More Than Friends (Kingsley #4) (11 page)

“Two hours, thirty-seven minutes,” Ben said, impressed. “How the heck did you manage that?”

Michael shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. A scratch on his forearm was still oozing blood, his hands were filthy, he was covered in sweat, and he was in serious need of a change of clothes. But he was proud. “The trick is to have everything lined up just right. Bring in the oil change to one bay, start it draining. By the time I’ve got the tire change and a rotation done in the other bay, the oil’s done draining. Finish the oil change, drive it out, drive the tune-up in. Finish that and then the other tire rotation. Don’t dick around, don’t get distracted, don’t take breaks. It’s all about not bein’ a sissy like you, man.”

Ben narrowed his eyes, grinning. “Alright, alright. One of these days, you’re gonna have to trust me to take on some of the work around here, and then you and I are gonna have a race. Talkin’ shit like that all the time.”

Renee laughed from her chair in the corner, where she had been reading the book she’d brought with her. “Alright boys, that’s enough. You’re both pretty. Let it go.”

Ben threw his head back and laughed, the curly ends of his hair spilling from the knot on the back of his head. “Seriously though, Boss,” he said, once he’d gotten his laughter contained. “You’ve got three more rotations on the next deadline, and I can do them. You’ve taught me to work the lifts, my degree is finally finished. Let me earn my paycheck, man, and you can skip out to help with your family.”

“Is your ASE certificate here yet?” Michael arched a brow, waiting, and leaned against the counter. When Ben shook his head, Michael shook his too. “Man, I can’t have you out there until it comes in. Not by yourself, for sure. If something happens to you … look, I can’t be the one who explains that to your mom, Ben.”

Ben sighed in defeat, but his annoyance was clear as he reached out to straighten a stack of business cards on the end of the counter. “Mike, I’m not a four-year-old.”

“I know,” Michael answered softly. He waited until Ben met his gaze again, struggling. He wanted nothing more than to accept Ben’s help – he had always planned to eventually hire good men so that he could step back and let the garage run itself. But not yet. He still needed to be needed here. And in truth, he hadn’t trained Ben enough yet, not enough to trust that he wouldn’t make any careless mistakes. “Look, you’re not fully trained yet either, and I need to know you’re alright before I turn you loose out there. I can just barely afford to pay you – I can’t afford to be shut down because something happened and you lost your arm or something.”

“How long you gonna keep me in here?” Ben dropped his hands on the counter, still clean and unscarred.

He wasn’t totally inexperienced, and Michael
had
been teaching him. The boy had his degree in automotive engineering, and he had passed the ASE exams. But he was also the son of a family friend, and Michael looked at him no differently than he did his own little brother. Still, he had to admit Ben wasn’t wrong to be upset. “Alright, let me deal with the stuff with my family and get things settled with my mom. When I come back in tomorrow, I’ll get you out there and put you to work – at least then if something happens, I’m here. Good?”

Ben pressed his lips together, glaring out the window. “Look man, I know you, okay? I’ve known you since diapers – and I know you’re just trying to look out for me. But with the new contract, you’re gonna need help. I thought that’s what you hired me for, to help out there.” He looked toward the garage, sighed, and shook his head. “I didn’t go to school to be a secretary, man.”

“I know. And you’re right. So let me get out of here, and we’ll change things up when I get back. Just give me ‘til then to get over myself, okay?” At Ben’s nod, he turned to Renee and gestured toward the door to the garage. “I have to close up out there, but then I’m ready and I’ll take you home before I head back to grab a shower. Dad texted me earlier to let me know Mom’s being sent home today, so I’m just meeting everybody over there.”

“Sounds good to me – I’ll just come out that way with you,” Renee answered, glancing toward the garage. “If that’s where you’re headed.” Michael nodded and turned to open the door, waving back over his shoulder to Ben. Renee followed him quietly, waiting until they were in the garage together before she spoke again. “It’s sweet of you to look out for Ben like that, Michael,” she said quietly. “He is right though. You know?”

