Chapter
The day flew by as Poppy and the Animal Caretaker, Daria, showed Mercy the ropes and introduced her to the animals. There was no brain-stimulating non-profit managing going on, but she was making actual money for taking care of animals. And her co-workers made the work fun.
At seven, she tossed the scrubs in a dirty laundry bin, and walked out with Daria who locked up the place. Right at the front curb, sitting there like a limo ready to whisk her away, was her car. The color and model were right but something was off about it. JFK was standing by the passenger side door looking all ruggedly handsome and ready to open the door for her. Daria and Mercy waved goodnight at each other then she walked up to JFK.
“You didn’t have to bring it here so I could say goodbye to it,” she told him. “We’ve both known for some time it was one bad day away from the junk yard.”
“Nah,” said JFK, “it’s still got plenty of good days left.”
“You got my car to start?” Mercy just stood on the sidewalk with her mouth hanging open.
JFK ducked through the passenger side, reaching toward the key hole with her key.
“You can’t do it like that,” said Mercy. “You have to pump the gas—”
The car purred to life. No pumping the pedal exactly six and a half times. No prayers. He had just turned the key.
“You got my car to start!”
As soon as JFK came back out of the car, she threw her arms around him. Oh boy was he solid. There was strength in him and she loved the feel of him. Too bad there were no vines around to swing on. She also like his obvious nervousness at her sudden hug as he tensed up, halfway in the hug, and halfway just being hugged. When she had handed him the keys she never expected to see the car again, and here it was, almost as good as new.
The hug suddenly became uncomfortable and she let him go. If there was a chance that a relationship might develop, she did not want it based in the slightest on him giving her things in exchange for affection. She’d been there and done that and had paid a heavy price. Even at her worst she had never explicitly prostituted herself, but there had been plenty of college boys who understood that they had a good shot of getting what they wanted from her as long as they supplied the party in a bottle.
So for now, with this amazing gift he’d surprised her with, she had to try to express her thanks with words.
“Mind if I drive?” he asked.
“Please do,” she said.
The door was already open, but he offered a hand as she climbed in. Was the height of her car off? Or was she just used to getting in the driver’s seat. She pushed the thought aside and basked in her date’s newfound manners. She was tempted to ask who he was and what he had done with her date from the night before, but instead she took his strong, supportive hand and let him guide her into the car. She would not be one of those people who perpetuated past mistakes and refused to accept a changed person. Heaven knew she had enough of those people in her life.
**
A gentleman takes care of a lady’s car. JFK was pretty sure that’s what Dom had said earlier. A real firefighter never passed up the opportunity to get into someone’s house or car or dorm room and play a good prank. If this could be considered a prank at all, he hoped it would go down as one of the best he’d ever done. So far she’d barely seen the tip of the iceberg and had seemed overjoyed. Maybe he could make up for last night after all.
When he climbed in the driver seat, he gave it a little gas.
“It sounds different,” she said. “It sounds healthier.”
“I hope you don’t mind, but I gave it a quick oil change.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she objected. “It probably cost more than the car’s worth.”
“Oh, I just did it myself, while Emily was working on the spark plugs and installing the new brake pads.”
“Emily?”
“And Dom. He bracketed the dangling exhaust pipe, so you shouldn’t get the rattle-ting-ting any more, and you’re not risking dropping the entire exhaust system every time you hit a pot hole.”
“You guys did all that?” Her normally composed, punk demeanor was totally blown by the wideness of her eyes and her hands raised involuntarily to her mouth. He was tempted to snap a picture.
“It needed a few other things so we changed the windshield wipers and air filter. Oh, while Emily was in the brakes she cleaned the ABS sensors, so that dash light is off.”
Mercy’s eyes went to the dash. “What about those other warning lights? The gauges one and the one that looked like a motor?”
“Engine. We cleared those out. They shouldn’t come back on.” JFK turned on the running lights and the backlit lights of the radio and heater lit up.
Mercy’s face lit up too. “How did you get all those light to work again?”
“Just replaced a couple of fuses. Was the heater out completely?” He turned up the fan and warm air blew out of the vents.
“No, way! Do you know how long I’ve been carrying around blankets in here to keep me warm?” She looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Now you can take them back inside and use them for important things like building blanket forts. I got this working.” He pulled on the seat belt, then let it retract, which it hadn’t done on its own earlier that day. “And since it seemed like the preventative maintenance was, like we say in the station, A-shift quality, i.e. non-existent, we got under the hood and replaced the serpentine belt and the timing belt. If either one of those were to go out, you’re not going anywhere and the timing belt could have caused thousands in damage.”
