Chapter 27

Delilah

“I won’t ever forget which side you chose,” I warn Ivy.

She grins at me as I jump down from the cab of the wrecker. Getting away from the warmth of his thigh and the amazing scent of his spicy cologne is all I could concentrate on since leaving the parking lot.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She feigns interest in her surroundings.

“Like hell you don’t,” I hiss at her back as she walks around the back of the wrecker.

“If you ladies hold tight and let me get this off the flatbed, I’ll take you home.”

Even in a bright yellow vest, grease stains on his jeans, and a smudge on his left cheek, he’s still the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Acknowledging that, even in my head, pisses me off. The least he could’ve done is to turn gray or grow warts on his face. The thought of him having salt and pepper locks makes me tingle, and my anger grows.

I’ve learned a lot in the two years since he treated me like shit and disappeared into thin air. Well, it wasn’t exactly thin air, but I avoided any talk of him in the house and made no effort to reach out to him. He made his feelings more than clear that night in my bedroom.

“It would’ve taken less time for you to drop us off before we drove all the way across town.”

I cross my arms over my chest again, an action I’ve done more than once since he showed up. His eyes dart to the swell of my breasts as the action pushes them a little higher in my tank top. His eyes piercing into me does more to my libido than the boy from the restaurant could ever hope.

“Yet you didn’t say anything when I drove right past your street on the way here,” he challenges.

Busted.

He winks as Ivy laughs behind me.

We stand off to the side as an older man comes out of the huge roll-up door on the front of the shop. He stops short and just watches us. I stare, unabashedly at Lawson, as he strips out of the vest and begins to work on getting my car off of the wrecker. I know my mouth is hanging open by the time he’s done. I’m also well aware of the show he’s putting on. It’s not very hot out here so when he lifts the bottom of his shirt to wipe at his face, I know it’s not because he’s sweating and overexerted.

I sneer even though my face is as deep as my irritation goes. Ivy laughs again when a grunt slips out at the sight of the dark trail of hair snaking from his belly button and disappearing into his low-slung jeans.

“Jesus,” I say before I can stop myself.

“Do you need a minute alone,” Ivy jokes with a quick shoulder bump.

I shake my head. “A minute wouldn’t even do him justice. A month would probably barely scratch the surface.”

“He’s always been very handsome.”

“I hate him.”

I stand straighter, my back stiffening in defiance, but I never pull my eyes from him. My brain warns that I may have limited time with him, and is insisting I get my fill while I can. It makes no sense. I’ve spent two years doing my best to not think of him. Two years of wasting time with other men who just don’t seem to measure up. Two years of silently comparing him to everyone I encounter only to find them lacking. The problem is, he’s an asshole, a jerk who treated me like a whore when he had me believing there was something building between us.

“You’re still mad?”

I’m not surprised by Ivy’s reaction. I haven’t spoken out loud to anyone about Lawson O’Neil since I explained what had happened between us on her front porch before I even knew he was gone.

“He treated me like shit,” I tell her, angling my head to see him when he steps around the wrecker and I lose track of him.

“People change,” she says.

“Not really,” I argue. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun once or twice.”

She grabs my upper arm, turning me and forcing me to look in her eyes.

“What exactly do you have planned?”

I shrug, but even the thought of what I could do to Lawson O’Neil heats my blood. “Fuck him and forget him of course.”

“Delilah,” she chides. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s the best one I can come up with.”

“You need to reconsider that plan,” she urges. “You’ll only get—”

She stops abruptly when Lawson, smile on his handsome face, comes walking back up.

“Ready to go?” He points to a silver truck parked directly in front of the building. “Four doors so you don’t have to straddle my stick.”

The innuendo is plain as day, the words frighteningly similar to something he would’ve said two years ago. My faith in my ‘love him and leave him’ plan begins to slip. I know exactly what Ivy is getting at. She’s well aware that there’s no way I can play with his fire and not get burned. I reason with the voice in my head telling me to run far and fast. I figure if I can be the one to turn the tables on him this time, I can walk away with my pride intact.

I walk away from him and toward the truck without a word.