Michael sighed, gesturing for Renee to follow him as he made his way through the garage. “I know he is,” he said, shrugging as he pulled a fabric rag from the laundry basket next to his tool chest. Silently, Renee chose a rag too, and followed his lead as he cleaned his tools and put them away. He knew it was a strange habit for a mechanic to develop – clean and organized tools weren’t exactly common in the automotive field, but he attributed his cleanliness and organized work habits to his speed and efficiency. It might make him strange for a mechanic, but he kept his workplace clean. Finally, Michael sighed. “I guess I just feel like since he works for me, it’s kind of my job to look after him. And he’s right about another thing too – I have known him since he was in diapers. And he’s almost ten years younger than me, so … I mean, it’s the same as if I had Evan working here. I’d still be yelling at him not to walk under the lifts.”

Renee grinned, laughing softly, as she handed him the last of his wrenches, now cleaned. “I know. You did it to me,” she said.

“Can’t help it,” he answered. It was one of the things he had prided himself on, before his divorce. Michael was not the stereotypical man; as the second Kingsley child and the oldest of the boys, Michael was a nurturer. He looked out for the people he loved. But after the divorce? Michael had taken it as a personal blow when his wife had suddenly left him, with no explanation at all. Why had she not shared her unhappiness with him; why had she not trusted him to help her fix whatever had gone wrong? But was it Michael that had been wrong? Had he, in his desire to take care of her, smothered her right out of his life? In the years since, he had pulled back from his family, from most of his friends. He was still a problem-solver, still the person anyone called when they needed something fixed, but he had tried to tone down his need to step in and take care of people.

Or at least, he had thought he had.

Clearly, he hadn’t done it as successfully as he had thought, though. Ben
was
right. Rolling his eyes, he let his head fall back and stood still for a moment, staring silently at the ceiling. He could feel Renee watching him, and was grateful for her silence, grateful for her giving him the time to think in the quiet. Finally decided, he spun on his heel and stalked back toward the lobby, wrenching the door open.

Ben looked up, surprised, his blue eyes wide. “Need somethin’, Boss? I thought –“

“Get them done,” Michael growled, spitting the words out before they could strangle him. “But just the easy jobs, Ben, and don’t give any cars to anyone until I’ve looked them over. Nothing leaves my building without my say-so.” He gave Ben what he hoped was a fierce stare, resolutely ignoring the spark of amusement he saw spring into the young man’s eyes. “And if I come in here and find you bleeding to death crushed under my lift, I’ll damn well kill your ass.”

Ben saluted him smartly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he struggled to hold back a grin. “Gotcha,” he said. It was only as Michael walked away that Ben lost control and started laughing.

The rest of that week went by in a blur – Michael took Renee home, went back to his house for a shower and a change of clothes, packed an overnight bag, and then spent most of the next few days with his family. He checked in with Ben at the shop twice a day over the phone, and was proud to see that he had made the right decision. When he’d gone in at the end of the week to check over the boy’s work, he had found himself standing in the garage at the end of the day, amazed as he realized there was almost nothing left for him to do. It had been surprisingly easy to turn some things over to Ben, and it felt nice to have more free time to spend with his family.

His feelings about Renee were an entirely different, and far less simple story. He hadn’t seen her since he’d dropped her off in front of her house – but he had hardly stopped thinking about her since then, either. She called him daily to check in and ask for updates on his mother, though Michael knew she was also calling Cass, and that she had dropped by the Kingsley house twice to bring Eva small gifts, care packages filled with puzzles and things to be done easily while she healed.

By Saturday morning, he was sitting at his kitchen table in a horrible mood, unable to get Renee off his mind, impressed with her commitment to her friendship with his mother, confused about his feelings, angry about her upcoming date, and terrified that the date would go well. He was jealous too, and he was annoyed with himself for being jealous. Michael and Renee had only ever been friends, and as far as he knew, neither of them had ever felt the spark of possibility between them. He hadn’t been attracted to her in that way – certainly not because she wasn’t attractive, but perhaps because he had been so caught up in mourning his lost marriage that he simply hadn’t seen her in that way. He valued her friendship, he knew that she was beautiful, and he fully recognized what a great person she was. But he saw all of that in Renee, his friend. Now, seeing her as Renee, a woman?

He hadn’t been this messed up since … he couldn’t remember when. He couldn’t stop thinking of the way she’d look smiling across the dinner table at her date. The way she’d look, looking up at him afterward. Would he kiss her?

Stupid Harvey. With his stupid name.