Mercy was done talking and done reacting, just staring at him in disbelief.
“Let’s see, getting it running was no trick, I just had to clean the corrosion from the battery terminals and jump it. Oh yeah, while I was doing that I noticed that one of your washer lines was broken so I spliced in a new line.” He activated the wipers and sprayed washer fluid on the windshield. “Now you can see out of both sides of the windshield.”
Mercy’s hand was at her forehead now, and he was pretty sure she didn’t realize it.
“Can I show you one more thing? It’s outside. Let me get the door for you.”
He killed the engine since there was no reason to keep idling. Plus he wanted her to be confident that it would start back up for her.
When he opened her door and she looked up at him, the expression on her face had faded, and it was hard to interpret what she was feeling. Could be panic, could be gratitude. Could even be disapproval. Hopefully she’d say something soon to let him know. It had been a risk to do so much without any permission whatsoever.
“Your tires were so bald I couldn’t even find a groove to put a coin in to measure the depth.”
Mercy nodded and grimaced.
“Link had a used set of snow tires, so we threw those on there.”
Mercy looked at the front tire, then at the back tire, then at the front. She looked up at JFK with that same unreadable expression and he felt himself fidgeting with uncertainty about how she felt. Had he gone overboard? Was there such a thing as being too mannerly? Or had Dom meant something different about taking care of a lady’s car?
The speech he’d semi-prepared started to come out, but it didn’t flow. “I want to learn how to be a manners guy.” The start had been easy enough, but it was really hard to know how to say all this. “It’s going to take some work. At the awards ceremony I guess I was supposed to escort you to the table instead of just expecting you to follow me there. And then there were all the other things. Will you do me a favor, Mercy? Carry a billy club and just give me a hard one in the head when I screw it up.” Suddenly he was back to pushing her to spend time with him. Hopefully she didn’t think he was trying to get something from her by doing all the work on her car.
“A billy club?” she stammered.
“Or a baton. The cops carry those ones that fold up. One of those would totally work.”
Mercy was almost in a stupor, and that worried JFK. If she was a patient on a medical call, he would be concerned about her mental status.
But he went on talking. “Little black stick, you know? Fit in your purse. Not much bigger than a tampon.”
With her mouth hanging open, she was still slowly looking back and forth between him and the car.
JFK made the last of his little speech. “I’m not saying that I have a chance with you, Mercy.” This was the important part, so he paused to make sure he said it just right. “But I didn’t treat you right yesterday. I hope this starts to make a difference.”
A dam broke somewhere in her eyes and tears splashed out, pouring down her face in half a dozen different rivulets.
Oh no. What this time?
“Did I … do something wrong?” he asked as he ran a hand through his hair. “I promise, I’m trying.”
Like a zombie suddenly coming to life, she threw her arms around his neck. All the way around, sinking the hug all the way to the elbow. And her body trembled as she held him and sobbed.
The only reason he was able to keep himself from trembling with the pleasure of being so close to her was the concern about her crying because of what he’d done.
He patted her back carefully. “Was that …” “Did I … do it wrong?”
“No,” she said, sniffling. “No. You didn’t.”
And JFK believed her. The tone, the sincerity convinced him that everything was good. That the tears were happy tears. And so he relaxed, and instead of cautiously patting her back, he embraced her, and felt the softness of her body against his. Occasionally she shuddered, as she continued to cry on him.
JFK wanted to kiss her, to run his hand along the side of her hair where it was shaved short and pull her face up to his. He wanted to hold her there until they froze to death in each other’s arms because he’d never felt anything like it. But dying together tonight would definitely screw up every bit of progress he’d made so far.
Still, he couldn’t help himself. Without any of the movie make-out touches like running his hand through her hair or staring into her eyes for five minutes first, JFK turned his face and gently kissed her. In the half of a second their lips touched, he felt connected to her. More strongly than ever in his life, and maybe for the first time in his life, he felt a bond with another human being and despite what he’d always believed about how great life as a loner was, this was infinitely better.
Just as quick as it happened, she backed out of his arms and shook her head, as if she could undo the kiss. “Don’t …” said Mercy. “I’m not … that wasn’t …” She wasn’t mad, she just seemed disoriented.
Great. He’d screwed it up. This entire time with her he’d done everything he knew how to do right, to not push, and to not open himself up, then with one impulsive move he’d blown it all away.
They awkwardly turned toward the car and a frigid silence settled between them.