“Icy, Princess,” he mutters walking close enough to my back that I feel the heat coming off of his skin. “Good thing I like it.”

I shake my head, but a grin he can’t see lights up my face.

“You don’t stand a chance. Might as well get over it and move on.”

“Nice truck,” Ivy praises as she climbs into the back passenger side.

“Selling drugs?” I ask and immediately hate the inference to some of the things he admitted to being forced to do when he was younger to help support his family.

“Nope,” he answers, schooling his face back to the gorgeous smile that’s been there since he got out of the wrecker in the parking lot. “I just work a lot.”

“An honest living?” I continue despite the bile rising in my throat at the mean words. “What a change of pace.”

Ivy hisses in the background, and I cringe, ashamed, as my behavior reminds me of Gigi.

“Sorry,” I mutter, turning my eyes to look at him as he drives down the road.

“Lots of things have changed,” he says softly but refuses to look at me.

Ivy reaches between my seat and the window, pinching my arm in chastisement. Jerking my arm out of her reach, I don’t bother to say anything to her. I deserve worse for what I just said.

“Turn right up here,” Ivy instructs.

“I know where your apartment is,” he tells her with a quick wink in the rearview mirror.

“You’ve been this close to me for two years, and I’m just now running into you?”

Now he looks at me. The red light we’re waiting at giving him the opportunity.

“If you wanted to see me sooner, you could’ve asked your dad where I was,” he challenges.

“I didn’t care to know where you were.” Even as I say the words, I know, deep down, that it’s a lie.

“And that’s exactly why we haven’t seen each other before today.”

“I’m glad you’re close,” my traitorous best friend adds from the backseat. “I feel safer knowing family is nearby.”

“We’re not family,” Lawson and I say at the same time.

At least we can agree on something.

“Not yet,” he says with so much conviction, I almost believe him.

“What do you do at the shop?” Ivy just won’t give it a rest.

Tension still thick in the cab of the truck, Lawson grins at her over his shoulder.

“Mostly motorcycles, but we get the occasional car. I’m apprenticing with Joel, the old man you saw back at the shop.”

“And when you’re fully trained?” Ivy speaks for me. I both love her and hate her for it. I’m hungry for the knowledge, but we all know I’ll never ask the questions myself. Vocal curiosity about what his life has been like the last two years gives him power I’m not willing to relinquish.

“Joel is retiring. The shop will be mine by the time I turn twenty-five.”

Unwanted pride swells in my chest.

“That’s amazing,” Ivy says, once again speaking my words out loud.

“Jaxon has helped me a ton. I couldn’t have done anything without him and Rob.”

Dad and Pop never mentioned anything of the sort. Why would they? Dad tried to talk to me about Lawson and Drew when I got home two years ago, but I shut him down and asked him to never mention them again. He respected my wishes, but it doesn’t surprise me that they would’ve stayed involved in Lawson’s life. Moving across the country doesn’t mean giving up on your son. I respect them immensely for any help they may have provided.

“You planning to keep everything the same when Joel retires?”

“Ivy,” I chide. “What is this twenty questions?”

“I don’t mind,” Lawson says with a quick chuckle. “I plan to re-image. Joel isn’t exactly happy with his life work changing, but I have to do something to bring the business into this century.”

They continue on, talking and asking each other questions all the way to the apartment. He’s spoken more, revealed more in the twenty minutes it takes to get home than he did in the weeks that he was in New Mexico.

“Oh look, there’s Cindy.” Ivy pushes open her door the second the truck is in park. “Thanks for the ride, Lawson. Hope to see you again soon.”

I scowl at her back as she darts across the parking lot to talk to her friend, effectively leaving me alone in the truck surrounded by Lawson’s cologne and soft leather.

“I’ve missed you,” he confesses, turning slightly, so his upper body is angled in my direction. “I can’t take back how I treated you, but I want you to know that I’m sor—”

I’m out of the truck and walking toward my apartment before he can even finish his apology. I don’t regret leaving him sitting in his truck, but him driving off without coming and trying to talk to me stings more than it should’ve.