He had opened his texting app more times than he could count during the past few days, wanting to tell her how he felt, wanting to apologize for his bad timing … wanting to ask her to cancel her date. Wanting to ask her to choose him. But he hadn’t. How could he?

So there he sat, at one end of the kitchen table in his quiet, lonely house, staring at his cell phone, which was resting alone at the other end of the table. It pinged suddenly, and the screen lit up with the icon that indicated an incoming text. Arching an eyebrow, Michael stood and leaned over the table, scooping his phone into his hand and sliding his thumb across the screen.

The message was from Renee.
“Date night,”
it said.
“I’m on the way to get my hair done – wish me luck, Michael. And hope he’s not a creep.”

“You’ll be fine,”
he texted back, his hands trembling as his skin pricked with frustration.
“And if he tries anything, call me. I’ll break his neck.”
She sent him back a smiley face, and then his phone was silent. By dinnertime, Michael’s truck was shining under a fresh coat of wax in the driveway, his laundry was in the dryer, he had almost cleaned his entire house, and he was well into the second bottle of rum. He carried it with him as he climbed the stairs to the attic, the bottle tucked into a trash can full of cleaning supplies, his free hand skimming up the wall to guide his steps.

The attic had been Nicolette’s little haven, and he hadn’t been in there since she’d left him. He knew before he opened the door that everything would still be just as it had been when she left – and he knew too, that if he could spend the entire day obsessing over another woman, it was more than time to clear the last remaining traces of his marriage away. Stepping up to the door, he paused, staring at the door as if he weren’t sure he could even open it; after a tense moment of waiting, Michael shrugged, belched loudly, twisted the knob, and stepped in.

It was a large room with a pointed ceiling, bright with light from the windows, dulled by a thick layer of dust. The window seat at the end of the room was bare – she had taken the cushions and pillows that had once made it the perfect place for a romantic afternoon quickie. The bookshelves below the seat were bare, too, save for a few photo frames of Michael and Nicolette together on their wedding day. He scoffed, his chest aching at the sight of the photos, at the realization that she hadn’t wanted to take those precious memories with her.

Scowling, he dropped the trash can, not noticing as the rum bottle rolled onto the floor. The cap hadn’t been screwed tightly on; it flew off and bounced across the room as the reek of alcohol spilled out, soaking darkly into the plush carpet. Bending, he snatched one of the frames from its shelf; he flung his arm out at he turned, releasing the frame, and it exploded against the wall. Glass flew everywhere, but he felt satisfied by the destruction, and he turned to rip the other frame from its place. The sound of glass shattering soothed him somehow, and he turned, seeking something else to destroy. He found a snow globe, one he had had custom made for her not long after their wedding; it had a miniature replica of their wedding cake topper inside it, sparkling with glitter under the layer of dust. He picked it up, scrubbing dust off on the leg of his jeans, and shook it.

When he held it up, glitter rained down over the tiny bride and groom inside, kissing joyfully, and he felt like his throat was tearing open as he threw it. It was heavy – it flew easily to the other end of the room, but its weight brought it down just before it would have gone through the drywall. Instead, it burst with a soft popping clink, just the same as the one he felt in his chest as the glass cracked open and the shimmering liquid inside the snow globe began to spill out.

He panted softly as he watched the water begin to stain the carpet, looking around at the damage he had caused. Sweat broke out on his back, and he reached up to sweep his shirt over his head. Throwing it down over the stain of spilled rum and leaking snow globe water, he stumbled back down the stairs in search of the vacuum.

By the time the glass shards were collected and the worst of the mess was cleaned up, Michael was nearly sober again, and he worked hard to wipe away the film of dust that had gathered in the attic during its years of disuse. It wasn’t until he started boxing up the few things that Nicolette had left that he found it – tucked between a few books she had left on the table in the center of the room.

The envelope was plain, with nothing but his name written on the front of it. It was sealed; the sound of the paper ripping was loud in the quiet of the room. And even after being left to sit for so long, somehow the spicy scent of her favorite perfume still wafted out as Michael pulled the letter from the envelope. Unfolding the letter, Michael swallowed, his eyes closed against the sight of her handwriting spilling over the back of the folded page in his hand. When he opened them again, he could see her signature scrawled sloppily across the bottom, just before his eyes filled and the words blurred into nothingness.

He blinked furiously and shook his head to clear his eyes, unfolded the letter, and began to read.