Was he supposed to apologize now? Should he have asked permission before kissing her? That was not how he hoped his first kiss would go. Sure, deep down he expected rejection like that. In fact, it was the reason he’d never kissed anyone. It was so much easier to be rejected before trying something like that.
“Why do they call you JFK?” Mercy’s voice was soft and a little bit strained.
It didn’t feel like the time for his standard answer about being so handsome, cultured, and suave. After only knowing him for a few days, she knew him too well to know he was none of those things.
“One guy didn’t want me to come work at his station so he said, ‘Just Freaking Kill me.’ The JFK stuck. Typical firehouse nickname.” Usually he laughed with pride at the name, but after seeing how much he’d hurt Mercy, and now in pain himself, he actually felt a little bit of remorse for the way he’d always treated people.
“I figured it was something derisive,” said Mercy. She looked up at him. Faint black streaks and puffy eyes showed proof of her tears. “I’m not going to call you that.”
JFK was uncomfortable being face-to-face with her after she’d pushed him away. He didn’t want someone he cared about seeing him so close up. Stepping up to the tire, he bent as if inspecting the tread, and said, “JFK is better than Amos.”
“Then I’ll think of something better. Like Knight in Shining Armor.”
Was that a joke? It had to be. Unless knight in shining armor was some friend-zone phrase. “That won’t work. It sounds like Keesa if you make it an acronym.”
Mercy mouthed the word. “You’re right, Knight. I’ll shorten it to one word, then no one can make it an acronym.”
“Knight?” That was … he couldn’t really define it. It was a pretty amazing feeling that someone like her would even say something like that on a spur of the moment, even as a friend, but it was so far off the truth of who he was, it made him writhe because of the hypocrisy. He was no hero. Never would be. Then again, a good nickname was often contrary to the truth. “What about Night, N-I-G-H-T? The K doesn’t work. It’s not me.”
He saw her look over at him and study his face. “You believe that don’t you? You have no idea how badly I wanted this job, or how many days I’ve expected this car to roll over and die. Or how hard I prayed this morning that it would start.” She started to choke up again.
JFK shuffled his feet and kicked the tire. What did etiquette require of him at a time like this? Hug her again? Look away? Look right at her? Dom had told him that if a woman was throwing up, she probably wanted to be left alone but for whatever reason if you couldn’t give her space, to consider patting her back and holding her hair out of the way.
Maybe it was the same for all body fluids. Her beautiful black hair was well out of the path of the tears, so he came close enough to pat her on the back. He wanted to say, Poor little bunny, but he was positive he couldn’t do it without sounding patronizing, so he clamped his mouth shut.
Mercy wiped more tears away, first from one side, then the other. It made her hands all wet without even clearing up her face all the way.
Patting her back was accomplishing nothing so he said, “Hold on just a sec.” He got into the car and popped the glove box. He’d seen a stack of napkins in there earlier, so he pulled out a couple and offered them to her.
As she took them and dabbed under her eyes, she said, “Look at you. Suddenly a gentleman overnight.”
JFK laughed sharply. Yeah, he was such an expert.
“I don’t really care what you are to other people, Night, but for me today you were nothing short of a knight in shining armor. An answer to a prayer.”
JFK shrugged. The warring feelings of accomplishment at doing the perfect thing was overshadowed by the awkwardness of the failed kiss. Add to that the prickliness of sitting there accepting so much praise. “You know what they say. Even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while.”
“I’m tired of standing around crying, Night.” She made an uncertain face. “I don’t know if that nickname is gonna stick. I’ll try it out for a while. Anyway, I gotta celebrate my new job! Let’s go do something fun, and preferably free.”
That sounded so much better. He was way more comfortable in her friend zone than in the failed boyfriend zone or whatever this was.
“You got a leather jacket with short sleeves?” he asked.
“I have a vest with no sleeves.”
“Even better.” He moved toward the car and motioned her in. “What about a giant pair of sunglasses?”
She accepted his hand and climbed into the passenger seat. “Like obnoxious, celebrity-trying-to-hide sunglasses? No.”
“I got you covered. We’ll swing by my place.”
“What do you have planned?” Her countenance had changed to one that was playfully curious rather than teary and sappy. JFK was so much more comfortable.
As he walked around her car to climb in the driver’s seat, he couldn’t believe the change twenty-four hours could make. Who knew something as simple and pointless as trying to do manners could mean so much? All he had to do now was not kiss her again like the idiot he was.
Now to see if she was up for some fun.