Nineteen
Conner
2017
She called me Conner.
That’s the thought that the grabs my brain and shakes me awake, pulling me from sleep in an instant. She called me by my name.
Twice.
It’s possible she came looking for me specifically. It happens. Women talk. A couple of drinks in and they’re telling their friends all about the hot bartender who bent them over a sink in the Ladies’ and gave them the fuck of their lives.
My reputation proceeds me.
Someone starts banging on the roll-up garage door under my bedroom window. “Wake the fuck up, Gilroy,” Tess shouts up at me. “Some of us still have to work for a living.”
Grinning, I roll off my bed and shove the framed glass up on its track. “Not if I fire your ass,” I shout, sticking my head out the window to see Tess standing on the sidewalk outside my shop. It’s a ridiculous thing to say. Tess can re-build a carburetor in under an hour and is the only woman I’ve ever known in my adult life that I didn’t at least think about fucking—which makes her pretty much invaluable. I’d be lost without her, and we both know it.
Or, at least more lost than I already am.
“Jesus, Con—” she says, looking up at me like I just pissed on her. “You wanna put some pants on before I lose my breakfast?”
I look down, suddenly remembering that I’m naked. Instead of ducking for cover, I laugh. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, Tessie.”
“That was one time. Once.” She bugs her eyes out. “And we were seven.”
I flash her my dimples. “And you’re still dreaming about it.”
“Nightmares,” she says. “You mean I’m still having nightmares about it.” She throws up her hands. “Now open up—my boss is kind of an asshole, and if he catches me standing around, talking about your dick, he’s gonna fire me.”
“Okay, okay—give me a minute.” Still laughing, I move away from the window and find the pair of jeans I tossed in the corner before passing out last night.
My cell phone lets out a chirp on the nightstand next to my bed. I zip up the jeans, not bothering with the top button before I reach for it.
Henley: Are we still
meeting for lunch?
Shit.
Suddenly, my guts feel like they’re being fed through a meat grinder. My chest feels like it’s been shrink-wrapped. I want to tell her no. Something’s come up. Can’t make it. I’m actually pounding out the text when it dawns on me.
Guilt. I feel guilty.
Which is fucking bullshit.
She’s the one who left. She’s the one who disappeared. She’s the one who moved on before the dust even settled. If anyone should feel guilty, it’s her.
Not me.
Me? I’m just trying to keep from drowning.
“I’m dying out here, Gilroy!” Tess shouts from the street, giving the roll-up a kick with her boot. “Open the frackin’ door!”
Me: Yup
I hit send and shove my phone into my back pocket. “Coming,” I call over my shoulder, hitting the steep, narrow stairs that connect my apartment to the shop below it.
Flipping the lever on the roll-up, I pull it up far enough for Tess to duck inside. “What time is it anyway,” I ask her when she pops up beside me.
“After eleven.” She smirks at me, arching a dark brow at me which means she’s about to talk trash. “I hear you landed a whale last night,” she says, giving me the once-over. “And then you got completely shit-faced.”
“And that’s different from any other Thursday, how?” After Mrs. Moneybags fled the scene, I power drank my through a fifth of whiskey, in hopes of knocking myself out while Declan grumbled about how irresponsible and impulsive I am.
“It’s not, you big tramp,” Tess says. “I just can’t believe you’re still able to find fresh ones, dumb enough to sleep with you.”
“What can I say?” I laugh because I’m supposed to, not because I think it’s funny. “I’m the Pied Piper of pus—wait,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my face. Christ, I need to shave. “Did you say after eleven?” I look at the shop clock in the office to confirm it. I slept. For seven hours straight. That’s never happened to me before.
“Yup,” she says pushing past me toward the heap of greasy coverall I keep piled in the corner. “Which means I’m about forty-five minutes behind on that tranny re-build that’s going to be picked up tomorrow—” She digs a pair of her coveralls from the pile—I know they’re hers because they look like they might’ve fit me when I was twelve. “When are you gonna wash this shit?” She holds them out to me. “Because this is almost as gross as seeing you naked.”
“Fuck you, Castinetti,” I say laughing at her expression. “You want your coveralls washed, you know where the washer is.”
“Doesn’t mean I know how the thing works,” she mutters under her breath while she pulled the coveralls up over her boots. “You working on the Impala today?”
The Impala’s my pet project. I restore vintage cars on the side, just for kicks. Sometimes I sell them. Sometimes I keep them. The Impala’s still a rusted out hunk of metal but she’s a keeper. I can already tell. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I have to run to the bar for a while. Couple hours, tops.” I still can’t bring myself to tell her Henley is back. I don’t know why. I’ll have to, eventually. But not yet. Not until I get the chance to wrap my head around it. See her and make sure I’m not going to swan dive into a pool of crazy. “I’ll start the Ford when I get back.” The Ford is a dilapidated Windstar that looks like it’s ready for the junkyard.
“How many times are you going to resuscitate that thing before you call it, Con?” Tess casts her gaze across the garage toward the farthest bay at the faded green minivan. “I mean is it even worth fixing? Again.”
Worth it—hell no. It stopped being worth it in 2005, but the single mom who owns it has three kids and two full-time jobs. Worth it or not, she needed it.
“What can I say?” I shoot her a smirk to hide the fact that she’d caught me on the chin with that one. “I like playing God.”
“Uh huh,” She straddles the creeper before lowering herself onto it. “See you when you get back, sucker,” she says before rolling herself under the Buick.
“Fuck off,” I call over my shoulder. I don’t have time to shave, but I can at least take a shower before I leave.
Tess’s laughter follows me up the stairs.