Or it was.

I’m some kind of idiot for imagining I could ever be with a woman like Caila. She’s far too good for me now. Maybe she always was. And maybe all I deserve is desperate women willing to overlook my past for the sake of having the hard man.

My room disgusts me. It’s clean and tidy but lacking every home comfort.

I lie on my bed – Even a college kid would be ashamed of the low futon, barely full-size. The rain is coming down hard on the roof.

The fucking rain.

The ceiling fan takes me off into another realm, when I was on an upward track to having my own business. A chain of garages across the big city, where I’d be the boss, managing others. I don’t mind being a nobody now, grateful to have my life still and earn a living. But for the first time discontent rises.

If Caila were here with me, nestled up to my side, I could put up with this dumpy apartment box. But I can never bring her here. I’d have to know she was really in love with me to ever let her see how I live. And even then, she’s too good for this kind of life.

I reach for my phone to send her a text. The urge to let her know I’m thinking about her. But before typing a word, I put it down again. Telling her good night only increases our connection. And I’m sure by now her father has filled her in on my history and she hates my guts for claiming her before she knew who I really am.

After admiring the fucking ceiling all night long I’m a bear in the morning. I didn’t get a minute of sleep. Not even when the recall of how Caila bucked back and forth across my lips made me take my wood in my fist to beat out the tension. If anything I was even more wound up after, in a frenzy of sheet tangle and craving her body molded against mine. I picked up the phone then and sent her that text, even if saying good night at 4am was a little late.

She’s branded herself into me so permanently I might just turn as obsessed as that rug brat, following her around town just for a glimpse of her. Although I’d never bust in on her happiness like he did. Seeing her with another man would skewer me alive but I’d have enough respect for her to suck it up and trust she knows what she wants.

A couple days pass in a dream and not a good one. A shattered one if I’m honest. The possibility of building something with Caila destroyed right under my nose. I don’t hear from Caila at all, so I know she’s heard my story and is ghosting me.

The loss of her scratches at my skin lining like nails down a chalkboard.

I throw myself into the only thing I have now. Work.

Friday afternoon and the rain hasn’t let up for days. I’m frazzled on so many levels and planning on working late. I’ll probably keep going right through the weekend and not think about what pleasures could have been. No feeling sorry for myself and sooner or later, preferably sooner, I’m going to find Caila and explain myself. I can’t live with the knowledge that she thinks I’m a lying user that took advantage of her. Facing her anger is my only plan for the weekend.

I’m on my back on the ground, finishing up on the Eagle, when I hear steps approaching. My heart actually tears at my chest with the thought it could be her.

But it’s not the unforgettable slow dainty step of her red boots coming toward me. I turn my head to the side and see long feet clad in brown deck shoes. I kick out to roll from underneath and am still prone on my back when Boone’s foot comes down on my chest to halt me. In a flash I break the back of his knees and overturn him so he face plants to the ground.

He gets up and steels himself. He’s doing everything possible to bulk himself up like the big man, trying to throw some intimidation all over me. Fuck that. He can bring it on because although I’m not that beast that fights just to let off some steam, if he wants to get into it he’s gonna regret it. I don’t back down. Not when it comes to whats important to me and Caila is that.

He’s looking at me smugly despite being taken out just now. Maybe he expects me to leap up to my feet to take him down again. Like the little Rug Brat is that important to me. I stretch my legs wide and casually remain seated on the creeper.

He loses momentum then and reaches into his pocket. For a second I think he’s got a handgun but of course it’s his smartphone. He stands in my garage and sends a fucking text. Then he stares me down, the hard man again. We sit it out like that a full minute before two guys come running into the garage looking this way and that, see our stare-down and come up like wingmen either side of the Boone Brat.

“Are we waiting for daddy as well,” I ask. I’m still sitting calmly, wondering what these kids think they’re doing.

I can take all three of them if I have to. Did it often enough in the joint and with guys much bigger and harder than these three pasty schoolboy brats.

“I see the fucking way you look at her you filthy asshole,” Boone snarls. “Don’t you know you’re way too old and too dirty for Caila?”

“Nope.”

“You could have asked permission,” He hisses like some kind of cuckold husband.

“I did – she was in complete agreement. Don’t you know she doesn’t want you?”

“Even if that's true it doesn't mean she’s gonna settle for a filthy monkey like you. She’s way out of your league, jailbird fucking rat.”

So he does know. Any slim glimmer of hope I had that my secret was safe is extinguished. I thought I was here for a new start but he knows. Which means the entire town knows. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of but people will try to impose that anyways if you let them.

“Stay away from Caila,” Boone shouts. This brat really does like screaming. “She’ll come back to me soon enough. We’re meant for each other. Our families want it. I want it.”

“I doubt that. With or without me, Caila can see you for what you are and she wants a real man.”

“She will come back to me,” his tone flies up an octave. “You just stay here in your grease cave where you belong and she’ll soon get over this thing she has for you.”

Thing?

Caila has a thing. For me? Enough of a thing that she told this dickwad about it?

“But I still owe you for that sock on the jaw,” Boone says. He moves toward me and his sidekicks shift with him.

I have to laugh as the three of them advance on me like comedy gangsters. Three runts I could take out if I was one-armed Jack – it’s almost slapstick.

They each pull tire irons out of their pants leg. Oh are those the toys the kids wanna play with? Fair enough.

I pick my wrench up off the floor. Absentmindedly I slap the head into my hard palm, holding Boone’s slitted glare in my own, willing him to bring it on.

Slap slap.

I don’t miss a beat. Or lose my relaxed grin.

I leap up to my feet without use of my hands to push me off and they jerk back in surprise at the size of me, my swift movement. Slap slap. I learned in the house that you walk toward your foes, not away from them. Even when you’re outnumbered you act like you’re ready to take them all on. It’s fake it ‘til you make it environment.

When I’m within two feet, Boone charges at me and the other two pile in. I jab one guy with my elbow and he goes down. Then I rag doll bratty Boone into the shaggy-haired third guy, so he flies back on his butt. Boone gets my fist in his face and drops then I take the other down as they come at me again. Between the three of them they don’t even get one strike. They’re getting to their feet, a couple of bloody noses when Caila comes running into the garage.

“Get out, Andrew and you, Glenn.”

She storms to each guy in turn pushing at their chests with all her might. She keeps shoving them until they go stumbling ass-backwards to the door then take off running. This girl is a little demon when she wants, tough enough to take on any thug. “Boone, you too, just leave me and my friends alone.” She pushes him out of the garage and turns to me with her hands on her hips.

“Thanks, but I don’t need your assistance in defending myself,” I say, trying not to grin.

She must be used to being the tough guy in that old relationship. Well, she knows what a real man is now.

“Hmm, maybe,” she replies. “But seems like you do need it in being honest with me.”

Busted.